Transcriber’s Note

The cover image was restored by Thiers Halliwell and is placed in the public domain.

See [end of this document] for details of corrections and other changes.

I. and II. Col. Franklin A. Denison and Lt. Col. Otis B. Duncan, the highest ranking colored officers in France. III. Col. Charles Young, the highest ranking colored officer in the United States Army. IV. Major Rufus M. Stokes. V. Major Joseph H. Ward.

Two Colored Women
With the American
Expeditionary Forces

By
ADDIE W. HUNTON
and
KATHRYN M. JOHNSON

Illustrated

BROOKLYN EAGLE PRESS

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

Copyright, 1920, by Kathryn M. Johnson
and
Addie W. Hunton

All Rights Reserved

Dedicated to the women of our race, who gave so trustingly and courageously the strength of their young manhood to suffer and to die for the cause of freedom.

With recognition and thanks to the authors quoted in this volume and to the men of the A. E. F. who have contributed so willingly and largely to the story herein related.

Contents

†Foreword [5]
†The Call and the Answer [9]
†First Days in France [15]
*The Y. M. C. A. and Other Welfare Organizations  [22]
*The Combatant Troops [41]
†Non-Combatant Troops [96]
†Pioneer Infantries [112]
†Over the Canteen in France [135]
†The Leave Area [159]
*Relationships with the French [182]
*Education [199]
†The Salvation of Music Overseas [217]
*Religious Life Among the Troops [227]
†Reburying the Dead [233]
†Stray Days [241]
*Afterthought [253]
————
 † By Addie W. Hunton.
 * By Kathryn M. Johnson.

Foreword

REMARKABLE achievements are worthy of remarkable acclaim. This justifies our desire to add still another expression to those already written relative to the career of the colored American soldiers in the late World War. The heroic devotion and sacrifice of that career have won appreciative expressions from those who, from a personal point of view, know but little of the details. How much more then should they who walked side by side with those brave men in France realize the merit of their service and chant their praises. Surely they should be best able to interpret sincerely and sympathetically, lovingly and gratefully for our soldiers, as they may not for themselves, something of the vicissitudes through which they passed as members of the American Expeditionary Forces.

We feel, too, that almost fifteen months of continuous service that carried us practically over all parts of France, and afforded a heart to heart touch with thousands of men, is a guarantee of the knowledge and devotion that has inspired this volume.

Memories will ever crowd the mind and cause the eye to kindle with the light of loving sympathy as we recall our months of service at the base of supplies on the coast of France. For there we were privileged to learn something of the life and spirit of the stevedores, labor battalions and engineers whom we served—more than 25,000 of them—who, through all the desolate days of war, never ceased in their efforts to connect America with Chateau Thierry, Verdun, Sedan, St. Mihiel and other great battle centers of France. There we beheld combat troops, filled with the spirit of adventure arriving fresh from America to follow the trail to the already war-worn front. And there came also those regiments that we called Pioneer Infantries, the imprints of whose deeds of duty and daring are stamped all over France.

We followed our depot companies and engineers through those isolated stretches and wastes where they performed tasks so essential in the plans for victory.

After many months we went away from the confusion of war to beautiful southern France. There we worked to make happy the days of the men who came for rest and recreation to that wonderful Alpine region of Savoie. There in the Leave Area, by the side of shimmering Lake Bourget, we learned something more of the life of our soldiers as they fought or worked on French soil. Every week, for five months or more, a thousand or so men poured into Chambery and Challes-les-Eaux, and we saw in them the gladness or depression of their service.

Far to the North we took our way, over devastated areas, and dwelt midst the loneliness of poppy-covered fields in “No Man’s Land.” In those Cities of the Dead, we beheld our soldiers summoned to the supreme test of their loyalty and patience in the re-burying of the fallen American heroes.

Back again to the coast we went to join in the great “Battle of Brest”—the battle for the morale of the tired, anxious soldier waiting for transportation back to home and native friendships. For six weeks, from early morning to midnight, our huts at Pontanezen echoed to the tread of thousands of feet. During that period it is estimated that fifty thousand colored soldiers passed through the camp. Battle scenes and war adventures were ended, but the memory was yet deeply poignant, and often silences revealed the depths of experiences beyond the power of all words. Because of all this, we strive to humbly recount the heart throbs of our heroes.

Again the authors have written because to them it was given to represent in France the womanhood of our race in America—those fine mothers, wives, sisters and friends who so courageously gave the very flower of their young manhood to face the ravages of war. That we then should make an effort to interpret with womanly comprehension the loyalty and bravery of their men seems not only a slight recompense for all they have given, but an imperative duty.

We believe that undervaluation is a more subtle and unkind foe than overvaluation, so that we have not refrained in our story from a large measure of praise for a large measure of loyal and patriotic service, performed ofttimes under the most trying conditions.

We have had no desire to attain to an authentic history, but have rather aimed to record our impressions and facts in a simple way. But wherever historical facts have been used, it has been largely to justify the measure of praise accorded and to offset the criticisms of prejudiced minds.

This volume is written at a time when, after the shock of terrific warfare, the world has not yet found its balance—when, in the midst of confusion, justice and truth call loudly for the democracy for which we have paid.

If for all time the world is to be free from the murderous scourge called war, it must make universal and eternal the practical application of the time-worn theory of the brotherhood of man. May this volume written in all love and truth, though perhaps imperfectly, serve to lift some souls nearer to this ideal.

THE POTENT HOUR

The hour is big with sooth and sign, with errant men at war.

While blood of alien, friend and foe, imbues the land afar,

And we with sable faces pent, move with the vanguard line,

Shod with a faith that springtime keeps and all the stars opine.

Georgia Douglas Johnson.