For a number of years preceding our entrance into the war, no colored students had been admitted to West Point, and no colored man had ever entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis. One colored school, however—Wilberforce University—had maintained for a number of years a department of military tactics supported by the government. Here Colonel Young, and other regular army officers had been kept from time to time as instructors. During the war 65 men, graduates and undergraduates of the school, received commissions as officers.
The small number who had received limited training here, however, was quite inadequate to be of much service among any considerable number of troops; and the problem of how to train colored officers became quite a vexation; the camps that gave six weeks’ training to white men did not wish to admit them, and there were many who argued that colored men should not be allowed to become soldiers, and that therefore there would be no need for colored officers. Southern congressmen were particularly alarmed over any prospects of colored men learning to use guns.
After some weeks of agitation, however, the war department decided to establish a training camp at Des Moines, Iowa, where about 1,100 men entered for the three months’ course. Over six hundred received commissions as 2nd Lieutenants, 1st Lieutenants, or Captains. There seemed to be a rule that no colored man in training should receive a commission higher than that of captain. Most of these men were college graduates, and on the whole were of a very high type.
They were assigned to the 92nd Division, and to any other units where colored officers were allowed to serve, and were needed; but the record of the 92nd Division shows more than that of any other organization the ability of the officers of the Des Moines Training School.
The 92nd Division was composed of the 365th and 366th Infantries, and the 350th Machine Gun Battalion, which made up the 183rd Infantry Brigade, commanded by General Barnum; and the 367th and 368th Infantries, together with the 351st Machine Gun Battalion, which made up the 184th Infantry Brigade, commanded by General Hay. These two Brigades, commanded by colored officers as high as the rank of captain, together with the 167th Artillery Brigade, commanded with few exceptions, by white officers, made up the 92nd Division, which was under the command of Major General Ballou.
Major General Ballou had had charge of the Training School at Des Moines, at which time his rank was that of colonel. Through the influence of friends, some colored men included, he was promoted, and given charge of this large body of colored troops; but before he left for France, even, he caused an order to be issued, known as Bulletin No. 35, which must have operated in no small degree to destroy his influence with his men, and cause a humiliation of spirit among them which would take away whatever desire they might have had to lay down their lives that Democracy might live. The following is the text of the Bulletin:
HEADQUARTERS 92nd DIVISION,
Camp Funston, Kan.
March 28, 1918.
Bulletin No. 35.