Not only did Lieutenant George Miller, battalion adjutant, confirm the story, but he added:
"When that boy came back with the coffee his clothes were riddled with bullets. Yet half an hour later he went out into no man's land and brought back a number of wounded until he was badly gassed. Even then he refused to go to the rear and went out again for a wounded soldier. All this under fire. That's the reason he got the D.S.C."
Corporal Elmer Earl, also of Company K, living in Middletown, N.Y., won the D.S.C. He explained:
"We had taken a hill Sept. 26 in the Argonne. We came to the edge of a swamp when the enemy machine guns opened fire. It was so bad that of the 58 of us who went into a particular strip, only 8 came out without being killed or wounded. I made a number of trips out there and brought back about a dozen wounded men."
The proudest recollection which Negro officers and privates will carry through life is that of the whole-hearted recognition given them in the matter of decorations by the French army authorities. Four colored regiments of the 93rd division attained the highest record in these awards. These regiments being brigaded with the French, their conduct in action was thus under their observation. Not only was each of these regiments cited as a unit for the Croix de Guerre, but 365 individual soldiers received the coveted decoration. A large number of Distinguished Service Crosses were also distributed to the 93rd division by General Pershing. The verdict pronounced by critical French commanders may be considered as an unquestionable confirmation that the Negro troops were under all conditions brave fighters. This fact and the improved status of the Negro as a result of it was pointed to by the New York Tribune, in a leading editorial in its issue of February 14, 1919. It said:
"The bas-relief of the Shaw Memorial became a living thing as the dusky heroes of the 15th cheered the Liberty statue and happily swarmed down the gangplank. Appropriately the arrival was on the birthday of the "revered Lincoln," and never was the young and martyred idealist of Massachusetts filled with greater pride than swelled in Colonel Hayward as he talked of his men the best regiment, he said, with pardonable emphasis, 'of all engaged in the great war.'
"These were men of the Champagne and the Argonne whose step was always forward; who held a trench ninety days without relief, with every night a raid night; who won 171 medals for conspicuous bravery; who saw the war expire under their pressure in a discouraged German cannonade. First class fighting men! Hats off to them! The tribunal of grace does not regard skin color when assessing souls.
"The boys cheered the Bartholdi statue. It makes some whites uncomfortable. It converts into strange reading glib eulogies of democratic principles.
"A large faith possesses the Negro. He has such confidence in justice,—the flow—of which he believes will yet soften hard hearts. We have a wonderful example of a patience that defies discouragement; the "Souls of Black Folk"! When values are truly measured, some things will be different in this country."
CHAPTER XVI.
THROUGH HELL AND SUFFERING.
Negro Officers Make Good—Wonderful Record of the 8th Illinois—"Black Devils" Win Decorations Galore—Tribute of French Commander—His Farewell to Prairie Fighters—They Fought After War Was Over—Hard to Stop Them—Individual Deeds of Heroism—Their Dead, Their Wounded and Suffering—A Poem.