Category Archives: Newton D. Baker

Remembering the Camp Logan riot

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in John J. Pershing (General), Newton D. Baker, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Woodrow Wilson

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24th U.S. Infantry Regiment, Philippine Islands 1902

On the afternoon of Thursday 23 August 1917 Private Alonzo Edwards, Company L, Third Battalion, Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment, was arrested for interceding with two white police officers in the arrest of Houston resident Sara Travers. That incident triggered a series of events culminating in a night of spectacular violence that would leave almost twenty people dead and many more wounded, some of them mortally. It led to three trials over the next seven months that gripped Americans and challenged assumptions about race and Jim Crow segregation. It required the attention of local law enforcement officials, military authorities, the Secretary of War, and ultimately President Woodrow Wilson himself. Finally, it led to the hanging deaths of nineteen African-American soldiers and life sentences for scores of others. I wrote this piece in different form for a class almost fifteen years ago and wanted to share it on the anniversary of one of worst days in American history.

The Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment

The Twenty-Fourth’s baseball team in an undated photograph

The Twenty-Fourth Infantry Regiment had a long history of service. In the decades after the Civil War these Buffalo Soldiers protected communication and supply lines during the Indian Campaigns, and in 1898 went up San Juan Heights with Theodore Roosevelt. They fought in the Philippine Insurrection and in 1916 were stationed in New Mexico under the leadership of Brigadier General John J. Pershing, protecting supply lines between Columbus, New Mexico and Ojo Federico, Mexico. The Third Battalion of the Twenty-Fourth arrived in Houston on 28 July 1917. Things got off to a bad start. The Twenty-Fourth had less than half the officers assigned to a full regiment, and two of its companies were commanded by first lieutenants, not captains. The quality of this leadership was poor, as many white officers did not want a commission leading negro troops. Conditions were spartan and the soldiers were camped on the outskirts of town between the city limits and a more established base for whites called Camp Logan, where the men pulled guard duty. Cramped conditions in a hot and humid Southern city, far away from the action in Europe was bad enough. Dealing with the Jim Crow restrictions was worse. Relations between the soldiers and the local civilians were tense. The presence of the Twenty-Fourth, however, raised expectations in the local African-American community.

The Riot

In action prior to the transfer to Houston

Tensions simmered for weeks in the summer heat and when the riot came it happened quickly. In the early afternoon of 23 August Private Edwards asked two police officers why they were arresting Ms. Travers and for this was himself detained. A few hours later Corporal Charles Baltimore of the Twenty-Fourth’s Third Battalion went to police headquarters in his capacity as a military policeman to check on Private Edwards’ status. A scuffle ensued in which Baltimore was shot at, apprehended, beaten, and taken into custody. A rumor spread quickly to the base that Baltimore had been killed. By nightfall a contingent of 125-150 soldiers of the Twenty-Fourth had amassed and began marching from their camp into Houston. In the succeeding hours, the armed soldiers killed four policemen and eleven residents, wounded an additional dozen, and caused intense panic in the city. Four men from the Twenty-Fourth Regiment lost their lives.

The Aftermath

Generals Pershing and Bliss inspect the 24th camp during the Punitive Expedition, 1916

News spread rapidly throughout the country of the Houston incident. The New York Times had a small article, way below the fold, on page one of the 24 August edition sketching out the still-hazy details. A day later the newspaper had a significantly larger article, this time above the fold. Over the seven months there were no less than three trials relating to the Houston riot. The first court-martial was in November 1917 and led to the hanging of thirteen soldiers and life sentences for forty-one others. The next two trials concluded in December 1917 and March 1918. The punishment called for a total of sixteen death sentences and prison sentences of varying lengths for thirty-six other individuals. This time the government’s position was more cautious. Secretary of War Newton Baker wrote to President Wilson counseling that the number of death sentences in the two cases be reduced to six, with the remaining commuted to life sentences. Wilson acted on Baker’s recommendations.

(images/Baseball & Old Mexico, NYPL; Philippine Islands & Pershing/Bliss, LOC)

 

The 27th readies

08 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by in 27th (New York) Division, John Francis O'Ryan (General), John J. Pershing (General), Newton D. Baker, Woodrow Wilson

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I wrote yesterday that the staff of Base Hospital No. 9 sailed for France one hundred years ago. There was a great deal of activity throughout New York City in the first days of August 1917. On August 5 all of the units of the New York State Militia were finally federalized, becoming the 27th Division. What made the 27th distinct during the Great War was that it was the only fully-formed division to have existed in whole prior to the war. The 28th Pennsylvania existed prior to the war too, but did not have all of its constituent units at that time. July and August were difficult months for the men of the New York Division. An engineering regiment of some 2000 men had traveled to Spartanburg, South Carolina to begin construction of Camp Wadsworth in late July. A lack of running water hndered their task. Back home, the division was already planning a going away parade for Thursday August 9, with the mayor, governor, and others to be in attendance. On August 6 the War Department called off the parade.

O’Ryan had a great deal on his mind in early August 1917 as he planned the logistics of sending his division to South Carolina. He also waited Senate confirmation of his Federal commission in the National Army that would allow him to remain in command.

The division’s departure was being postponed for three weeks, perhaps even into early September, due to shortages of guns, blankets, uniforms, and other accoutrements necessary to provision 27,000 men. Also, there was still a shortage of men to fill the ranks. Mayor John Purroy Mitchel and his Committee on National Defense were holding rallies across the boroughs to raise men for the Army and other service branches. Part of the problem was that many men from New York State had rushed out and joined the Regular Army, not the state militia that would eventually be federalized and made part of the National Army. It gives a sense of the challenges that Newton Baker and the War Department had to contend with.

Even the 27th Division’s senior leadership was tenuous. Major General John F. O’Ryan had commanded the unit since 1912, but that was when it was still the 6th Division and part of the state militia. Once Wilson federalized the militias, the generals of these state units had to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Wilson planned to send the names of these 120 or so senior officers to Capitol Hill sometime in mid-August. Most people assumed O’Ryan would remain in command, but until the Senate voted that was not a certainty.

(image/The Pictorial Record of the 27th Division)

Roosevelt in May

14 Sunday May 2017

Posted by in Augustus Peabody Gardner, Henry Cabot Lodge, Newton D. Baker, Theodore Roosevelt Jr (President), Woodrow Wilson

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Senator Warren G. Harding (R-OH) was an advocate for Colonel Roosevelt during the Army Bill debates in April-May 1917.

By the second week of May 1917 Woodrow Wilson and both houses of Congress were furiously negotiating and ironing out the details on an Army Selective Service Bill that would institute a draft. It may surprise some to realize that almost a month and a half after the U.S. declaration of war Theodore Roosevelt’s plans for creating his own force were part of that process. In early May the Senate approved a Draft Bill, with an amendment that would have allowed the Rough Rider to create a volunteer force of up to four divisions. Roosevelt had powerful champions and detractors. Old friend and mentor Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was a reliable ally. Senator Warren G. Harding of  Ohio also backed Roosevelt’s wish to fight overseas. Lodge’s son-in-law, Congressman Augustus Peabody Gardner of Massachusetts, too was on board. Field Marshal Joseph Joffre, who was in the United States on a diplomatic and goodwill tour, also supported Roosevelt and his plan. Back in France, Clemenceau too wanted Roosevelt to join the fight. This is not surprising; the French were desperate and wanted as many boots on the ground as America could provide.

The situation reached a new phase when the House scheduled for May 12 a vote on the Army Bill. Roosevelt telegraphed Harding and Gardner on the 10th that he had not intended his division plan to impede the greater need for conscription. He could not help adding a dig, however, that had his wishes been granted a month ago things would not have come down to this. The situation was so tense because sentiment was so divided. Opponents of Roosevelt’s plan were equally powerful and included Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, most of the senior military leadership, and President Wilson himself. On May 12 the House of Representatives voted 215-178 to approve Roosevelt’s four division plan, sending the Army Bill back to conference where the House and Senate would further debate Roosevelt and the other complicated issues involved in raising the American forces needed to fight in the Great War.

(image/Library of Congress)