The Graves Of 13 African American Soldiers

Reprint from August 2017

Buried beside the Salado Creek in San Antonio, Texas, lies the graves of 13 African American soldiers. There are no names on the grave markers, only a number, which indicates the order in which they were hung. On August 23, 1917, 150 soldiers of the  all black 24th Infantry Regiment march into Houston ,Texas. Two hours later 17 whites including 5 police officers had been killed and 21 injured. It is the only race riot in which more whites were killed than blacks and is recognized as having one of the largest number of defendants being prosecuted for murder in history. In all 118 enlisted black soldiers were indicted, 110 were found guilty, 41 received life sentences and 19 were hung. In history it is known as “The Houston Riots Of 1917.” So what precipitated this event? On August 23, 1917, Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniels, two Houston police officers, broke up a craps game on a street corner in the black neighborhood of San Felipe, firing warning shot above the players. Officer Lee Sparks, who was searching for those fleeing from the officers warning shot, went into the house of Sara Travers, a local resident. Although no one was found inside Travers home, the two got into an argument, after which Sparks struck Travers and dragged her out in her nightgown as her five children watched. Calling in the arrest, Sparks and Daniels were approached by Private Alonzo Edwards,  who offered to take custody of Travers. Edwards was then pistol whipped  and arrested. Hearing about Edwards arrest, Corporal Charles Baltimore found Sparks and Daniels and wanted to know about the status of Edwards, the soldier they had arrested earlier. Sparks  then struck Baltimore with his pistol and fired three shots at him as he ran from the racist police. Sparks and Daniels chased Baltimore, eventually finding him, he too was beaten and placed under arrest. Meanwhile back at Camp Logan a rumor that Baltimore had been shot and killed was circulating. The soldiers began meeting in small groups to discuss plans to march on Houston and attack the police. Somehow an officer was able to get the injured Baltimore out of jail and for the time being  averted the action contemplated by the soldiers. Later that afternoon there were grumblings that what had happened in town needed to be addressed. The commander, Major K.S. Snow revoked all passes for the evening and ordered additional guards. He subsequently found that men were stealing ammunition from supply. He ordered the men to assemble without arms and warned them that it was “utterly foolish, foolhardy, for them to think of taking the law into their own hands. One of the assembled soldiers had a weapon and fired it yelling,”a mob was approaching the camp.” That’s when all hell broke loose, as the soldiers mobbed supply, grabbing guns and ammunition. On the two and a half mile march to Houston, the soldiers fired indiscriminately into houses and at passing vehicles, reportedly leaving vehicles which black occupants unharmed. They did not run into any police officers until the got into Houston in the black neighborhood of San Felipe.  In San Felipe the police officers had only been sent out in small numbers, so the first police casualties occurred when a group of six officers stumbled upon the entire column of soldiers. Two policemen, including Rufus Daniels were killed immediately, and one died later. The soldiers also shot two unarmed policemen and unknowingly opened fire on a Captain Joseph W. Mattes of the Illinois National Guard. Killing a military officer was a very serious offense. The soldiers began to desert the group, and Sergeant Henry led the remainder back to camp. Henry shook hands with the remaining soldiers and informed them that he planned to kill himself. Henry’s body was found the next day. At the trial the 110 soldiers were represented by one attorney and after the verdict were not given the chance to appeal. Historians and the ancestors of the men continue to grapple with why the men were put into such a hostile situation. The men had been sent into one of the most racist environments imaginable, complete with segregation and adherence to the vicious Jim Crow laws of that era to guard the construction of Camp Logan. The conversation of the soldiers plight only came to light after workers found the vandalized sign last week. Someone had smeared dark red paint on the segment of the inscription that explained the history of the 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry,  a unit of the famed Buffalo Soldiers, which had been assigned in 1917 to guard the camp during its construction shortly after the United States entered World War I.  At the time a furious Gen. Brig. Gen Samuel T. Ansell ,”The men were executed immediately upon the termination of the trial and before their records would be forwarded to Washington or examined by anybody, and without, so far as I can see, anyone of them having time or opportunity to seek clemency from the source of clemency, if he had been so advised.” The hangings of the black soldiers without a chance for appeal provoked outrage and the NAACP petitioned  President Woodrow Wilson for clemency. In the end the Wilson granted clemency to 10 of the soldiers and the War Department issued a ruling that “all death sentences be suspended until the President of the United States could review all records.” Last Wednesday the descendants of the black soldiers who were hanged in 1917 returned to Houston for a tombstone dedication ceremony, with one saying, “It was a recognition long overdue. They spent 100 years without a tombstone.”