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.

In the past when the subject of the Negro’s fighting ability was under discussion, there were always found those whose grudging assent to his merits as a soldier was modified by the assertion that he had to be properly commanded; in other words must have white officers.  Never having been given a conspicuous opportunity to demonstrate his capacity for leadership in battle, until the formation of the 8th Illinois infantry in the Spanish-American war, the Negro was forced to rest under the imputation that as a follower he did fairly well, but as a leader he was a failure.

Let anyone who still holds that view study the record of the 8th Illinois, or the 370th, as it was rechristened when entering the service of the general government in the recent war.  Seventy-one War Crosses with special citations for valor and merit, and twenty-one Distinguished Service Crosses were awarded officers and men of the regiment.  Many men in the 370th were veterans of the Spanish-American war as well as the campaign of 1916 on the Mexican border, which, while not an actual war, was for some months a locality of service and hard service at that; the regiment passing through it with great credit.