“The official reviewing party, after the parade had passed 60th street, had hurried uptown, and so had the Police Band, and so there were some doings as the old 15th breezed past 135th Street.  But no one up there cared for Governors or ex-Governors or dignitaries.  Every eye was on the Black Buddies and every throat was opened wide for them.

“At 145th Street the halt was called.  Again there was a tremendous rush of men and women with outstretched arms; the military discipline had to prevail, and the soldiers were not allowed to break ranks, nor were the civilians (save the quickest of them) able to give the hugs and kisses they were overflowing with.

“As rapidly as possible the fighters were sent down into the subway station and loaded aboard trains which took them down to the 71st Regiment Armory at 34th Street and Fourth Avenue.  Here the galleries were filled with as many dusky citizens as could find places (maybe 2,500 or 3,000) and so great was the crowd in the neighborhood that the police had to block off 34th Street almost to Fifth Avenue on the west and Third on the east.

“As each company came up from the subway the friends and relatives were allowed to go through the lines, and, while the boys stood still in ranks, but at ease, their kinsfolk were allowed to take them in their arms and tell them really and truly, in close-up fashion, what they thought about having them back.

“When the entire regiment was in the Armory, the civilians in the gallery broke all bounds.  They weren’t going to stay up there while their heroes were down below on the drill-floor!  Not they!  They swarmed past the police and depot battalion and so jammed the floor that it was impossible for the tired Black Buddy even to sit down.  Most of the boys had to take their chicken dinner—­served by colored girls, and the chow, incidentally, from Delmonico’s—­standing up with arms about them and kisses punctuating assaults upon the plates.

     “‘Some chow, hey Buddy?’ would be heard.

“‘Pretty bon.’  You’d get the answer.  ’I’d like to have beaucoup more of this chicken.’  There was noticeable a sprinkling of French words in the conversation of the Old 15th, and, indeed, some of them spoke it fluently.

     “‘Sam told me,’ one girl was heard to say, ’that he killed nineteen
     of them Germans all his own self, but nobody saw him and so he
     didn’t get that Cross doo Gare.’”

Mustering out commenced at Camp Upton the following day.  Thus ended the service of the 369th.  Their deeds are emblazoned on the roll of honor.  Sons and grandsons of slaves, welcomed by the plaudits of the second largest city in the world.  What a record of progress in a trifle over half a century of freedom.  What an augury of promise for the future of the colored race, and what an augury for the world freedom which they helped to create, and,