1917

August 23, 1917
Gunfire – Mutilated, Camp Logan

DOB – 11/26/1893, Age 23
Badge –
Final Resting Place – Pilgrims Rest, Bellville, TX

Five HPD Officers were killed in The Camp Logan Riot

CAMP LOGAN

During the month of August, 1917, the temperature, in the City of Houston, hovered around 100 degrees. One newspaper reported the city as experiencing "a period of hot weather during August that has seldom been seen in Houston for such an extended length of time." However, it proved to be that August 23, 1917 was "the hottest day of the year," in more ways than one. This was the day of the well-known and controversial, Camp Logan Riot.

August of 1917, America found itself in the Great War, and young men were answering the call in support of their country. The citizen soldiers were getting ready for war and so were the regulars. This included the 24th infantry, an all-black unit with a few white officers. The unit had fought Indians, the Spanish on San Juan Hill, Filipino rebels and had just finished chasing Pancho Villa through northern Mexico. They were good soldiers, well trained, well-disciplined and in the last decades of the 19th century, the 24th had the lowest desertion rate in the entire army.

The War Department insisted on moving the 24th Infantry to Houston, where the U.S.
Army was building a military base, to be called, Camp Logan, where Memorial Park is today. Their job was simple enough, to guard the building site. However, the 24th Infantry was not thrilled with the idea of coming to Texas. There had been several incidents in previous years between black troops and white citizens.

The citizens of Houston weren't thrilled either with the idea of a group of black infantry soldiers invading their city. Houston was, and had always been, strictly segregated. Houston's population was approximately 138,000. Its black population was about 30,000 - the largest in Texas.

During this time, to make matters worse, The Houston Police Department was not at all stable. The department had 159 men, two were black, and relations between the police and the black Houstonians were bad. The well-liked Police Chief, Ben Davidson, was fired by the mayor and replaced with Clarence Brock, who had previously been head of the Parks Department. Many of the officers didn't like Brock, and didn't regard him as their Chief. Just shortly after the mayor had made this change, he dropped dead and city hall was being temporarily run by Mayor Tem Dan Moody.

On Saturday, July 28, 1917, the Third Battalion, this including the 24th Infantry, arrived in Houston by train shortly before 6:00 a.m. There were 656 black enlisted men and eight white officers. The black soldiers were happy to get out of the desert and dust of New Mexico, but there was a feeling of apprehension as they disembarked from the train in Houston, Texas.

The black troops had been stationed out west and overseas for years, and the men were not used to the Jim Crow laws they faced every time they left their base. What seemed the most unreasonable was the segregated seating in the street cars and the Houston Police. Racial contacts were kept to a minimum in the city, nevertheless a few black soldiers and one or two white officers received verbal abuse from white Houstonians.

One white Houstonian was quoted by the battalion's medical officer as having said, "That in Texas it cost 25 dollars to kill a buzzard and 5 dollars to kill a nigger."
The black soldiers not only had to toke abuse from the white Houstonians as they passed on the streets but also from the all-white Fifth Infantry of the Texas National Guard. They were temporarily stationed in several of the downtown buildings and whenever they met a black soldier in the city, an obscenity or derogatory remark was made.

Of all the prejudiced groups which the black soldiers encountered in Houston, the Houston Police seemed to be the worst, something the black citizens of Houston had felt for years. Most of the problems which developed was brought about because there was never any true communication between the military and the city police.

The principal cause of racial bitterness between soldiers and police stemmed not from one certain incident but from a series of physical arrests of blacks by law officers. On August 18, two policemen arrested a black youth for throwing bricks promiscuously. Two soldiers passing by on a streetcar protested to the treatment the youth was receiving from the officers. The patrolmen stopped the streetcar and attempted to apprehend the soldiers. When the soldiers ignored the patrolmen, the two city officers struck them with their pistols and took them to the police station.

Later the same day, two other soldiers complained to the desk sergeant that two policemen had severely beaten them for objecting to being called "niggers." The next day a deputy sheriff of Harris County arrested another soldier for sitting in the "white only" section of the streetcar.

By late August, the list of grievances mounted and on Thursday, August 23, 1917 when the temperature soared to a record high of 102 degrees, a series of events occurred which sparked the group of black soldiers into armed revolt. During the morning, Rufus Daniels and Lee Sparks, two mounted Houston Police officers assaulted Private Alonzo Edwards, of Company L, for interfering in the arrest of a black female. That same afternoon Corporal Charles Baltimore, a black military police officer, approached Sparks and Daniels and began arguing about the arrest of Pvt. Edwards.
Sparks, regarded as one of the more boisterous racists on the police force, was annoyed at the idea of a Negro questioning him about one of his arrests. Sparks struck Baltimore with his pistol and fired at him three times, as Baltimore ran away. Baltimore was finally found hiding under a bed in a nearby house, he was hit again several time, arrested and taken to jail.

Immediately news of the beatings of Private Edwards and Corporal Baltimore reached the 24th Infantry's camp. Soon the rumors was that Baltimore had been killed by the police. Infuriated by what the soldiers regarded as needless, the soldiers vowed to avenge Baltimore's death by getting the policeman who had killed him.

Cpl. Baltimore was brought into camp to show that he was alive, battered and beaten, but alive. The officers of the infantry felt that by showing Baltimore to the troops the rumors would die down. Just to make sure the unit's commanding officer, Major Snow, ordered all his troops to stay at the camp that night. He increased the guard and sent military police into town to patrol the black neighborhood that evening. Several black soldiers were still determined to get revenge on Sparks for his assaults on Baltimore and Edwards. A few of the more dissatisfied men threatened to "burn down the town", and one promised to "shoot every white face he saw."

On August 23, 1917, at approximately 9:00 p.m., the feeling of vengeance and hate toward the Houston Police and the white citizens of Houston had mounted to the highest peak among the angry soldiers of the 24th Infantry. Suddenly a cry from one of the soldiers sounded throughout the camp, "Get your guns men! The white mob is coming!" Soldiers began to shoot wildly as they grabbed their guns. The soldiers never stopped to see whether a white mob was coming or not, some believe that this was a signal for the soldiers to come together for their flight into town. For about thirty minutes, the camp was a mass of confusion, until Sergeant Via Henry, considered one of the most loyal non-commissioned officers of the 24th, began organizing the soldiers for their march into town. The outfit of soldiers that left the camp was approximately one hundred (100) strong.

The mob of soldiers came down Center Street, marched down Roy Street and crossed Washington to Lillian, where the first two killings of the riot took place. The soldiers killed two citizens as they came out on their porch to find what all the noise was about.
When the soldiers reached Durham, they split into two groups. One group continued over to North Shepherd, here they spotted four Houston police officers and immediately started firing upon them. Ross Patton the first officer to be shot in the riot, was hit in the hip and leg and was expected to recover, but died from the wounds sixteen days later.

The two groups joined up once again and headed down Brunner Avenue, the soldiers were in a state of fury, destroying and shooting anything and anyone in sight. In the meantime, the citizens of Houston had begun to organize themselves and started toward the rioters. The march of the soldiers headed down San Felipe toward town, here they encountered some mounted police. The mass blaze of firing erupted upon the officers. Officer RUFUS DANIELS was shot down, his body was bayoneted and his face was smashed. Officer IRA D. RANEY was shot, bayoneted and beaten in head with soldier's rifle butts. Officer HORACE MOODY, also a mounted officer, had his left leg mangled by a bayonet during the fighting and had to have it amputated, he died during the operation.

After the killing of these three officers, the soldiers continued farther down San Felipe and stopped a car driver by a young white teenage boy. The car contained several people, including two Houston police officers. As the people began to emerge from the car, the soldiers opened fire, killing all, including Officer E. G. MEINKE.

The march of soldiers, and the desire to kill and destroy was coming slowly to an end. Some of the soldiers began to desert and others wanted to desperately. Sgt. Henry continued to plead with some of them to go on with him and attack the police jail. The men had finally tired of their fight and began to return to camp.

Sgt. Henry was found the next day with the back of head blown off, lying across the railroad tracks in the city's Fourth Ward. There is still speculations on whether he was shot by someone else or had committed suicide. Whatever the cause, justice was done.

The riot was the largest mutiny in the history of the U. S. Army. The final total of dead was sixteen (16) whites, this including police officers, civilians and National Guardsmen from Texas and Illinois. Many others were wounded. No black civilians were killed, but four (4) troopers of the 24th Infantry died. Two (2) were accidently shot by other soldiers, a third soldier shot in the leg by a white citizen, later died in the hospital and then the death of Sgt. Henry.

On August 25, the entire Third Battalion of the 24th Infantry was sent back to its home base of Columbus, New Mexico, under armed guard. The Army had a difficult task of determining the guilt due to the fact that most of the soldiers looked alike to the eyewitnesses of Houston and the soldiers were committed to each other and kept silent. However, after an intense investigation, the Army was ready for trial. The defense had begun to weaken and bits of information about particular soldiers broke through. The rioters were brought to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio and tried in the largest court-martial in U. S. history.

All total, one hundred eighteen (118) were tried on the major offenses of mutiny and murder. Seven (7) of these men were acquitted and one-hundred ten (110) were found guilty of at least one of the charges One was declared insane. Fifty three (53) got life sentences, twenty eight (28) others got from two (2) to fifteen (15) years. Twenty nine (29) were sentenced to death and nineteen (19) were hanged.

Source: this account was compiled from Newspaper accounts of the time and from A Night of Violence, The Houston Riot of 1917 by Robert V. Hayes, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge 1976.
ISBN 0-8071-0172 -9