Letters from the Barracks, No. 7: The Convictions
Houston, August 23, 1917.
The 3rd Battalion, 24th Infantry had come to guard Camp Logan. Black men, the Buffalo Soldiers' heirs. Jim Crow Houston met them with fists, police first.
That afternoon two officers fired shots at a corner. Lee Sparks chased them into Sara Travers's home and dragged her barefoot into the street. When Corporal Charles Baltimore asked after a jailed soldier, Sparks beat him and fired three shots.
Word reached camp: Baltimore was dead. About 150 armed men marched into the city behind Sergeant Vida Henry. Seventeen lay dead. Henry said he would kill himself, and did.
Of 118 men tried, 110 were convicted. On December 11, 1917, at 7:17, one minute before sunrise, thirteen were hanged at once, buried with no headstones, each name in a soda bottle.
Sparks was acquitted that October, in under a minute.
In November 2023, the Army set aside all 110 convictions. “These Soldiers were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials,” said Army Secretary Christine Wormuth. Their discharges came back.
I wore the uniform too. Called brother, treated as a problem. It took a century to say their names were not crimes. I keep the file.
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