Saturday, Aug. 4, 1917
Today’s Saratogian publishes a letter from two local soldiers in a segregated black regiment who hunted down a group of deserters earlier this week.
Harold King and Rousseau Simmons belong to Company C of the 15th U.S. Infantry regiment. The company was recruited in Saratoga County by Captain Ranulf Compton, who commanded the white soldiers of Company L in the Second New York Infantry regiment during their border-patrol duty in Texas last year. The U.S. Army does not have racially integrated combat units, but black units like Company C usually have white commanders.
Company C is currently stationed at Camp Whitman, a training facility named after Governor Charles S. Whitman. The camp suffered from the same heat wave that afflicted Saratoga Springs this week.
“Just now we are experiencing some very hot weather,” King and Simmons write, “We get up at 4:30 a.m. and are on the go all day until 5:30 o’clock. Lots of the fellows have been unable to stand the heat, about 150 falling out at dress parade Tuesday [July 31], but so far none of the Saratoga boys has shown any weakness.”
The highlight of Company C’s week was an August 2 encounter with a group of deserters. Whether the deserters were white or black is unclear from King and Simmons’ account.
“We were on a hike eighteen miles from camp when we came upon five deserters going down a railroad track,” the Saratoga soldiers write, “After a chase of about nine miles, through swamps and woods, we finally surrounded them in a dense forest.
“After a terrific struggle, during which they received some very rough treatment, they were subdued and brought back to the guardhouse.”
King and Simmons captured two additional deserters near Fishkill this week.
“All the boys are hoping to have time off soon to see Saratoga once more before they leave for the front,” the soldiers write. They won’t leave for Europe until December. The 15th regiment will be renamed the 369th, but is better known to history as the “Harlem Hellfighters.”
SATURDAY PROVED BUSIEST YET
The first weekend of the racing season has Saratoga Springs humming tonight, The Saratogian reports.
“The crowd that flocked here for the weekend jammed every available place of entertainment in the evening. Broadway was packed with saunterers in the evening, and cars were parked along the curbing on both sides of the streets from the monument to the Adirondack Trust Company.
“It was the only way the machines of the visitors could be accommodated, for the garages shared the happy fate of the hotels, and were filled to the brim.”