During World War I, 404,348 black troops served in segregated units of the US army. There were 639 African-American officers, over 100 black physicians were officers in US Army Medical Corps, and 12 black men served as dental officers.
Edward James Cobb (1889-1956)
Edward J. Cobb was one of the 12 black officers in Dental Reserve Corps.
According to later passport documents, Edward James Cobb was born on April 20, 1889 at Valdosta, GA. His brother, Morris H. Cobb, taught in Berrien County, GA and was later a doctor in Valdosta, GA. Another brother, Richard H. Cobb, was a dentist in Columbus, GA.
In the segregated U.S. Army, black soldiers served in the two WWI African-American combat divisions, the 92nd and 93rd, and also in other army units. In fact, the majority of black troops in World War I were in the support units, mainly quartermaster, stevedore, labor, and pioneer infantry regiments. Dental officers were needed for these men also. Edward J. Cobb would serve overseas in World War I in the 92nd Division. Another area soldier in the 92nd Division was Carlos J. Boggs, of Ray City, GA.
Edward J. Cobb studied dentistry at the University of Iowa. On April 6, 1917, just weeks before he was to graduate, the United States formally declared war on Germany and entered World War I. The country rushed to mobilize an army and prepared to fight the war. Cobb completed his studies and entered the Army’s first black officers’ training program, The black Provisional Army Officer Training School at Fort Des Moines. The training camp was conducted under the leadership of white officers, with General Charles Clarendon Ballou in command. The camp formally opened on June 15, 1917. The training would last 90 days and would prepare black officers to command all-black units of the segregated US Army.
At the very time when African Americans so wanted the opportunity to demonstrate that their patriotism and abilities equaled those of white troops, racial violence flared throughout the country. That summer in East St. Louis, IL tensions escalated from labor disputes, to drive by shootings, to what the press called the East St. Louis Race War.
Racial tensions began simmering in East St. Louis—a city where thousands of blacks had moved from the South to work in war factories—as early as February 1917… In the spring, the largely white workforce at the Aluminum Ore Company went on strike. Hundreds of blacks were hired. After a City Council meeting on May 28, angry white workers lodged formal complaints against black migrants. When word of an attempted robbery of a white man by an armed black man spread through the city, mobs started beating any African-Americans they found, even pulling individuals off of streetcars and trolleys. The National Guard was called in but dispersed in June. On July 1, a white man in a Ford shot into black homes. Armed African-Americans gathered in the area and shot into another oncoming Ford, killing two men who turned out to be police officers investigating the shooting. The next morning, whites pouring out of a meeting in the Labor Temple downtown began beating blacks with guns, rocks and pipes. They set fire to homes and shot residents as they fled their burning properties. Blacks were also lynched in other areas of the city…By early Monday morning, the whole neighborhood was on fire. By the end of the three-day crisis, the official death toll was 39 black individuals and nine whites.
Smithsonian Magazine
Hundreds more people were injured in the East St. Louis Race Riot. Property damage was estimated at $373,000 in damages (which would be over $100 million measured as relative project cost in 2021 dollars).
After the massacre in East St. Louis, the white community in Des Moines worried about relations with the black soldiers at Fort Des Moines. In a gesture of good will Holmes Calper, Dean of the Institute of Fine Arts at Drake University, invited the camp command to bring the black cadets to perform at a White Sparrow concert. The White Sparrows were Sunday afternoon concerts sponsored by Drake University for the benefit of a local charitable organization. Calper later reflected on the occasion:
At the beginning of the war a Colored Officers Training Camp was organized at Fort Des Moines. Twelve hundred of the pick of the colored race of America were stationed there. As some of these had already had misunderstandings with the townspeople at theatres, etc., many people wondered whether this aggregation was desirable. Several of us called upon their commanding officer to see if he would allow his men to participate in a “Sing” at the Stadium. He readily consented. The street car company transported the men into town, and as those twelve hundred colored men marched onto the gridiron, fifteen thousand people stood and cheered them to the echo. During the afternoon the men went through several drills and three hundred of the best singers stepped out and sang some of the famous negro melodies…The singing that day, with the assistance of the colored troops, was unusually good, the accompaniments being played by two bands… The affair closed with the ceremony of the lowering of the flag and from that day to this nothing but kind words are said of those splendid fellows.
Papers and proceedings of the Music Teachers’ National Association. (1919)
The “White Sparrow Patriotic Ceremony” was presented July 22, 1917 at Drake University stadium. At the event the black cadets marched and sang “Negro melodies” for a crowd of 15,000 spectators.
While the relationship between black soldiers at Fort Des Moines and the white population of city of Des Moines remained civil, this was not the case everywhere in America. One hundred and fifty-six black soldiers were implicated the Houston riot of August 23,1917; 11 white civilians, 5 white police officers, and four black soldiers were killed in the riot. One hundred seventeen black soldiers were court-martialed and 110 were convicted. Thirteen black soldiers were executed in a mass hanging and six more were hanged later; 91 were sentenced to various terms of confinement at the U.S. Penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
At the Fort Des Moines Provisional Officer Training School, Edward J. Cobb and the other officer cadets completed 90 days of rigorous technical and physical training. On October 15, 1917, 638 African-American captains and lieutenants received their commissions, including Lieutenant Cobb, and were dispatched for basic training at a variety of camps. For this accomplishment General Ballou, the white commander of the Provisional Army Officer Training School at Ft. Des Moines, enjoyed immense popularity among the African-American population at-large. But a few months later the black community was called for Ballou’s resignation after he gave orders telling black soldiers in the African-American 92nd Division to stay out of white establishments “where their presence will be resented…[the] public is nine-tenths white. White men made the Division, and they can break it just as easily if it becomes a trouble maker.”
Buffalo Soldiers Division
In June, 1918, Lt. Cobb and the 92nd Division embarked at Hoboken, NJ. for the voyage to France. Hoboken was one of the great WWI embarkation points for American troops bound for overseas duty in France. It was the same port of embarkation from which Carlos J. Boggs, of Ray City, GA would depart to join the 367th Infantry, the Buffalo Infantry, 92nd Division. The ill-fated HMS Otranto would embark from Hoboken carrying a large contingent of Georgia troops, including a number from Berrien County, GA. Lawson Rentz of Ray City, GA was a medical officer in the Embarkation Service at Hoboken.
When the Buffalo Soldiers Division (92nd Division) arrived in France, they were shunned by American leaders at the top. “The mass of the colored drafted men cannot be used for combatant troops”, said a General Staff report in 1918, and it recommended that “these colored drafted men be organized in reserve labor battalions.” They handled unskilled labor tasks as stevedores in the Atlantic ports and common laborers at the camps and in the Services of Supply in France. Historian David M. Kennedy reports,
“Units of the black 92nd Division particularly suffered from poor preparation and the breakdown in command control. As the only black combat division, the 92nd Division entered the line with unique liabilities. It had been deliberately dispersed throughout several camps during its stateside training; some of its artillery units were summoned to France before they had completed their courses of instruction, and were never fully-equipped until after the Armistice; nearly all its senior white officers scorned the men under their command and repeatedly asked to be transferred. The black enlisted men were frequently diverted from their already attenuated training opportunities in France in the summer of 1918 and put to work as stevedores and common laborers.”
Kennedy, David M. 1982. Over Here: The First World War and American Society
The division did not receive assignments with the American Expeditionary Force, rather:
General John “Black Jack” Pershing was more than willing to lend [the division] to the French army to fight under the French command and flag. Parts of the 92nd would see combat action in France…These African-American soldiers would wear the American uniform, but would don the blue French helmet and utilize French military equipment. They quickly dispelled the American Army’s belief that they were inferior soldiers as they heroically and valiantly fought in fierce combat throughout the war. As a result of their actions, France would award several honors and medals upon multiple regiments in [the division]. Some of these noble awards were equivalent to the U.S. Medal of Honor. Several soldiers received the coveted French Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) medal for their exemplary and heroic fighting during WWI.
National Park Service. (2018) The Buffalo Soldiers in WWI.
Edward J. Cobb served in France throughout the war. After the Armistice he was transferred to the Medical Detachment of the 816th Pioneer Infantry. According to historian, Dr. Christopher Bean, after hostilities ceased, thousands of Pioneer Infantry men of the 813th, 815th and 816th were assigned the sobering task of collecting bodies, and body parts, from the battlefields of France as winter encroached and prepare them for burial. The 816th Pioneer Infantry was detailed to the Graves Registration Service at Romagne and was tasked with building the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery, the largest American cemetery in France. Twenty-one thousand American soldiers were buried there.
The 816th Pioneer Infantry returned to the US in July 1919 aboard the USS Manchuria, departing from St. Nazaire, France on July 8 and arriving at Hoboken, NJ on July 18, 1919.
Although research found no records of military awards to Edward J. Cobb, the WWI Victory Medal was awarded to military personnel for service between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918.
The Victory Medal was awarded to military personnel for service between April 6, 1917, and November 11, 1918.
Related Posts:
- Carlos J. Boggs and the Buffalo Infantry of WWI
- Berrien’s Black Doughboys: Camp Gordon Men
- Hod Clements ~ Doughboy
- Henry Elmo DeLaney, Survivor of the H.M.S. Otranto Disaster
- These Boys Volunteered April 11, 1917
- On the Home Front, Ray City, GA, 1918
- Death Lurked in the North Channel
- Berrien County Paid Terrible Toll on the Otranto
- The Long Trip Home
- Homecoming for Sergeant Mitchell Moore
- Armistice Day Memorial to Soldiers from Berrien County, GA Killed During WWI
- Ralph Knight ~ Ray City Soldier ~ WWI
- Rossie O. Knight and the WWI Victory Medal
- WWI Berrien County Draft Board
- Joseph Burton Calhoun ~ WWI Soldier
- Lorton W. Register ~ Killed in Action, WWI
- WWI Boom for Clements Lumber Company at Ray City, GA
Ray City History Blog 