A Thanksgiving Invitation, an Order to Leave, and a Violent Reckoning
A Black veteran of the Philippines campaign was invited to Fort Walla Walla for Thanksgiving. Ordered off the post, he returned days later to beat the officer who had expelled him.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An officer of the Ninth Cavalry was assaulted several days ago by a discharged colored soldier, and as a result the officer is confined at the post hospital with a badly injured head.
It appears that the man, who had recently returned from the Philippines, where he had been discharged from the army, was invited by some of his colored trooper friends to partake of Thanksgiving dinner at the garrison. While there he was accosted by the officer, who demanded to know what business he had about the post. The ex-soldier informed him he was there at the invitation of some of his friends. The officer ordered him to leave the post. The colored man complied with the order, but stated that he would meet the officer in the city some time.
Several days after, the officer came to the city and, the man meeting him, proceeded to assault him. He struck him in the face, knocking him down, and then beat his head in a fearful manner.
“The colored man complied with the order, but stated that he would meet the officer in the city some time.”
The episode exposes the racial boundaries of a military town: a Black veteran could be welcomed by Black troopers and still be ordered off the garrison by an officer. The paper's sympathy is with the injured officer, a reminder that period crime reporting often cast Black men as threats and left their own military service in the background.
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