Wilmington's African American dead

Three African Americans were killed in World War I. Their names were placed on the bottom of the Memorial, separated from the white men who lost their lives in the War. 

During World War I, the U.S. Armed forces were segregated.  Wilmington's memorial reflects that division even in death.  Although many African American men enlisted in the armed services, and many were conscripted after the draft, few saw actual combat.  Reflecting the tenor of the times, most of the 350,000 African Americans in the armed forces worked in supporting roles.  


Thomas Bullock



Image courtesy of State Archives of North Carolina

That wasn't the case for Thomas J. Bullock, the first name on the "colored" section of Wilmington's memorial.  (The memorial erroneously lists Lieutentant Bullock as Thomas S.)  

Thomas Bullock was a member of what W. E. B. DuBois called the "Talented Tenth" -- he graduated from Lincoln University, and was a principal at Wilmington's Williston Industrial School.   In June, 1917, Bullock went to an African-American only  officer training school in Iowa.  Afterwards he was sent to Camp Upton in New York in the Fall of 1917. 



Camp Upton, New York, 1919
Courtesy of Library of Congress

Bullock died in France, on September 2, 1918,  after fighting around Frappelle.  He was a part of 367th infantry unit of the 92nd Divison, and was, according to Emmett J. Scott's book, the first officer to die in combat.  (In contrast to other sources, Scott's work seems to suggest Bullock died on August 31.)

After the War, the local African American American legion post was organized and named after Lieutentant Bullock. 

Cape Fear Museum image archive

June 5, 1921, The Wilmington Dispatch noted that  “The remains of Lieut Thomas J. Bullock, of Wilmington, killed in the second battle of the Marne, arrived from France and services in his honor were conducted at St. Stephen’s A.M.E.  Church. The remains were re-interred in Pine Forest Cemetery.   He entered officer’s training camp soon after United States entered the war and was commisioned second lieutenant.  He gallantly fought in many engagements in France."

Two other African American men were also on the Memorial.

Simon Taft Shiver

On April 29, 1918, Simon Taft Shiver was inducted into military service. On April 30, Shiver was send to Camp Jackson. SC. along with 27 other men. On May 12, 1918, Shiver died at Camp Jackson in Columbia South Carolina. He was a private in Company 12, 186 Depot Brigade. He was listed as a school teacher; his father was the Reverend S. T. Shiver.



Cover of The Crisis, NAACP's magazine
accessed at http://www.modjourn.org/render.php?id=1292951205264875&view=mjp_object

 

Edward Peden

No records could be found relating to an Edward Peden.  A “Negro” Edward Franklin Peeden was registered for the draft on June 5, 1917.  He was listed as born on Sept 10 1896.  He was a hotel waiter at the Wilmington Hotel.  And an Edward Peeden was living in Wilmington in 1910, aged 13, with his family in the Delgado neighborhood.  But it is not clear where or when Edward died.



This World War I era poster was recently donated to the Museum

Dedicating a Memorial, 1922, part 2

May 30, Memorial Day, 1922

In 1922,  the World War I memorial was dedicated.

A local paper, the Wilmington Dispatch declared there were speeches from a “flag draped speakers’ stand that had been erected in the intersection of Market and Thirteenth streets, just prior to the firing of a salute over the handsome monument that contains the names of the country’s [sic] world war heroes who fell in the line of duty…”

The Morning Star declared the monument was unveiled by “four little children, Paul Elliot Loughlin, Eleanor Loughlin, Helen Carroll, and Frank Williams, whose parents lost their lives during the war.”

This picture was taken after the unveiling. 

detail from panoramic image, May 30, 1922
CFM 2007.041.0017



left side of panorama, 1922



right side of panorama, 1922

Although you can't see a flag-draped podium in the image, it's pretty easy to imagine someone giving a talk right in front of the monument.  And, in fact, we know who spoke at the event from reports in the local newspapers.

Robert C. Cantwell, II on the far left, in 1922
CFM 2007.041.0015
 

American Legion Post Commander R. C. Cantwell, II
presided over the occasion.  The picture to the left shows him dressed in colonial garb for a pageant performance from about the time the Memorial was dedicated. 











At the ceremony, Mississippi's senior Senator Pat Harrison gave the oration. 

Senator Harrison's oratory reminds us that the Civil War was still very much in the forefront of white southerners' thinking.  Even though he was speaking at a memorial honoring the service of white and black Americans who fought in a war on European soil, his rhetoric evoked a vision of an occupied south. He declared “Your skies have been clouded with the smoke of battle, your land ravished by invading forces, and your streams have run red with the blood of your sons and fathers, but you have born yourselves as true sons of the south and Americans in every emergency.”


Local minister Reverend W. W. Morton gave an invocation and he read out the names of the dead who “fell in the conflict overseas or in the line of duty…”

poppies picked at Flanders field, 1921
CFM 1962.081.0001

 




Thirty seven men's names were on the memorial:






As you can see from the picture, the memorial segregated African Americans and whites even in death. 





Arthur Bluethenthal's grave in France
CFM 1990.066.0054
 

The list of the dead on the memorial includes men like Thomas J. Bullock, Arthur Bluethenthal, Warren Gregory Davis, and David Worth Loring who died in Europe.  And it includes men like Simon Taft Shiver, Archie Melton, and Joseph F. Holland who died of disease in the United States. 




















Edward T. Taylor, chairman of the citizens committee officially presented the monument to Addison Hewlett, chairman of the board of county commissioners.

When E. T. Taylor presented the memorial to the county he reportedly said “May 30^th has been set aside by the American Legion as a day sacred to the memory of their deceased brothers in arms, who lost their lives in our behalf in the world war. It is fitting therefore, that on this day we gather to pay our respects to the memory of the dead and to inspire by our example veneration for these heroes in the lives of the children today and of future generations.”

Before the “Great War” Memorial Day was mostly celebrated in the North (because it grew out of the Civil War). After World War I, Memorial Day was expanded so it honored veterans of all wars, making the day more palatable to pro-Confederate southerners. 

Although 37 New Hanover County men are on the Memorial, many more local residents served in World War I.



Army Nurse Rachel Loman's medal
CFM 2007.020.0007

Alfred Sternberger's North Carolina World War I service medal
CFM 1975.041.0005

E. Fleet Williams'
"Great War for Civilization" medal
CFM 1966.031.0002

 

At the dedication. E.T. Taylor’s speech continued: “The citizens of Wilmington and New Hanover county, prompted by the desire to express their undying love and affection for those who gave their all for them, acting under the auspices of the chamber of commerce, rasied a fund by public subscription from all sources—merchants, manufacturers, bankers, farmers, laborers and school children—for the erection of a monument which would perpetuate the nawes of each of the boys who made the supreme sacrifice. This work of love has been accomplished; the monument bearing the names of our dead heroes now stands before you and is ready to be presented. It has been erected at this spot in the hope and belief that it will be a constant inspiration to the school children of the counry to make their lives worthy of these heroic dead…”

 

The then-segregated New Hanover High School was the only high school for white children in the city when the Memorial was dedicated. 

 

Memorializing World War I, part 1

On Memorial Day, May 30, 1922, a World War I monument was unveiled in front of New Hanover High School, at Market and South Thirteenth Streets.




Dedication Ceremony, May 30, 1922 CFM 2007.041.0017 Gift of R. C. Cantwell, III

A Group Forms:  December 1918

A group of local white men and women began to plan for a war memorial less than one month after the First World War ended.  On Dec 5, 1918, the Wilmington Dispatch reported that a chamber of commerce committee had been formed to plan a memorial.  Initial reports suggested that the committee wanted to raised $25,000 and put the monument on Market between Front and Second streets.





CFM 1983.003.0010
The First World War took place in an era of post Civil War
"reconciliation." The idea that both Confederate and U.S. soldiers
were brave was promoted as a way to create national unity.

The male committee consisted of  E. T. Taylor, T. E. Cooper, Dr. John J. Hurt, C. C. Chadbourn, Woddus Cellum, W. H. Sprunt, J. A. Taylor, George H. Hutaff, L. W. Davis, Roger Moore and James H. Cowan. A committee of women were appointed to “assist” the men.  The women represented “each of the ladies’ organizations of the city.”  The women listed were: Mrs. W. L. Parsley, Mrs. W. B. Cooper, Mrs. Cuthbert Martin. Mrs. S. Solomon, Mrs. W. P. Sprunt, Mrs. J. M. Solky, Mrs. E. K. Bryan, Mrs. William Latimer, Mrs. John R. Hanby, Mrs. R. W. Hicks, and Misses Jennie Wood and Margaret Corbett.

The committee quickly concluded that they would raise the money by popular subscription and set the goal of Robert E. Lee's birthday, presumably Lee's birthday in January of 1919, for raising the cash.

Wilmington's memorial was to be built by private subscriptions in honor of those "who laid down their lives on the battlefield of France."



Wilmingtonian Arthur Bluethenthal died in World War I
CFM 1990.066.0022

It took longer than the committee hoped to raise the money for the monument.  And the committee downsized their expectation of how much they would raise:  By June of 1919, the committee had secured promises for approximately $7,000, a lot less than the initial figure of $25,000.  In the end, the monument seems to have cost $6,000.  Right before the monument was dedicated the paper said, “The momument is the gift of the entire populace of the city and will cost when unveiled only $6,000.  No efforts to secure large contributions were made, the desire being that all people should participate in its erection.”

A Monument is Made:  

 

The monument was made in Baltimore Maryland. Joseph Maxwell Miller sculpted the bronze bas relief tablet. 

 

Memorial, before cleaning, 2014

 

Miller also sculpted Maryland’s Confederate Women’s Monument (1917).

For the Wilmington project, the J. Arthur Limerick Company (also from Baltimore, Maryland) cast the bronze, and W. Gordon Beecher was the architect .

Beecher and Miller also collaborated on the Prince George’s County Maryland World War I monument which was erected in 1919.



Prince George's County war memorial, found on
 http://dcmemorials.com/index_indiv0002991.htm
 

 

 A Location is Chosen: 1919-1922

 

It wasn't clear where the monument would be placed in Wilmington.  Even though in June 1919, the paper stated “The site and design of the monument will be made in the early fall and will be fraught with much care to appropriately perpetuate the memory of Wilmington soldiers who gave their all in the great war.” It was actually three years later that the final decision was made. 

By 1921, it seemed that the city council had agreed to put the monument on Market Street in principle, but “at what point on Market Street the monument will be erected remains to be decided…”

 

Postcard, from about 1919, CFM 1999.114.0042

 

Finally, just one month before the memorial was dedicated, in April of 1922, the Memorial committee’s location committee met and chose a site.

The committee decided to ask the city for permission “…to erect the memorial to the city and county’s soldier dead on the plaza in front of the high school on Market street….”

And that’s where it ended up: “…on the east plaza of Market Street, in front of the New Hanover high school building.”

 

World War I memorial, February, 1926
CFM 1985.017.0001




Image of New Hanover High, about 1925, with war memorial in middle of Market Street
CFM 2001.069.0002, Museum purchase