If you’ve read my book The Buffalo Soldier, (click here to check it out!) you may remember it includes the 25th Infantry Regiment of the US Army. They were stationed at Fort Missoula in Montana in 1896. The 25th was also among the first of the short-lived bicycle regiments in the US Army. The same regiment was involved in the Brownsville Affair a decade later.
The Brownsville Affair, as its name indicates, took place in Brownsville, Texas. In 1906 Brownsville witnessed a shootout on the streets in August. One person, a bartender, died, and an officer was injured. The mayor of Brownsville and some other bystanders claimed they’d seen soldiers on the streets, firing at random. Shells from Army rifles seemed to corroborate their testimony.
The commanding officer of the 25th, however, claimed that all his men were in barracks on the night in question. Further investigation showed the spent shells had been planted. It seemed a solid alibi.
Part 2 of the Brownsville Affair
Authorities imprisoned twelve soldiers without trial. This despite that all twelve had been accounted for and in their barracks the night of the shooting. Although charged with no crime, the men were denied legal counsel or a hearing. Things grew worse from there.
When the accused insisted on their innocence, eventually the scandal reached Theodore Roosevelt, the US president. He crushed their pleas, ordering 167 infantrymen discharged without honor because they would not give any details on their involvement. His statement: “Some of the men were bloody butchers; they ought to be hung.”
Things grew more muddled from there. A Texas court decided in favor the soldiers. A US Senate investigation, however, backed the president. In the end, the discharge stood. According to one source the Brownsville Affair remains the only instance of mass punishment without trial in US military history.
Conclusion of the Brownsville Affair
The reader might wonder at this point why US soldiers got such shoddy treatment. If the evidence against them was framed, and the accused were accounted for, why did politicians turn on them? Why the mass punishment over something in which they weren’t involved?
Well, if you’ve read The Buffalo Soldier you might remember the answer. If you’re a cynic you might guess it anyway. The 25th was a regiment composed solely of African Americans. The people of Brownsville who accused them of the crime were white. A few public figures of the time stood up for them, but not enough to reverse the verdict.
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The soldiers of the 25th later got a teaspoon of justice. A 1970 book argued for their innocence, and in 1972 the US Army conducted a new investigation that cleared their names. Scant consolation, however, for the honorable men who lived in disgrace and lost pensions solely because of their color.
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