UNJUSTLY DISHONORED: An African American Division in World War I goes a long way towards redressing the undeserved reputation the 92nd Infantry Division was given by several of the white officers who served in it, as well as by a number of field officers within the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during the Battle of the Meuse-Argonne in which the 92nd played a role.

Robert Ferrell was able, during the course of the research he carried out in writing this book, to gain access to a wealth of records within the National Archives.   These records consisted of hundreds of pages, much of it reports that were prepared by the 92nd Infantry Division's white officers shortly after the War. Many of these records had been left to languish in the Archives for a century.  Ferrell also evaluated personal reports from the Army War College pertaining to the 92nd Division's battlefield performance.   Among these reports was one from the commanding general of the 92nd's field artillery brigade (Brigadier General John H. Sherburne), which lauded its outstanding record in the Meuse-Argonne battle.

As the only African American infantry division to be deployed in combat with the AEF on the Western Front, many white officers in the U.S. Army were inclined to think, because of their longstanding racist attitudes about African Americans, that African American soldiers simply weren't capable of being effective combat soldiers.    So, when a portion of one of the 92nd's infantry regiments (the 368th) suffered a reversal during the early stages of the Meuse-Argonne battle, this was pointed to by many of these white officers as evidence that African American soldiers could not fight.    But Ferrell is able to show that the 92nd's performance was on a par with the other AEF divisions at the battle's outset.    For instance, during the first attack in the Meuse Argonne carried out by the U.S. First Army, the 3 white divisions in I Corps "did not do well, with the Seventy-seventh moving ahead in its part of the Argonne with a slowness that was contrary to what General Pershing [the AEF commander] asked of his divisions.    The second division of the corps, the Twenty-eighth, did likewise.   The third, the Thirty-fifth, collapsed in the field, gave up territory it had taken, and had to be relieved and sent to a portion of the line where there was little action and it could refit and recover its nearly lost morale.   In the ... V Corps, the performances of all the divisions [therein] were so poor that General Pershing withdrew all three; the third of the V Corps divisions, the Seventy-ninth, did so badly that it held up the advance of all the divisions of the First Army for an entire day while the division fumbled in front of Montfaucon, where two if its regiments stalled before a minuscule German force."   As for the 92nd Division, despite the reversal experienced by the 368th Infantry Regiment, its "First Battalion managed" to secure its objective, Binarville, with a few of its men managing to gain some territory beyond it.     

Ferrell also highlights the performance of the 92nd Division in the Marbache sector, where during the last 2 days of the War, it achieved all of its objectives as a part of the U.S. Second Army, whose commander, General Robert L. Bullard, a Southerner, disparaged the 92nd Division at every turn.  All the while, the 3 white divisions in Bullard's command, by way of contrast, failed to meet any of its objectives on November 10-11, 1918. 

UNJUSTLY DISHONORED is a book that should be read by anyone with an interest in the battlefield achievements made by African Americans in the U.S. Army during World War I.