TH.

At the beautiful city of Rockford, Illinois, was located Camp Grant
where thousands of Negro recruits gathered from cities and factories,
farms and plantations of our country, were given the needed intensive
training to fit them to sustain the glorious traditions of the American
soldiers. We take pride in all our soldiers--never once did they retreat
but carried Old Glory ever onward until the armistice of November 11,
1918.

"THE BLACK DEVILS"

The old Illinois 8th Regiment was one of these colored units which
henceforth will be referred to whenever the heroic deeds of this war are
mentioned. The Prussian guards gave them a name which tells us of the
respect and fear they inspired. They were "The Black Devils." The guards
were seasoned veterans who had participated in the fiercest fighting of
the war, yet these Negro heroes of the West did not falter before them.
They were brigaded with the choicest troops of France and fought by
their side through the final stages of the war. By them they were given
a name indicative of the respect and confidence, their soldierly bearing
and actions inspired. To the French they were the "Partridges," the
proudest game bird of Europe, and when the decimated ranks of the
regiment paraded before cheering thousands on their return, there
marched in their ranks, twenty-two men wearing the American
Distinguished Service Cross while sixty-eight others were decorated with
the French "Croix de Guerre."

THEY DIED THAT OUR REPUBLIC MIGHT LIVE

The regiment went to France with approximately 2,500 men from Chicago
and Illinois; they came back with 1,260. Those figures convey an
eloquent story of suffering and death. Nearly a hundred were killed in
battle. They were sleeping on the shell scarred fields of France. Many
others are enrolled in the great army of maimed heroes, who however, are
facing the future with calm courage, though many of them are deprived of
arms or limbs, or possess bodies cruelly disfigured by shot and shell,
with physical health wrecked as a result of hardship in trenches, or
deadly gas inhaled.

THE LAST SOLDIERS TO CEASE FIGHTING

The old 8th probably made the last capture of the war. The morning of
November 11, they were with their French comrades in Belgium. The
objective given them to attain that day was not arduous and so, having
achieved the same, the boys simply kept on going. The French division
commander sent a messenger to the Colonel in comm