More than two million black U.S. males between twenty-one and thirty-one registered for conscription. Even though this represented 10 percent of total draft registration, there were only four “Buffalo Soldier” regiments in the U.S. Army to take in these new soldiers, and none of those regiments was slated for AEF service. With some reluctance, the War Department agreed to create the 93rd Division in the national army for them.

The 93rd Division contained four regiments:  369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd.  The 371st formed at Camp Jackson in August 1917 and was the only regiment in the 93rd Division formed primarily of draftees.  The 371st, unlike the other regiments, consisted mainly of southern African Americans.

Upon arrival in France, the Ninety-third Division’s regiments shortly found themselves “on loan” to America’s allies. Starved for replacements and long accustomed to employing African colonial troops, the French army eagerly took in the black American soldiers. American commanding General “Black Jack” Pershing, whose nickname referred to his Buffalo Soldier service in the Spanish-American War, agreed to this arrangement, perhaps to help mollify the French demand for recruits. (Despite Pershing’s own positive experiences with the Buffalo Soldiers, racial prejudice among white American soldiers contributed to the decision as well.)

Men of the 371st were awarded the French Legion of Honor, the Medaille Militaire and the Croix de Guerre with Bronze Palm. They would sail home in February of 1919 aboard the transport SS Leviathan.