Occurred on 11 December 1917 during the aftermath of the Houston Riot of 1917
The largest mass execution of American soldiers by the Army occurred on 11 December 1917 during the aftermath of the Houston Riot of 1917. This event saw the hanging of 13 Black soldiers in a single day, which was part of a larger series of executions that totaled 19 Black soldiers.
The Houston Riot of 1917 involved members of the 24th United States Infantry Regiment, an all-Black unit known as the Buffalo Soldiers. The soldiers were stationed at Camp Logan, near Houston, Texas, to guard white soldiers preparing for deployment to Europe. From the beginning of their assignment, the Black soldiers faced harassment and abuse by Houston police. This culminated in a violent confrontation on August 23, 1917, after a respected corporal was brutally beaten and jailed by police. More than 150 Black soldiers armed themselves and marched into Houston to confront the police about their mistreatment. The ensuing violence resulted in the deaths of four soldiers, four policemen, and 12 civilians.
Following the riot, 110 Black soldiers were convicted of murder, mutiny, and other crimes in military trials that were characterized by significant irregularities, including sparse evidence, biased tribunals, and a lack of legal representation for the defendants. At their trials, the members of the 24th Infantry Regiment were represented by a single officer who had some legal training but was not a lawyer. The all-white court deliberated for only two days before convicting the first 58 soldiers. Thirteen of these men were sentenced to death and hanged less than 24 hours later, without any opportunity for appeal. on hastily constructed gallows on the banks of Salado Creek, which runs through San Antonio. By September 1918, 52 additional soldiers had been convicted and six more had been hanged.
The families of the soldiers spent decades fighting to show that the men had been betrayed by the military. In November 2023, the Army secretary, Christine E. Wormuth, overturned the convictions and acknowledged that the soldiers ‘were wrongly treated because of their race and were not given fair trials.’
Subsequently, in the presence of several descendants of the soldiers, the Department of Veterans Affairs dedicated new headstones for 17 of the executed servicemen at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. The headstones were unveiled after a guard of honour that fired a three-volley rifle salute, a bugler played ‘Taps’, and officials presented the descendants with folded American flags and certificates declaring that the executed soldiers had been honourably discharged.