Unnamed Negro Soldiers

These are the other black soldiers whom Caspey Strother mentions in Flags in the Dust in the stories he brings home from World War I. He never mentions any of their names, usually referring to them as "boys," but he does refer specifically to two: "de Captain's dog-robber" and "a school boy" (59). (It's unclear what Caspey means by "dog-robber," but he may be mangling the term 'dogsbody' - a British term for a person who does minor tasks; as an officer, the "Captain" in the phrase would be likely to have someone in such a menial role. Caspey's stories are obviously wild exaggerations, if not outright inventions, but over 350,000 African Americans - enlisted men, draftees and officers - served during the war, and many of them, though probably not Caspey, saw combat in one of the two all-black divisions created by the U.S. Army.)