When the above organizations had been recruited up to war strength there were between 12,000 and 14,000 colored men representing the National Guard of the country.  With a population of 12,000,000 Negroes to draw from; the majority of those suitable for military service anxious to enlist, it readily can be seen what a force could have been added to this branch of the service had there been any encouragement of it.  There was not lacking a great number of the race, many of them college graduates, competent to act as officers of National Guard units.  Many of those commissioned during the Spanish-American war had the experience and age to fit them for senior regimental commands.  The 8th Illinois was commanded by Colonel Franklin A. Denison, a prominent colored attorney of Chicago and a seasoned military man.  He was the only colored man of the rank of Colonel who was permitted to go to France in the combatant or any other branch of the service.  After a brief period in the earlier campaigns he was invalided home very much against his will.

The 15th New York was commanded by Colonel William Hayward, a white man.  He was devoted to his black soldiers and they were very fond of him.  Officers immediately subordinate to him were white men.  The District of Columbia battalion might have retained its colored commander, Major James E. Walker, as he was a fine soldierly figure and possessed of the requisite ability, but he was removed by death while his unit was still training near Washington.  Some of the Negro officers of National Guard organizations retained their commands, but the majority were superseded or transferred before sailing or soon after arrival in France.

The 369th, the 370th and the 372nd infantry regiments in the United States army, mentioned as having been formed from the colored National Guard units, became a part of the 93rd division.  Another regiment, the 371st, formed from the draft forces was also part of the same division.  This division was brigaded with the French from the start and saw service through the war alongside the French poilus with whom they became great friends.  There grew up a spirit of which, side by side, they faced and smashed the savage Hun, never wavered or changed.  Besides the soldiers from Illinois, New York, Ohio, District of Columbia, Connecticut, Maryland and Tennessee, there were Negro contingents from Mississippi and South Carolina in the 93rd division.  One of the regiments of this division, the 369th (15th New York) was of the first of the American forces to reach France, following mutual admiration between these two widely different representatives of the human family, that during the period in the expeditionary force of Regulars which reached France June 13, 1917; being among the first 100,000 that went abroad.  However, the 93rd division, exclusively Negro, had not been fully formed then and the regiment did not see much real fighting until the spring and summer of 1918.