Sidelights on Negro Soldiers by Charles Williams

THE LURE OF THE UNIFORM

Historians tell us that when, in the fifteenth century, Jeanne d'Arc led the soldiers of France to victory, no women followed the army. This was not true of the victorious armies in the World War. Wherever the soldiers camped, in the North, East, South, or West, in a camp near a great metropolis or in one far from cities and railroads, in America or in France, there women were to be found. For the first time also the War Department made formal provision for the American soldiers to have the gentle and civilizing influence of women; and barracks and tented camps were soon followed by hostess houses or other structures, tastefully furnished and decorated, and presided over by kind-hearted hostesses.