Houston riot of 1917 - Wikipedia

On September 3, 1918, five soldiers were hanged for alleged participation in Houston riot (or Camp Logan riot); in all 19 mutineers were executed. From the article:

Almost from the arrival of the Twenty-fourth Infantry in Houston, the presence of black soldiers in the segregated Texas city caused conflict.[2]:10 The Jim Crow laws had not been enforced when the Twenty-fourth was deployed in Columbus, New Mexico,[3] but in Houston the soldiers encountered segregated street cars and white workers at Camp Logan who demanded separate tanks of drinking water. Soldiers from the Twenty-fourth were involved in a number of "clashes" with city police, several of which resulted in the soldiers receiving minor injuries.[2]:10

Around noon August 23, 1917, Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniels, two Houston police officers, broke up a craps game on a street corner in Houston's predominantly-black San Felipe district by firing warning shots.[2]:12 Sparks, searching for the fleeing suspects, entered the house of local resident Sara Travers.[4] He did not find the suspect but, after exchanging words with Travers, struck her and dragged her outside in her nightgown.[5]

As Sparks and Daniels called in the arrest from an area patrol box, they were approached by Private Alonzo Edwards. Edwards offered to take custody of Travers, but was pistol-whipped repeatedly by Sparks and then arrested.[5] Later that afternoon, Corporal Charles Baltimore approached Sparks and Daniels in the same neighborhood to inquire about the status of Edwards. Sparks struck Baltimore with his pistol and fired three shots at him as he fled into a nearby home. Sparks and Daniels pursued Baltimore, eventually finding him under a bed. They pulled him out, beat him, and placed him under arrest.[2]:10

A rumor reached the camp of the Twenty-fourth that Baltimore had been shot and killed. The soldiers immediately began meeting in small groups to discuss plans to march on Houston and attack the police.[6]:1390 An officer from the Twenty-fourth retrieved the injured Baltimore from the police station, which seemed to calm the soldiers for the moment.[2]:126

The riot
The officers of the Twenty-fourth continued to receive reports of impending trouble from the angry soldiers.[7] Major K.S. Snow revoked all passes for the evening and ordered the guard to be increased, but later that evening stumbled upon a group of men stealing ammunition from one of the supply tents.[2]:39 He ordered the men to assemble without arms and warned them that it was "utterly foolish, foolhardy, for them to think of taking the law into their own hands."[2]:40 One of the men, who had smuggled his rifle into the formation, fired it and cried out that a mob was approaching the camp. At this point, order broke down completely and the soldiers mobbed the supply tents, grabbing rifles and ammunition.[6]:1292

The soldiers began firing indiscriminately into the surrounding buildings. After several minutes of shooting, Sergeant Vida Henry ordered the men in the area – about 150 – to fill their canteens, grab extra ammunition, and fall in to march on Houston.[6]:1295 The group marched through neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, firing at houses with outdoor lights. They fired on a car with two white occupants, but let a second car with black occupants leave unharmed.[2]:1214 They marched nearly two and a half miles, all the way to the San Felipe district, before they encountered any police officers. Due to the disorganization of the police department, officers had only been sent out in small numbers[8]:141 so the first police casualties occurred when a group of six officers stumbled upon the entire column of soldiers. Two policemen (including Rufus Daniels) were killed immediately, and one later died of wounds he had sustained.[2]:527

The soldiers stopped a car carrying two policemen, who were disarmed and shot. A few blocks later, an open-topped car carrying a man in an olive-drab uniform approached the column. Believing this to be the uniform of a Houston mounted policeman, the soldiers opened fire only to discover later that they had killed Captain Joseph W. Mattes of the Illinois National Guard.[2]:651 The killing of a military officer drove home the seriousness of their actions and the pending consequences.[8]:162 Mattes' body was found mutilated to the point of being nearly unrecognizable. [9] Many soldiers began to desert the group, and Sergeant Henry led the remainder on a march to return to camp. Just outside the San Felipe district, Henry shook hands with the remaining soldiers and informed them that he planned to kill himself after they left.[6]:1322 Henry's body was found in the area the next day.[10]

By the time the shooting had stopped, 17 people were dead (four police officers, nine civilians, and two soldiers).[11] One soldier and a police officer later died from wounds sustained during the riot, and one soldier died from wounds sustained during his capture the next day. All of the wounds received by soldiers the night of the riot were the result of accidental shootings by fellow soldiers.[8]:169

Immediate aftermath
The next morning, Houston was placed under martial law.[12] The remaining soldiers in the Twenty-fourth's camp were disarmed, and a house-to-house search discovered a number of soldiers hiding in the San Felipe district. Soldiers in local jails were turned over to the Army, and the Third Battalion was sent by rail back to New Mexico.[13]

In the ensuing Court Martial, almost two hundred witnesses testified over twenty-two days and the transcripts of the testimony covered more than two thousand pages. Author Robert V. Haynes suggests that General John Wilson Ruckman was "especially anxious for the courts-martial to begin".[8]:251

Ruckman had preferred the proceedings take place in El Paso, but eventually agreed to allow them to remain in San Antonio. Haynes posits the decision was made to accommodate the witnesses who lived in Houston, plus "the countless spectators" who wanted to follow the proceedings (p. 254).[8] Ruckman "urged" the War Department to select a "prestigious court".[8]:255 Three brigadier generals were chosen, along with seven full colonels and three lieutenant colonels. Eight members of the court were West Point graduates. The court contained a geographic balance between northerners, southerners and westerners.[citation needed]

The Departmental Judge Advocate General, Colonel George Dunn, reviewed the record of the first court martial (known as "the Nesbit Case.") and approved the sentences. He forwarded the documents materials to Gen. Ruckman on December 3. Six days later, thirteen of the prisoners (including Corporal Baltimore) were told that they would be hanged for murder, but they were not informed of the time or place.[8]:3 The court recommended clemency for a Private Hudson, but General Ruckman declined to grant it.

Though 169 witnesses testified for the prosecution during the 22-day court-martial, many could not identify the defendants because the riots unfolded at night during heavy rain. Historians have also questioned the veracity of witness testimony, noting that the soldiers who testified as participants were granted immunity or promised leniency.[14][15]

The first hanging
The condemned soldiers (one sergeant, four corporals, and eight privates) were transferred to a barracks on December 10. That evening, motor trucks carried new lumber for scaffolds to some bathhouses built for the soldiers at Camp Travis near a swimming pool in the Salado Creek. The designated place of execution was several hundred yards away. Army engineers completed their work by the light of bonfires. The thirteen condemned men were awakened at five in the morning and brought to the gallows. They were hanged simultaneously, at 7:17am, one minute before sunrise. The scaffolds were disassembled and every piece returned to Fort Sam Houston. The New York Times, commenting on the clean-up operations, observed the place of execution and place of burial were "indistinguishable." Only army officers and County Sheriff John Tobin had been allowed to witness the execution.[citation needed]

Gen. Ruckman told reporters he had personally approved the death sentences and said that forty-one soldiers had been given life sentences and four received sentences of two and a half years or less. He said he was the one who chose the time and place for the executions.[8]:7 Military jurist Frederick Bernays Wiener has observed that Ruckman's approval and execution of the death sentences were "entirely legal" and "in complete conformity" with the 1916 Articles of War.[16]:122

Second and third courts martial
A second court-martial, the "Washington" case, began six days later. Fifteen men of the Lower A Division were tried and five were sentenced to death. On January 2, 1918, Ruckman approved the sentences in a public statement. But a new rule, General Orders 167 (December 29, 1917), prohibited the execution of any death sentence until the Judge Advocate General (JAG) could review the sentence(s).[16]:115 (The JAG Boards of Review tasked with reviewing death sentences were created by a subsequent rule, General Orders 7 (January 7, 1918).[16]:115[17]:2–3 Those boards, though they had advisory power only, were the Army's first appellate courts.[17]:3)

While waiting for the JAG review to occur, Ruckman approved a third court-martial, the "Tillman" case, of forty more soldiers. On March 26, 1918, twenty-three of those forty soldiers were found guilty. Eleven of the twenty-three were sentenced to death and the remaining twelve to life in prison. On May 2, Ruckman approved the sentences."