The Colonel undoubtedly thought that those first in France would be the first to get a chance at the Boche, but the department took him at his word, and for over two months his men were kept busy in the vicinity of St. Nazaire, largely as laborers and builders. Early in 1918 they went into training quarters near St. Nazaire. The 371st, another Negro regiment, made up of draft selectives principally from South Carolina, was later given quarters nearby. The black soldiers of the 369th were brigaded as a part of the 16th division of the 8th Corps of the 4th French Army. From St. Nazaire they went to Givrey-En-Argonne, and there in three weeks the French turned them into a regulation French regiment. They had Lebel rifles, French packs and French gas masks. For 191 days they were in the trenches or on the field of battle. In April, 1918, the regiment held 20 percent of all the territory held by American troops, though it comprised less than one percent of all the American soldiers in France. Officers of the 369th reported for an entire year only six cases of drunkenness, and twenty-four of serious disease. The regiment fought in the Champagne, in the Vosges mountains, on the Aisne, at Main de Massiges, Butte de Mesnil, Dormouse, Sechault, the Argonne, Ripont, Kuppinase, Tourbe, and Bellevue Ridge. It was the first unit of any of the Allied armies to reach the left bank of the Rhine following the signing of the armistice, moving from Thann on November 17th and reaching Blodesheim the next day. Negro soldiers were a source of terror to the Germany throughout the war, and objects of great curiosity to the German people afterwards. Wherever they appeared in the area occupied by the Americans they attracted great attention among the civilians. In Treves, Coblenz and other places during the early days of the occupation, crowds assembled whenever Negro soldiers stopped in the streets and it became necessary for the military police to enforce the orders prohibiting gatherings in the public thoroughfares. Returning soldiers have told how they were followed in the German towns by great troops of stolid, wide-eyed German children who could not seem to decide in their minds just what sort of being these Negro fighters were. The curiosity of the children no doubt was inspired by stories told among their elders of the ferocity of these men. The Associated Press has related a conversation with a discharged German soldier in Rengsdorf, in which it is stated that the German army early in the war offered a reward for the capture alive of each Negro. The soldier said that throughout the war the Germans lived in great terror of the Negroes, and it was to overcome this fear that rewards were offered.