"The attitude of the Negro was one of complete acceptance of the draft, in fact of an eagerness to accept its terms. There was a deep resentment in many quarters that he was not permitted to volunteer, as white men by the thousands were permitted to do in connection with National Guard units and other branches of military service which were closed to colored men. One of the brightest chapters in the whole history of the war is the Negro's eager acceptance of the draft and his splendid willingness to fight. His only resentment was due to the limited extent to which he was allowed to join and participate in combatant or 'fighting' units. The number of colored draftees accepted for military duty, and the comparatively small number of them claiming exemptions, as compared with the total number of white and colored men called and drafted, presents an interesting study and reflects much credit upon this racial group." Over 1,200 Negro officers, many of them college graduates, were commissioned during the war. The only training camp exclusively for Negro officers was at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. This camp ran from June 15, 1917, to October 15, 1917. A total of 638 officers was graduated and commissioned from the camp. Negro Regulars and Negro National Army men who had passed the tests for admission to officers training camps were sent mainly to the training schools for machine gun officers at Camp Hancock, Augusta, Georgia; the infantry officers training school at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas, and the artillery officers training school at Camp Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky. They were trained along with the white officers. The graduates from these camps along with a few National Guardsmen who had taken the officers' examinations, and others trained in France, made up the balance of the 1,200 commissioned. In connection with the artillery training an interesting fact developed. It had been charged that Negroes could not develop into artilleryman. A strong prejudice against inducting them into that branch of the service had always existed in the army. It was especially affirmed that the Negro did not possess the mathematical ability necessary to qualify as an expert artillery officer. Nevertheless, out of a number of Negro aspirants, very small in comparison with the white men in training for officers' commissions at the camp, five of the Negroes stood alongside their white brothers at the head of the class. The remainder were sprinkled down the line about in the same proportion and occupying the same relative positions as the whites. The prejudice against the Negro as an artilleryman was further and effectually dispelled in the record made by the 349th, 350th and 351st artillery regiments and their machine gun battalions in the 92nd division.