With all the hardships the experience gained in camp more than repaid the thousands of Negro soldiers, who had come from all classes and included the country lad, who had been denied educational advantages, as well as the college youth. The progress of many men from day to day was an inspiration. Thousands who on entering camp had a shambling gait soon displayed a firm step and erect carriage. The blank expression seen on many faces gave way to one of animation and enthusiasm, not only for the training but also for the victory of the cause in which they were enlisted. The crudest material, under efficient guidance, developed into the capable soldier, all because these men, like thousands of others, in France as well as in America, were giving their very lives to the country to which all owed so much. CHAPTER III THE NEGRO OFFICER The Plattsburg idea of military training was inaugurated in 1915, when Maj. Gen. Leonard Wood organized a special training camp for civilians. The purpose of the camp was to offer four weeks of intensive training under the direct supervision of officers of the United States Army, and it was intended that this should be of such thoroughness that the men receiving it would be able to serve as officers in an emergency, as was afterwards done by a large number of Plattsburg men who served under General Pershing in the course of the trouble with Mexico. Colored men were not given an opportunity to attend the Plattsburg camps. There was, consequently, no way in which any considerable number of them could secure the training necessary to enable them, in an emergency, to serve as officers. In order to meet this exigency, many Negroes and their friends endeavored to secure the establishment of a training camp for colored officers, although at first the idea of a separate camp was not popular. In the winter of 1917, however, Major General Wood agreed to organize the camp if two hundred colored men would signify their intention of attending; and in this period of uncertainty and anxiety, friends of the movement started a campaign with the hope of creating sufficient interest to warrant the establishment of the camp.