In the U.S. Army, “moral courage” is a trait expected of every officer, but not consistently demonstrated when the chips are truly down.
Moral courage is when a person sees something wrong and does more than say to themselves, “This isn’t right.” They do something. Mere hand-wringing also does not count. Moral courage is important in all things, because, as a wise first sergeant once told me, “When you walk by something that ain’t right and don’t say anything, then that becomes the new standard.”
This was the case with Capt. Elbridge Colby, who put his career on the line for principle. He saw something that was wrong and did something about it.
Preordained Verdict
In July 1926, an article headlined “Justice in Georgia” appeared in The Nation magazine, describing the shooting of an African American man in Americus, Georgia, and the subsequent trial of the white killer. The essay went beyond description and decried the injustice of the not guilty verdict delivered by an all-white jury. It concluded with a question that answered itself: “The verdict? Is there any question that an attack upon a Negro soldier would result—in such a court and in such a community and in such a State—in anything but an acquittal?”
An article of this sort was not unusual, then or now, for that matter, in the pages of The Nation. Abolitionists founded The Nation after the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. It has long earned a reputation as a leading voice of the American left and progressives.
What was unusual about “Justice in Georgia,” and its placement in The Nation, was the fact that it was written by a serving U.S. Army captain. That captain, Colby, was outraged by what had happened in Americus.
WWI Volunteer
Colby had an atypical background for a military officer. Of solid Yankee stock, he was raised in New York City. After graduating from public schools, Colby attended Columbia University, eventually earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English literature and history, and was named to membership in Phi Beta Kappa.
In 1915, Colby volunteered for duty as an ambulance driver in the Balkans during World War I. Colby saw service in the Great War, not in the trenches as he wished, but guarding the Panama Canal. He left the Army in 1919 and earned his Columbia doctorate in philosophy in 1922. He was by this time married to Margaret Mary Egan with a 2-year-old son, William. Money was tight.
The Colbys’ meager means required them to live with his wife’s parents as he resumed his teaching duties at the University of Minnesota after their return from Panama. William Colby later recalled that his father “became anxious about his ability, as a struggling writer and underpaid teacher, to support his family of my mother and myself.”
Elbridge Colby abruptly came upon a cure for his anxiety. At the age of 29, he rejoined the Army. He later told one of his grandsons about his decision: “I went into the Army to keep the family decent.”
Failure to Yield
In 1925, Capt. Colby was what would now be called the public affairs officer at Fort Benning, Georgia, now known as Fort Moore. The post was the home of the U.S. Army Infantry School and the 24th Infantry Regiment (Colored).
The 24th Infantry was one of four Black regiments in the Army. The officers in these regiments were almost all white.
September 1925 found a detachment from Company K of the regiment temporarily stationed in Americus, some 50 miles from Fort Benning. The soldiers were there to unearth and transport iron pipe back to the installation to replace its rotting wooden water mains.
Americus was deep in the heart of the former Confederacy, and that conflict still pervaded the consciousness of its white citizens. The depths of segregation and racism that pervaded the South in the 1920s through the transformative 1960s were palpable.
These were times when African Americans were expected to show absolute deference to their white superiors. As Timothy Tyson wrote in his 2017 book, The Blood of Emmett Till:
Black people were expected to say “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir” when talking with white people, even whites younger than themselves. Blacks were “actin’ up” or “weren’t ‘in their place’ ” if “they didn’t step aside when someone white passed them on the sidewalk. They better not look any white person in the eye, either. That’d get them punched.”
This sidewalk imperative was what Pvt. Smith of Company K violated on the first day of September 1925, when he refused to give way to E.J. Fulbright, a white lumberyard night watchman. Smith, whose first name was not given in the article, was from Montclair, New Jersey. He likely did not know—or much care—about the potentially deadly consequences of not yielding way to any white man. He was, after all, a soldier wearing the uniform of the U.S. Army.
Fulbright did not punch Smith. He shot him dead.
Colby and other officers, including legal advisers and Smith’s commanders, attended the subsequent trial of Smith’s shooter in uniform.
Nonetheless, given the realities of being a Black man in Georgia in the 1920s, it is not surprising that Fulbright walked out of the courtroom a free man.
Unvetted Article
Colby was incensed by Smith’s murder and wrote an appeal in the Fort Benning newspaper, “calling upon all soldiers, black and white, to declare support for their wronged comrade.” That was likely pushing the limit, but acceptable in the Army family. In the Army’s eyes, Smith was a soldier first and a Black man second.
Where Colby crossed the line is when he did something that Army officers did not do. He wrote an article for a civilian publication without getting it officially vetted, as required of Army officers then and now, before submitting the piece.
In the article in The Nation, Colby stated his belief that the not guilty verdict handed down by a jury of Fulbright’s peers was preordained. Even a soldier—if that soldier was Black—was not immune from murder in the streets if he offended a white man in the slightest.
“Justice in Georgia” was, to say the least, not well received by the citizens of Americus. On July 23, 1926, “Americus Residents Take Arms Against Charges by Soldier” appeared in the pages of Georgia’s The Macon Telegraph. Colby’s conduct was deemed unbecoming, and his remarks not only disparaging of the fine citizens of Americus, but in error.
The newspaper also noted that a grassroots effort, led by Lovelace Eve, editor of the Americus Times-Recorder, was pushing to have Colby dismissed from the Army or make him “prove alleged slanderous statements reflecting upon the courts and civil officers of Sumter County.” Furthermore, U.S. Sens. Walter George and William Harris were being asked to put their good offices behind the efforts to get Colby kicked out of the Army.
Fierce Responses
Although the Black press and the NAACP came to Colby’s defense, the furor from the white press and the Georgia congressional delegation was intense. The Army had to do something.
On Sept. 27, 1926, Colby received a letter that was filed in his official record in Washington, D.C. It informed him of two actions, one of which was ironic, while the other was injurious.
First, Colby was reassigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment. Ironic or not, it can be supposed that this transfer was viewed by Colby’s superiors as a demotion, given that his replacement on the post staff was a captain from the regiment. Colby’s reaction to the assignment is lost to history, although Randall Woods in his 2013 book, Shadow Warrior: Willam Egan Colby and the CIA, wrote, “the idealistic young officer hardly viewed his assignment as punishment.”
The consequences of the second Army action remain the stuff of Colby family lore. To this day, they believe about their forbear what son William Colby recalled in his 1978 memoir, written with Peter Forbath, Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA: “the incident haunted his career for years.”
Army Admonishment
The Sept. 27 letter also officially admonished Colby for his article in The Nation.
Fortunately, Colby’s letter of admonition was a speed bump, not a dead end, in what would by all accounts be a successful Army career. Colby continued to serve with distinction until his retirement in 1948 as a colonel after a 31-year career. He served in China and various U.S. postings, and on the staff of U.S. First Army in Europe during World War II. His final Army assignment was with the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C.
Colby was that military officer who was both a scholar and a soldier. He wrote numerous articles, reviews and books, including The Profession of Arms; Masters of Mobile Warfare; English Catholic Poets, Chaucer to Dryden; and Theodore Winthrop. His writings were influential at the time, helping shape U.S. military thinking on the emerging theories about air power and total war between the two world wars.
A life truly well-lived.
Colby was 34 when he wrote “Justice in Georgia.” He was a mature, sober, highly educated and thoughtful man who had the strength of his convictions. I have no doubt that Colby knew exactly what he was doing as well as the likely consequences of his article. He knew the rules and still took action.
Taking a Stand
Colby’s “Justice in Georgia” is an instance of a safe white man taking a stand and risking his career to make more citizens like himself aware of what “justice” meant for a Black man in the South.
Colby was a good man who did something. He was that rare person with no personal stake in an issue who had the moral courage to knowingly put a promising career at risk to take a public stand against what he believed was wrong. The great irony of Colby’s life is that what was a letter of rebuke could now be considered a badge of honor.
I only hope that others have the strength to follow his example now, and in the future, in our own trying times. The world desperately needs more people like Colby.
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Col. David Johnson, U.S. Army retired, was a principal researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan Rand Corp. and an adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point, New York. From 2012 to 2014, he founded and directed the Chief of Staff of the Army Strategic Studies Group for Gen. Raymond Odierno. Johnson drafted this piece before he died in October 2022. His wife, Wendy Frieman, with help from several friends and colleagues, completed it.
