Friday Event in Sandy Springs to Celebrate Freddie Stowers

Observer Reports

A ceremony to rededicate the marker honoring Anderson Native Cpl. Freddie Stowers, the only Afrrican American Soldier to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor, is scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m. at SandySprings Community Park. A statue of WWI hero Cpl Freddie Stowers on the campus of Anderson University.

The event marks the Centenniel Celebration of Stowers death on Sept. 28, 1918. The marker has been repaired after being vandalized. 

Anderson County Councilman Tom Allen, a retired army colonel and Vietnam veteran, and who has lectured on Stowers in the past, will deliver the remarks at the dedication. The public is invited.

Early on the morning of September 28, 1918, Stowers' company was ordered to assault Côte 188, a tall, heavily defended hill overlooking a farm near Ardeuil-et-Montfauxelles, in the Ardennes region of France. At first, the German defenders offered stiff resistance, bombarding the Americans with mortars, raking them with machine guns and keeping up steady rifle fire. The advance was not halted, however; with the Americans steadily gaining ground, and the Germans communicated their surrender with verbal and hand signals. This however proved to be a ruse, and as Company C drew near the German trenches, the machine guns opened up again. Within minutes, the company's strength was reduced by half. The lieutenant commanding Stowers' platoon went down, followed by the more senior noncommissioned officers. Corporal Stowers, trained to lead a section of a rifle squad, was now in command of a battered and demoralized platoon.

Stowers began crawling toward a German machine gun nest and shouted for his men to follow. The platoon successfully reached the first German trench line and reduced the machine guns by enfilade fire. Stowers then reorganized his force and led a charge against the second German line of trenches. During this assault, Stowers was struck by an enemy machine gun, but kept going until he was struck a second time. He collapsed from loss of blood, but ordered his men not to be discouraged and to keep going and take out the German guns. Inspired by Stowers' courage, the men forged ahead and successfully drove the Germans from the hill and into the plain below. Stowers, meanwhile, succumbed to his wounds on Côte 188. He is buried, along with 133 of his comrades, at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial east of the village of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon.

Shortly after his death, Stowers was recommended for the Medal of Honor; however, this recommendation was never processed. Three other black soldiers were recommended for Medals of Honor, but were instead awarded the next highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross. This decision may have partly been motivated by racism; however, the criteria for the Medal of Honor were becoming stricter during this time period, partly due to a perception that it was being awarded too frequently. In Stowers' case, the official position is that his recommendation was "misplaced," which is plausible given that the other three MOH recommendations for black soldiers were at least processed, even if the decision to award the DSC remains controversial and possibly racism-related.

In 1990, at the instigation of Congress, the Department of the Army conducted a review and the Stowers recommendation was uncovered. Subsequently, a team was dispatched to France to investigate the circumstances of Stowers' death. Based on information collected by this team, the Army Decorations Board approved the award of the Medal of Honor. On April 24, 1991 — seventy-three years after he was killed-in-action, Stowers' surviving sisters, Georgina and Mary, received the medal from President George H.W. Bush at the White House.