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An acrimonious civilian-military conflict reached into the halls of Congress and the White House when residents of Brownsville, Texas accused the First Battalion, 25th Infantry, of attacking the town from Fort Brown around midnight on August 12, 1906, claiming the life of one townsman and injuring two others.
The disputed episode took place against the background of deteriorating racial relations in the state and region, an enhanced selfconfidence of black soldiers following heroic achievements in the SpanishAmerican War and the Philippine insurrection, and the economic decline of the South Texas town bordering the Rio Grande. Texas, like other southern states, was tightening segregation at the turn of the century. Brownsville, bypassed when rail joined San Antonio to Laredo, Texas in the late nineteenth century, failed to recover the prosperity the Civil War had inspired.
Companies B, C, and D, previously stationed at Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, drew the wrath of some Brownsvillians even before their arrival on July 28, replacing the white 26th Infantry. Complainants wired Washington of their disapproval of black troops as had other Texas garrison towns in previous years. Since 1899, expressed hostility had led to physical confrontations at Laredo, Rio Grande City, and El Paso. Threats from white Texas National Guardsmen prompted the military command to cancel the participation of the regiment in maneuvers at Camp Mabry, Austin. Federal officials, ironically, exacerbated matters. Inspector of customs Fred Tate pistol-whipped Pvt. James W Newton for supposedly jostling Tate's wife and another white woman on a sidewalk. Another customs officer, A. Y. Baker, pushed Pvt. Oscar W Reed, whom he accused of drunkenness and boisterous behavior, into the river. Soldiers complained of racial insults directed to them in the streets.
On the evening of August 12, Mrs. Lon Evans stated that a uniformed black man had thrown her to the ground before he fled into the darkness. Mayor Frederick J. Combe met with post commander Maj. Charles W Penrose to defuse the potentially explosive situation. The major imposed an eight o'clock curfew on his men, which appeared successful until shots rang out about twelve a.m. near the wall separating the fort from the town. Various residents testified to having seen a shadowy group of from nine to twenty persons charging through an alley...