The French recognition was immediate and specific. The American recognition was neither.
## The 369th’s Wider War
While the specific action at Outpost 20 on May 15, 1918, is the focal point of Henry Johnson’s story, the broader context of the 369th Infantry’s service in France gives it additional meaning.
The regiment spent 191 days in front-line combat — by the military.com account, more than any other American unit in the First World War. The figure is striking: 191 days is more than six months of continuous front-line exposure, in a war where the front line meant daily artillery, gas attacks, snipers, and the specific violence of trench warfare.
The 369th fought in the Second Battle of the Marne in the summer of 1918, the engagement that turned the tide of the German spring offensive and began the Allied counteroffensive that ended the war. It was reassigned from the French 16th Division to the French 161st Division for this phase of the fighting. The regiment fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, one of the largest American military operations in history — though the 369th fought it as a French-attached unit rather than an American one.
On September 29, 1918, the 369th captured the town of Séchault in fighting that cost the regiment heavily. The entire regiment was later awarded the Croix de Guerre for this collective action — one of the rare instances in the war of a whole unit receiving the award.
Colonel Hayward — the regiment’s commander, a white officer who had advocated for his men against institutional resistance throughout the war — led the first American unit to reach the Rhine River after the armistice. It was a 369th achievement, though not widely celebrated in the American press that might have been expected to emphasize an American first.