By the early 1920s, Johnson was struggling. The foot injury that prevented him from returning to redcap work had not healed in ways that allowed him to find other steady employment. He had no disability compensation because his discharge papers recorded no wounds. The gap between what the Army owed him and what it was providing was not abstract; it was the difference between managing and not managing.
## The 93rd Division and Its Dispersal
The 369th was part of the 93rd Infantry Division, one of two all-Black divisions organized by the American Army during the First World War. The other was the 92nd Infantry Division, which fought under American command in France.
The 93rd Division was different from the 92nd in a specific way: it was never assembled as a complete division in the field. Its four regiments — the 369th, 370th, 371st, and 372nd — were all attached to French forces and fought under French command for most or all of their combat service. The 93rd existed as an administrative entity but not as a tactical formation; its regiments fought as parts of French divisions rather than as a coherent American division.
The 92nd Division, by contrast, fought under American command. Its combat record was mixed, partly because of the inadequate support and leadership that characterized the Army’s treatment of Black units under American command, and partly because it was assigned to difficult sectors with inadequate preparation. The contrast between the 93rd’s regiments under French command — treated as soldiers, given front-line duties, decorated for their performance — and the 92nd’s experience under American command was noted at the time and has been analyzed in subsequent historical accounts of Black soldiers in the First World War.