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SGT. RAWHIDE

What is being remembered

A Monument to the 371st Infantry Regiment

A regiment of Black South Carolinians who fought under French command in 1918. One monument to them stands in a French field, raised by the men who survived. A second is approved for Fort Jackson, where the regiment was formed. This page is about both, and about how to help the second one get built.

The regiment on the stone

The 371st Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, in 1917 and fought under French command in the Champagne offensive of 1918, capturing Côte 188. Sergeant Perry Loyd of the 371st was wounded in action on September 29, 1918, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, and survived.

On that ground, in a field near Ardeuil-et-Montfauxelles, stands a monument to the regiment. Its inscription names five places.

See the full record

The 371st Infantry Regiment was organized at Camp Jackson, South Carolina, on August 31, 1917. In France it was attached to the French 157th Division and fought under French command, with French weapons and helmets. In the Champagne offensive of September 28 to October 6, 1918, it captured Côte 188 and the ground around it.

Emmett J. Scott’s 1919 official history records the regiment’s losses in that fighting as 1,065 out of 2,384 actually engaged. Scott does not divide the figure into killed, wounded, missing or captured, and neither does this site.

Five places on the inscription

The stone names the ground where the regiment fought between September 28 and October 6, 1918. Open a name to see what the record says about it.

“Dedicated to the Memory of members of the 371st. R.I. U.S. who fell at Cote 188, Bussy Ferme, Ardeuil, Montfauxelle, and Trieres Ferme September 28 - October 6 1918 erected by their surviving comrades”
The inscription, as transcribed by the U.S. War Memorials register (opens in a new tab, leaves the Sergeant Rawhide site). No source gives the year the stone was erected.

One question

A question: Who put up the monument in France?

Reveal the answer

The answer

The regiment’s own surviving comrades.

The inscription ends "erected by their surviving comrades": the men who came home raised a stone for the men who did not. No source gives the year. In November 2025, Stars and Stripes photographed it in a field near Ardeuil-et-Montfauxelles and reported it neglected. A second memorial is now planned in South Carolina, at the post where the regiment was formed.

Source: U.S. War Memorials register (uswarmemorials.org), "371st Infantry Regiment Monument" (opens in a new tab, leaves the Sergeant Rawhide site)

See who is building the next one

Who is building it

The 371st Infantry Regiment WWI Memorial Monument Association

An independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Orangeburg, South Carolina (EIN 82-5175669, IRS-recognized since February 2019), is raising funds for a memorial to the regiment at Centennial Park, Fort Jackson.

For questions about the project: (803) 479-8343 and 371stMonument@gmail.com, or 371stMonument.org (opens in a new tab, leaves the Sergeant Rawhide site).

See the full record

An independent nonprofit in Orangeburg, South Carolina, is raising the funds to place a permanent memorial to the regiment. It is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization (EIN 82-5175669), recognized by the IRS since February 2019. Its mission is to fund and place a monument memorializing the service and sacrifice of the 371st Infantry Regiment in World War I.

The monument has been approved for placement at Centennial Park at Fort Jackson, South Carolina: the same post, then called Camp Jackson, where the regiment was organized in 1917 and demobilized in 1919.

The Association is run by its own board and volunteers.

This page describes only what the Association states on its own website and what ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer, built from IRS filings, confirms. Last verified September 18, 2026.

How to support it

Give on the Association’s own site

In the Association’s own words, from its donate page: “We are a 501(c)(3) organization and 100% of your tax-exempt donations will go towards funding the costs associated with building, preparing and placement of the monument.”

Donate at 371stMonument.org (opens in a new tab, leaves the Sergeant Rawhide site)

Goes to 371stmonument.org, the Association’s own donation page.

Sergeant Rawhide and the Monument Association are separate organizations. This site takes no donations of any kind. Every gift goes directly to the Association.

Why this matters

Sergeant Rawhide is a separate project from the Monument Association: a book, a research and presentation effort, and this website, built by author Perry W. James IV. It is not the Association, does not speak for it, and does not collect money on its behalf. This site takes no donations of its own. A gift made on the Association’s site is the one that counts as the tax-deductible contribution its 501(c)(3) status makes possible.

How we tell this story

  • Every date, number, and name here is tied to a cited source, listed on the page that states it.
  • What the family remembers is marked as the family’s. Where records disagree, we say so and name both.
  • When stronger evidence appears, the page is corrected. Nothing is invented to fill a gap.

Sources

Continue the story

How the 371st is honored today

The regiment is remembered in stone. See how it is remembered in public: what South Carolina has put on the record, what is only reported, and what has already happened.

See the Honor Parade and events