Freddie Stowers (January 12, 1896 – September 28, 1918) was an African-American corporal in the United States Army who was killed in action during World War I while serving in an American unit under French command. Over 70 years later, he posthumously received the Medal of Honor and Purple Heart for his actions. Early life and induction into the Army Stowers was born in Sandy Springs, South Carolina, the grandson of an enslaved person. Before the war, he worked as a farmhand. He married a woman named Pearl, with whom he had one daughter, Minnie Lee. Stowers was drafted into the Army in 1917, and assigned to Company C, 1st Battalion of the segregated U.S. 371st Infantry Regiment, originally part of the 93d Infantry Division (Colored). While the United States had established permanent African-American military units in 1866, these did not participate in the American Expeditionary Force; a peacetime role as frontier police and cavalry experts was gradually devolving into labor duties, the fate of many black troops in the world wars, despite the protests of some officers and organizations like the NAACP. Some of these "Buffalo Soldiers", as they were nicknamed, did participate in a border skirmish with Mexican troops accompanied by German military advisors near Nogales. By contrast, Stowers was part of a new division that, by the end of the war, included a commissioned African-American officer, and saw sustained combat. Due to compromises with the institutionalized racism of the day, this combat did not take place under American command: although his unit had arrived in France as part of the American Expeditionary Force, Stowers' regiment, like the others in the division, was seconded to the 157th French Army "Red Hand Division", badly in need of reinforcement, under the command of the General Mariano Goybet. The assault on Côte 188 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: the Americans steadily gained ground until the Germans communicated their surrender with verbal and hand signals. This proved to be a ruse, and as Company C drew near the German trenches, the machine guns opened up