I arrived at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (USA) in August 1971, from the Republic of Korea, where I served a 18 month tour with the United States Army. I arrived at my new military station, with a footlocker full of Masonic books, reflecting my love of the literature of the Craft. In those more than a hundred books, which I carried with me was nothing on Prince Hall Freemasonry, which was always a great frustration to me, there was actually so little on the subject at that time.
One of the books that impressed me greatly, being a military career person, was “Sword and Trowel: The Story of Traveling and Military Lodges” co-authored by John Black Vrooman and Allen E. Roberts. [1]
In the book there was a facsimile of the charter of Phoenix Lodge No. 1 with the caption “Warrant granted by “Compact Grand Lodge” of New York for a Negro Military Lodge during the Civil War.”[2] According io the charter was issued in 1864 in response to a petition from the members of the “29th U. S. Colored Troops, but the authors point out:[3]
