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Century-Old Disservice Gets Honorable Revision
Black Army Chaplain's Discharge Ruled Unfair

By Eric Rich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 10, 2005; Page B01

The offense that led the Army to dishonorably discharge Henry Vinton Plummer seems trivial now. At a desolate post on the Nebraska plains, Plummer, an officer, violated regulations by fraternizing with enlisted men.

But the year was 1894, and Plummer, a chaplain, was black, a former Maryland slave ostracized by his fellow cavalry officers, all of them white. After he sought the only companionship available to him, socializing one evening with a group of black soldiers, his superiors accused him of conduct unbecoming an officer, then convened a court-martial and drummed him out of the military.