Charles Baltimore was born in Pennsylvania in 1893. He was originally from Franklin County. He was the son of Armistead and Annie Baltimore. After his enlistment he was assigned to I Company, 3rd Battalion. He was one of the younger NCOs in the battalion, and he was highly regarded by his superiors and popular with his fellow soldiers. At court-martial (US vs. Nesbit), his battalion officers testified that he had a character rating of “excellent,” and that just before the incident he was recommended for the officer training school for African American soldiers recently opened at Camp Des Moines, Iowa. Along with all the other NCO defendants in that court-martial he was a veteran of the Punitive Expedition into Mexico in 1916.

On the afternoon of 23 August 1917, Baltimore was on duty as one of the battalion’s provosts, or military policemen. He learned that two Houston police officers, Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniels, had arrested Private Alonzo Edwards earlier that day. When Baltimore located the two policemen at about 2:00 that afternoon, he asked them what they had done with Edwards. Sparks took affront at the idea that a black soldier would question him, even one in the role of a military provost. He later claimed that Baltimore was “insolent” and used offensive language, but his partner Daniels said he never heard Baltimore say any such thing. Sparks struck Baltimore over the head with his pistol and the corporal ran. Sparks fired three shots at him, chased him into a house, and then struck him again when he placed him under arrest.

The initial word that reached the battalion camp was that Baltimore was killed. When the correct version of events was learned, the adjutant, Captain Haig Shekerjian, went to the police station to retrieve him. (Shekerjian testified at trial that when he retrieved Baltimore from the police station, the corporal was wearing the official arm brassard of a military provost, so Sparks and Daniels would have had no doubt that he was on duty as a military policeman.) On their return, the battalion commander showed the bloodied corporal to the company first sergeants and instructed them to tell their soldiers that Baltimore was alive and that the policeman who injured him would be dealt with by the civil authorities. From later testimony, it is clear that this message was not conveyed throughout the battalion as quickly as the story of the police abuse of Baltimore had spread earlier in the day.

When chaos erupted in the camp later that evening, Baltimore joined his company when Sergeant Vida Henry formed them up to march out of camp to meet a mob rumored to be approaching. Numerous witnesses testified that Baltimore and two other corporals, James Wheatley and Jesse Moore, were positioned at the rear of the column as rear guards, which was standard infantry tactical doctrine for a unit moving to contact. No evidence was ever produced that Baltimore fired his weapon in any of the incidents of violence that night; what is certain is that he did not obey Sergeant Henry’s alleged orders to shoot any man who fell out of the column, because dozens of men left the formation unhindered as it became apparent that there was no mob for them to fight. Private Peacock testified at trial that when the column halted at the railroad tracks after they left camp, Baltimore tried to convince Sergeant Henry to return to camp.

A few days after the Houston incident Baltimore made a sworn statement to Brigadier General Samuel Chamberlain, the Army Inspector General, in which he described his altercation with the two Houston policemen. He freely admitted to leaving camp with the column under Henry’s orders, but insisted he did not engage in the violence that occurred at different points along the march.10 He did not take the stand during the court-martial that November.

Along with Sergeant Nesbit and every other NCO among the original group of 63 defendants, Baltimore was sentenced to death. The condemned men were informed of their impending execution the day before they were to be hanged. After they were sequestered in the cavalry barracks on Fort Sam Houston for their last night, several of them wrote final letters to their families. Baltimore wrote to his brother Frederick back in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania:

Dear Brother:

I write you for the last time in this world. I am to be executed tomorrow morning. I know this is shocking news, but don’t worry too much, as it is God’s will. Meet me in heaven. I was convicted in the general court-martial held here last month; was tried for mutiny and murder. It is true I went downtown with the men that marched out of camp. But I am innocent of shedding any blood. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. I am going to meet father and mother and all the rest of the family gone before. Good-by; meet me in heaven. Your brother, Charles Baltimore.