 began again throwing hand grenades and exploding them in their midst," Hayward wrote, according to the Congressional Record. " ... The Germans, doubtless thinking it was a host instead of two brave colored boys fighting like tigers at bay, picked up their dead and wounded and slunk away."
Schumer's office will also submit Roberts' eyewitness account of the incident, contained in a 1933 pamphlet found in the collection of the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar in Richmond, Va.
Johnson -- who later became a sergeant -- was awarded one of France's highest military honors, the Croix de Guerre with Gold Palm, for his bravery. He was the first American to receive the medal.
But appropriate recognition from his own nation has been much slower in coming. Though he was wounded 21 times in 1918, Johnson did not even receive the Purple Heart, a combat decoration given to soldiers wounded by the enemy or posthumously to their family, until 1997.
In 2003, Johnson was posthumously honored with the Distinguished Service Cross, the second-highest military honor, after a 30-year effort that drew Schumer's support.
For years, Johnson's son worked to get the Medal of Honor for his father. Herman Johnson, a member of the illustrious Tuskegee Airmen in World War II who became a Missouri state legislator, came to Albany in 2003 to see his father honored with the Distinguished Service Cross. "I am amazed at the respect the people of Albany had for him," Herman Johnson said at the time. He died in 2004 at age 87.
After World War I, Henry Johnson was hailed as a hero, and a ticker-tape parade was held in his honor in New York City. But he died poor and forgotten at age 32, estranged from his wife and three children.
He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
The Medal of Honor is intended for those who show "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States."
Reach Seiler at 454-5619 or firstname.lastname@example.org.