Army Honors Chaplain Kicked Out in 1894

The Army formally overturned the 1894 dishonorable discharge of its first black chaplain, presenting his great-grandchildren with a tightly folded American flag during a ceremony in Landover.

Henry Vinton Plummer, who died in 1905, struggled for years to overturn the dishonorable discharge and court-martial he received for allegedly drinking with enlisted men and swearing in front of a woman. He wrote a torrent of letters seeking reinstatement. He even offered to serve in the Spanish American War to make amends.

Last year, Plummer’s descendants took up the cause, petitioning the Army to reopen the case.

They claimed the discharge and court-martial were made on little evidence by an all-white judicial panel that convicted him because of his race. The Army Board for Correction of Military Records agreed to the honorable discharge.