When the United States entered World War I on April 6, 1917, the nation mobilized rapidly for a conflict already reshaping Europe. Among the Americans who volunteered for service was Henry Johnson, a young laborer from New York whose brief life would include one of the most remarkable acts of battlefield courage of the war—an act that went largely unrecognized at home for decades.
Johnson was born around July 15, 1892, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His early years were marked by the whims of available work, and like many Americans of his generation, he moved north in search of opportunity. By his early 20s, he had settled in Albany, New York, where he supported himself through a succession of physically demanding jobs, including employment as a chauffeur, a coal yard laborer, and eventually a redcap porter at Union Station. It was there, amid the constant movement of people and trains, that Johnson encountered a nation preparing for war.
