Morris Dabney Link

Corporal Morris Dabney Link was killed in action on July 15, 1918 in the Second Battle of the Marne in France during World War I.  He was 35 years old.

Morris Dabney Link was born on August 24, 1882 in  Kittrell, Vance County, North Carolina, the son of Moses Link and Louisa Link. By 1910, he and his wife Elizabeth were living in Mount Vernon, New York where he was employed as a teamster, or driver of teams of horses transporting goods. The couple had no children.

Cpl Link was one of the earliest volunteers into the 369th Infantry which became famous as "The Harlem Hellfighters".  The infantry regiment was raised in upper Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood, a center of the city's African American community. Black recruits from other parts of metropolitan New York, including Link, also joined. The regiment entered Federal service July 25, 1917, only three months after the United States entered the Great War.

The 369th Infantry was the first regiment of the 93d Division to reach France. They arrived in the port city of Brest in December 1917. On March 10, after three months of duty with the Services of Supply (performing the non-combat support services to which African-American soldiers were almost completely restricted in the U.S. Army), the 369th received orders to join the French 16th Division in a combat role. After three weeks the regiment was sent to the front lines in a region just west of the Argonne Forest. For nearly a month they held their position against German assaults; and, after only a brief break from the front, the 369th was placed once again in the middle of the German offensive.

Early on the morning of July 15, 1918, the 369th came under heavy artillery bombardment, part of the Second Battle of the Marne, as the French struggled to hold off a German offensive. The shells fell with particular ferocity on the front line trenches which were held by Company K. Corporal Link was among four soldiers killed in the action. The Mt. Vernon resident was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre, the French War Cross, an honor eventually extended to the entire regiment.

Originally interred in a French military cemetery, Link's remains were returned to the United States three years later, and were brought back to Mt. Vernon for final burial. His widow Elizabeth, city officials, a military band and firing squad were part of a large crowd attending a memorial service at the Centennial A.M.E. Zion church, on October 12, 1921. Burial followed in the City section of the St. Paul's cemetery, Link's final resting place, where his grave is memorialized through a veterans' stone.

Last edited: 31 May 2026