In November 1906 Mary Church Terrell, a civil rights advocate and representative of the Constitution League, an interracial civil rights organization founded by John E. Milholland, met with Secretary of War William Howard Taft to discuss the Brownsville affair. She asked Taft to suspend the soldiers’ dismissal and for a rehearing of the case. The League conducted its own investigation, which led to Senate hearings. Only fourteen soldiers were exonerated out of one-hundred and sixty seven. Sergeant Sanders, the first sergeant of Company B of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry and the recipient of this letter, was dismissed with twenty-five years of service, eighteen months short of retirement with a pension. In 1972 the army conducted a new investigation and the order of 1906 was reversed. Dorsie Willis, the only surviving soldier, received some compensation.