History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest Part 3

Aye! speechless are those swarthy sons, Save for the clamor of the guns-- Their only battle-cry!

The lowly stain upon each face, The taunt still fresh of prouder race, But speeds the step that springs a pace, To succor or to die!

With rifles hot--to waist-band nude; The brawn beside the pampered dude; The cowboy king--one grave--and rude-- To shelter him who falls!

One breast--and bare,--howe'er begot, The low, the high--one common lot: The world's distinction all forgot When Freedom's bugle calls!

No faltering step, no fitful start; None seeking less than all his part; One watchward springing from each heart,-- Yet on, and onward still!

The sullen sound of tramp and tread; Abe Lincoln's flag still overhead; They followed where the angels led The way, up San Juan Hill!

And where the life stream ebbs and flows, And stains the track of trenchant blows That met no meaner steel, The bated breath--the battle yell-- The turf in slippery crimson, tell Where Castile's proudest colors fell With wounds that never heal!

Where every trooper found a wreath Of glory for his sabre sheath; And earned the laurels well; With feet to field and face to foe, In lines of battle lying low, The sable soldiers fell!

And where the black and brawny breast Gave up its all--life's richest, best, To find the tomb's eternal rest A dream of freedom still!

A groundless creed was swept away, With brand of "coward "--a time-worn say-- And he blazed the path a better way Up the side of San Juan Hill!

For black or white, on the scroll of fame, The blood of the hero dyes the same; And ever, ever will!

Sleep, trooper, sleep; thy sable brow, Amid the living laurel now, Is wound in wreaths of fame!

Nor need the graven granite stone, To tell of garlands all thine own-- To hold a soldier's name!

[In the city of New Orleans, in 1866, two thousand two hundred and sixty-six ex-slaves were recruited for the service. None but the largest and blackest Negroes were accepted. From these were formed the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry, and the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry. All four are famous fighting regiments, yet the two cavalry commands have earned the proudest distinction. While the record of the Ninth Cavalry, better known as the "n.i.g.g.e.r Ninth," in its thirty-two years of service in the Indian wars, in the military history of the border, stands without a peer; and is, without exception, the most famous fighting regiment in the United States service.]--Author.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLONEL THEODORE B. ROOSEVELT.]

CHAPTER IV.

COLONEL THEODORE B. ROOSEVELT, NOW GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK, WHO LED THE ROUGH RIDERS, TELLS OF THE BRAVERY OF NEGRO SOLDIERS.

When Colonel Theodore Roosevelt returned from the command of the famous Rough Riders, he delivered a farewell address to his men, in which he made the following kind reference to the gallant Negro soldiers:

"Now, I want to say just a word more to some of the men I see standing around not of your number. I refer to the colored regiments, who occupied the right and left flanks of us at Guasimas, the Ninth and Tenth cavalry regiments. The Spaniards called them 'Smoked Yankees,'

but we found them to be an excellent breed of Yankees. I am sure that I speak the sentiments of officers and men in the a.s.semblage when I say that between you and the other cavalry regiments there exists a tie which we trust will never be broken."--_Colored American_.

The foregoing compliments to the Negro soldiers by Colonel Roosevelt started up an avalanche of additional praise for them, out of which the fact came, that but for the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry (colored) coming up at Las Guasimas, destroying the Spanish block house and driving the Spaniards off, when Roosevelt and his men had been caught in a trap, with a barbed-wire fence on one side and a precipice on the other, not only the brave Cap.r.o.n and Fish, but the whole of his command would have been annihilated by the Spanish sharp-shooters, who were firing with smokeless powder under cover, and picking off the Rough Riders one by one, who could not see the Spaniards. To break the force of this unfavorable comment on the Rough Riders, it is claimed that Colonel Roosevelt made the following criticism of the colored soldiers in general and of a few of them in particular, in an article written by him for the April Scribner; and a letter replying to the Colonel's strictures, follows by Sergeant Holliday, who was an "eye-witness" to the incident:

Colonel Roosevelt's criticism was, in substance, that colored soldiers were of no avail without white officers; that when the white commissioned officers are killed or disabled, colored non-commissioned officers could not be depended upon to keep up a charge already begun; that about a score of colored infantrymen, who had drifted into his command, weakened on the hill at San Juan under the galling Spanish fire, and started to the rear, stating that they intended finding their regiments, or to a.s.sist the wounded; whereupon he drew his revolver and ordered them to return to ranks and there remain, and that he would shoot the first man who didn't obey him; and that after that he had no further trouble.

Colonel Roosevelt is sufficiently answered in the following letter of Sergeant Holliday, and the point especially made by many eye-witnesses (white) who were engaged in that fight is, as related in Chapter V, of this book, that the Negro troops made the charges both at San Juan and El Caney after nearly all their officers had been killed or wounded.

Upon what facts, therefore, does Colonel Roosevelt base his conclusions that Negro soldiers will not fight without commissioned officers, when the only real test of this question happened around Santiago and showed just the contrary of what he states? We prefer to take the results at El Caney and San Juan as against Colonel Roosevelt's imagination.

COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S ERROR.

TRUE STORY OF THE INCIDENT HE MAGNIFIED TO OUR HURT--THE WHITE OFFICERS' HUMBUG SKINNED OF ITS HIDE BY SERGEANT HOLLIDAY--UNWRITTEN HISTORY.

_To the Editor of the New York Age_:

Having read in _The Age_ of April 13 an editorial ent.i.tled "Our Troops in Cuba," which brings to my notice for the first time a statement made by Colonel Roosevelt, which, though in some parts true, if read by those who do not know the exact facts and circ.u.mstances surrounding the case, will certainly give rise to the wrong impression of colored men as soldiers, and hurt them for many a day to come, and as I was an eye-witness to the most important incidents mentioned in that statement, I deem it a duty I owe, not only to the fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers of those soldiers, and to the soldiers themselves, but to their posterity and the race in general, to be always ready to make an unprejudiced refutation of such charges, and to do all in my power to place the colored soldier where he properly belongs--among the bravest and most trustworthy of this land.

In the beginning, I wish to say that from what I saw of Colonel Roosevelt in Cuba, and the impression his frank countenance made upon me, I cannot believe that he made that statement maliciously. I believe the Colonel thought he spoke the exact truth. But did he know, that of the four officers connected with two certain troops of the Tenth Cavalry one was killed and three were so seriously wounded as to cause them to be carried from the field, and the command of these two troops fell to the first sergeants, who led them triumphantly to the front? Does he know that both at Las Guasima and San Juan Hill the greater part of troop B, of the Tenth Cavalry, was separated from its commanding officer by accidents of battle and was led to the front by its first sergeant?

When we reached the enemy's works on San Juan Hill our organizations were very badly mixed, few company commanders having their whole companies or none of some body else's company. As it was, Capt.

Watson, my troop commander, reached the crest of the hill with about eight or ten men of his troop, all the rest having been accidentally separated from him by the thick underbrush during the advance, and being at that time, as was subsequently shown to be the firing line under some one else pushing to the front. We kept up the forward movement, and finally halted on the heights overlooking Santiago, where Colonel Roosevelt, with a very thin line had preceded us, and was holding the hill. Here Captain Watson told us to remain while he went to another part of the line to look for the rest of his troop. He did not come to that part of the field again.

The Colonel made a slight error when he said his mixed command contained some colored infantry. All the colored troops in that command were cavalry men. His command consisted mostly of Rough Riders, with an aggregate of about one troop of the Tenth Cavalry, a few of the Ninth and a few of the First Regular Cavalry, with a half dozen officers. Every few minutes brought men from the rear, everybody seeming to be anxious to get to the firing line. For a while we kept up a desultory fire, but as we could not locate the enemy (he all the time keeping up a hot fire on our position), we became disgusted, and lay down and kept silent. Private Marshall was here seriously wounded while standing in plain view of the enemy, trying to point them out to his comrades.

There were frequent calls for men to carry the wounded to the rear, to go for ammunition, and as night came on, to go for rations and entrenching tools. A few colored soldiers volunteered, as did some from the Rough Riders. It then happened that two men of the Tenth were ordered to the rear by Lieutenant Fleming, Tenth Cavalry, who was then present with part of his troop, for the purpose of bringing either rations or entrenching tools, and Colonel Roosevelt seeing so many men going to the rear, shouted to them to come back, jumped up and drew his revolver, and told the men of the Tenth that he would shoot the first man who attempted to shirk duty by going to the rear, that he had orders to hold that line and he would do so if he had to shoot every man there to do it. His own men immediately informed him that "you won't have to shoot those men, Colonel. We know those boys." He was also a.s.sured by Lieutenant Fleming, of the Tenth, that he would have no trouble keeping them there, and some of our men shouted, in which I joined, that "we will stay with you, Colonel." Everyone who saw the incident knew the Colonel was mistaken about our men trying to shirk duty, but well knew that he could not admit of any heavy detail from his command, so no one thought ill of the matter. Inasmuch as the Colonel came to the line of the Tenth the next day and told the men of his threat to shoot some of their members and, as he expressed it, he had seen his mistake and found them to be far different men from what he supposed. I thought he was sufficiently conscious of his error not to make a so ungrateful statement about us at a time when the Nation is about to forget our past service.

Had the Colonel desired to note the fact, he would have seen that when orders came the next day to relieve the detachment of the Tenth from that part of the field, he commanded just as many colored men at that time as he commanded at any other time during the twenty-four hours we were under his command, although colored as well as white soldiers were going and coming all day, and they knew perfectly well where the Tenth Cavalry was posted, and that it was on a line about four hundred yards further from the enemy than Colonel Roosevelt's line. Still when they obtained permission to go to the rear, they almost invariably came back to the same position. Two men of my troop were wounded while at the rear for water and taken to the hospital and, of course, could not come back.

Our men always made it a rule to join the nearest command when separated from our own, and those who had been so unfortunate as to lose their way altogether were, both colored and white, straggling up from the time the line was established until far into the night, showing their determination to reach the front.

In explaining the desire of our men in going back to look for their comrades, it should be stated that, from the contour of the ground, the Rough Riders were so much in advance of the Tenth Cavalry that, to reach the latter regiment from the former, one had really to go straight to the rear and then turn sharply to the right; and further, it is a well known fact, that in this country most persons of color feel out of place when they are by force compelled to mingle with white persons, especially strangers, and although we knew we were doing our duty, and would be treated well as long as we stood to the front and fought, unfortunately some of our men (and these were all recruits with less than six months' service) felt so much out of place that when the firing lulled, often showed their desire to be with their commands. None of our older men did this. We knew perfectly well that we could give as much a.s.sistance there as anywhere else, and that it was our duty to remain until relieved. And we did. White soldiers do not, as a rule, share this feeling with colored soldiers. The fact that a white man knows how well he can make a place for himself among colored people need not be discussed here.

I remember an incident of a recruit of my troop, with less than two months' service, who had come up to our position during the evening of the 1st, having been separated from the troop during the attack on San Juan Hill. The next morning, before the firing began, having seen an officer of the Tenth, who had been sent to Colonel Roosevelt with a message, returning to the regiment, he signified his intention of going back with him, saying he could thus find the regiment. I remonstrated with him without avail and was only able to keep him from going by informing him of the Colonel's threat of the day before.

There was no desire on the part of this soldier to shirk duty. He simply didn't know that he should not leave any part of the firing line without orders. Later, while lying in reserve behind the firing line, I had to use as much persuasion to keep him from firing over the heads of his enemies as I had to keep him with us. He remained with us until he was shot in the shoulder and had to be sent to the rear.

I could give many other incidents of our men's devotion to duty, of their determination to stay until the death, but what's the use?

Colonel Roosevelt has said they shirked, and the reading public will take the Colonel at his word and go on thinking they shirked. His statement was uncalled for and uncharitable, and considering the moral and physical effect the advance of the Tenth Cavalry had in weakening the forces opposed to the Colonel's regiment, both at La Guasima and San Juan Hill, altogether ungrateful, and has done us an immeasurable lot of harm.

And further, as to lack of qualifications for command, I will say that when our soldiers, who can and will write history, sever their connections with the Regular Army, and thus release themselves from their voluntary status of military lockjaw, and tell what they saw, those who now preach that the Negro is not fit to exercise command over troops, and will go no further than he is led by white officers, will see in print held up for public gaze, much to their chagrin, tales of those Cuban battles that have never been told outside the tent and barrack room, tales that it will not be agreeable for some of them to hear. The public will then learn that not every troop or company of colored soldiers who took part in the a.s.saults on San Juan Hill or El Caney was led or urged forward by its white officer.

It is unfortunate that we had no colored officers in that campaign, and this thing of white officers for colored troops is exasperating, and I join with _The Age_ in saying our motto for the future must be: "No officers, no soldiers."

PRESLEY HOLLIDAY,

Sergeant Troop B, Tenth Cavalry.

Fort Ringgold, Texas, April 22, 1899.

JACOB A. RIIS in _The Outlook_ gives the following interesting reading concerning the colored troopers in an article ent.i.tled "Roosevelt and His Men":

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL NELSON A. MILES.]

"It was one of the unexpected things in this campaign that seems destined to set so many things right that out of it should come the appreciation of the colored soldier as man and brother by those even who so lately fought to keep him a chattel. It fell to the lot of General 'Joe' Wheeler, the old Confederate warrior, to command the two regiments of colored troops, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, and no one will bear readier testimony than he to the splendid record they made.

Of their patience under the manifold hardships of roughing it in the tropics, their helpfulness in the camp and their prowess in battle, their uncomplaining suffering when lying wounded and helpless. Stories enough are told to win for them fairly the real brotherhood with their white-skinned fellows which they crave. The most touching of the many I heard was that of a Negro trooper, who, struck by a bullet that cut an artery in his neck, was lying helpless, in danger of bleeding to death, when a Rough Rider came to his a.s.sistance. There was only one thing to be done--to stop the bleeding till a surgeon came. A tourniquet could not be applied where the wound was. The Rough Rider put his thumb on the artery and held it there while he waited. The fighting drifted away over the hill. He followed his comrades with longing eyes till the last was lost to sight. His place was there, but if he abandoned the wounded cavalryman it was to let him die.

He dropped his gun and stayed. Not until the battle was won did the surgeon come that way, but the trooper's life was saved. He told of it in the hospital with tears in his voice: 'He done that to me, he did; stayed by me an hour and a half, and me only a n.i.g.g.e.r.'"

GENERAL NELSON A. MILES PAYS A TRIBUTE TO THE NEGRO SOLDIERS.