The Colored Regulars in the United States Army Part 22

"Sergeant Samuel Gilchrist, Company K, Thirty-sixth United States Colored Troops, showed great bravery and gallantry in commanding his company after his officers were killed. He has a medal for gallantry."[31]

"Honorable mention" and "medals" were the sole reward open to the brave Negro soldiers of that day.

Not alone in camp and garrison, in charge of expeditions, or as non-commissioned officers thrown into command of their companies on the field of battle have Negro soldiers displayed unquestioned capacity for command, but as commissioned officers they commanded in camp and in battle, showing marked efficiency and conspicuous gallantry. The colored officers of the First and Second Regiments of Louisiana Native Guards, whose history has been detailed earlier in this chapter,[32] were retained in the service long enough to command their troops in b.l.o.o.d.y combat with the enemy. It will be remembered that of the Second Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards only the Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel were white, the Major, F.E. Dumas, and all the line officers, as in the case of the First Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards, being colored. On April 9, 1863, Colonel N.U.

Daniels, who commanded the Second Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards, with a detachment of two hundred men of his regiment, under their colored officers, engaged and repulsed a considerable body of rebel infantry and cavalry at Pascagoula, Mississippi. The engagement lasted from 10 A.M. until 2 P.M. and was remarkable for the steadiness, tenacity and bravery of these black troops in this, their first battle, where they succeeded in defeating and beating off an enemy five times their number. The official report by the Colonel commanding declared: "Great credit is due to the troops engaged for their unflinching bravery and steadiness under this, their first fire, exchanging volley after volley with the coolness of veterans, and for their determined tenacity in maintaining their position, and taking advantage of every success that their courage and valor gave them; and also to their officers, who were cool and determined throughout the action, fighting their commands against five times their number, and confident throughout of success. * * *

"I would particularly call the attention of the department to Major F.E. Dumas, Capt. Villeverd and Lieuts. Jones and Martin, who were constantly in the thickest of the fight, and by their unflinching bravery and admirable handling of their commands, contributed to the success of the attack, and reflected great honor upon the flag for which they so n.o.bly struggled."[33]

The battle which settled for all time the bravery of black troops, and ought as well to silence all question about the capacity of colored officers, was the storming of Port Hudson, May 27, 1863. For months the Confederates had had uninterrupted opportunity to strengthen their works at Port Hudson at a time when an abundance of slave labor was at their disposal. They had constructed defenses of remarkable strength.

On a bluff, eighty feet above the river, was a series of batteries mounting in all twenty siege guns. For land defenses they had a continuous line of parapet of strong profile, beginning at a point on the river a mile from Port Hudson and extending in a semi-circle for three or four miles over a country for the most part rough and broken, and ending again at the river, a half mile north of Port Hudson. At appropriate positions along this line four bastion works were constructed and thirty pieces of field artillery were posted. The average thickness of the parapet was twenty feet, and the depth of the ditch below the top of the parapet was fifteen feet. The ground behind the parapet was well adapted for the prompt movement of troops.[34]

On the 24th of May General Banks reached the immediate vicinity of Port Hudson, and proceeded at once to invest the place.

On the 27th the a.s.sault was ordered. Two colored regiments of Louisiana Native Guards, the First Regiment with all line officers colored, and the Third with white officers throughout, were put under command of Colonel John A. Nelson, of the Third Regiment, and a.s.signed to position on the right of the line, where the a.s.sault was begun. The right began the a.s.sault in the morning; for some reason the left did not a.s.sault until late in the afternoon. Six companies of the First Louisiana and nine companies of the Third, in all 1080 men, were formed in column of attack. Even now, one cannot contemplate unmoved the desperate valor of these black troops and the terrible slaughter among them as they were sent to their impossible task that day in May.

Moving forward in double quick time the column emerged from the woods, and pa.s.sing over the plain strewn with felled trees and entangled brushwood, plunged into a fury of shot and sh.e.l.l as they charged for the batteries on the rebel left. Again and again that unsupported column of black troops held to their hopeless mission by the unrelenting order of the brigade commander, hurled itself literally into the jaws of death, many meeting horrible destruction actually at the cannon's mouth.

It was a day prodigal with deeds of fanatical bravery. The colors of the First Louisiana, torn and shivered in that fearful hail of fire, were still borne forward in front of the works by the color-sergeant, until a sh.e.l.l from the enemy cut the flag in two and gave the sergeant his mortal wound. He fell spattering the flag with blood and brains and hugged it to his bosom as he lay in the grasp of death. Two corporals sprang forward to seize the colors, contending in generous rivalry until a rebel sharpshooter felled one of them across the sergeant's lifeless body. The other dashed proudly forward with the flag. Sixteen men fell that day defending the colors.

Black officers and white officers commanded side by side, moving among the men to prompt their valor by word and example, revealing no difference in their equal contempt of death. Captain Quinn, of the Third Regiment, with forty reckless followers, bearing their rifles and cartridge boxes above their heads, swam the ditch and leaped among the guns, when they were ordered back to escape a regiment of rebels hastening for their rear. Six of them re-crossed alive, and of these only two were unhurt, the brave Quinn and a Lieutenant. The gallant Captain Andre Cailloux, who commanded the color company of the First Louisiana, a man black as night, but a leader by birth and education, moved in eager zeal among his men, cheering them on by words and his own n.o.ble example, with his left arm already shattered, proudly refusing to leave the field. In a last effort of heroism, he sprang to the front of his company, commanded his men to follow him, and in the face of that murderous fire, gallantly led them forward until a sh.e.l.l smote him to death but fifty yards from the works.

Cailloux, a pure Negro in blood, was born a freeman and numbered generations of freemen among his ancestry. He had fine presence, was a man of culture and possessed wealth. He had raised his company by his own efforts, and attached them to him, not only by his ardent pride of race, which made him boast his blackness, but also by his undoubted talents for command. His heroic death was mourned by thousands of his race who had known him. His body, recovered after the surrender, was given a soldier's burial in his own native city of New Orleans.

When the day was spent, the bleeding and shattered column was at length recalled. The black troops did not take the guns, but the day's work had won for them a fame that cannot die. The nation, which had received them into the service half-heartedly, and out of necessity, was that day made to witness a monotony of gallantry and heroism that compelled everywhere awe and admiration. Black soldiers, and led by black officers as well as white, a.s.signed a task hopeless and impossible at the start, had plunged into that withering storm of shot and sh.e.l.l, poured fourth by artillery and infantry, charging over a field strewn with obstacles, and in madness of bravery had more than once thrown the thin head of their column to the very edge of the guns. They recoiled only to reform their broken lines and to start again their desperate work. When the day was gone, and they were called back, the shattered remnant of the column which had gone forth in the morning still burned with pa.s.sion. With that day's work of black soldiers under black officers, a part forever of the military glory of the Republic, there are those who yet dare to declare that Negroes cannot command.

The a.s.sault on Port Hudson had been unsuccessful all along the line. A second a.s.sault was ordered June 13. It, too, was unsuccessful. The fall of Vicksburg brought the garrison to terms. The surrender took place July 9, 1863. In the report of the general commanding, the colored soldiers were given unstinted praise. General Banks declared that "no troops could be more determined or more daring."[35] The Northern press described glowingly their part in the fight. The prowess of the black soldiers had conquered military prejudice, and won for them a place in the army of the Union. And the brave black officers who led these black soldiers, they were, all of them, ordered forthwith before an examining board with the purpose of driving them from the service, and every one of them in self-respect was made to resign. In such manner was their bravery rewarded.

In the four regiments of colored troops made a part of the Regular Army since the Civil War, colored soldiers, to say nothing of the three colored graduates from West Point, referred to earlier in this chapter, have repeatedly given evidence of their capacity to command.

An earlier chapter has already set forth the gallant manner in which colored non-commissioned officers, left in command by the killing or wounding of their officers, commanded their companies at La Guasima, El Caney and in the charge at San Juan. On numerous occasions, with none of the heroic setting of the Santiago campaign, have colored soldiers time and again command detachments and companies on dangerous scouting expeditions, and in skirmishes and fights with hostile Indians and marauders. The entire Western country is a witness of their prowess. This meritorious work, done in remote regions, has seldom come to public notice; the medal which the soldier wears, and the official entry in company and regimental record are in most cases the sole chronicle. A typical instance is furnished in the career of Sergeant Richard Anderson, late of the Ninth Cavalry. The sergeant has long ago completed his thirty years of service. He pa.s.sed through all non-commissioned grades in his troop and regiment, and was retired as Post Commissary-Sergeant. The story of the engagements in which he commanded give ample proof of his ability and bravery. It would be no service to the sergeant to disturb his own frank and formal narrative.

The Sergeant's story:--

"While in sub-camp at Fort c.u.mming, New Mexico, awaiting orders for campaign duty against hostile Indians (old Naney's band), on the evening of June 5, 1880, my troop commander being absent at Fort Bayard, which left me in command of my troop, there being no other commissioned officer available, a report having come in to the commanding officer about 1 o'clock that a band of Apache Indians were marching toward Cook's Canon, Troops B and L, under general command of Captain Francis, 9th Cavalry, and myself commanding Troop B, were ordered out.

We came upon the Indians in Cook's Canon and had an engagement which lasted two or three hours. Three or four Indians were killed and several wounded. We had no men killed, but a few wounded in both L and B Troops. We followed the Indians many miles that evening, but having no rations, returned to Fort c.u.mming late that evening, and went into camp until the following morning, when the two troops took the trail and followed it many days, but being unable to overtake the Indians, returned to Fort c.u.mming.

In August, 1881, while my troop was in camp at Fort c.u.mming, New Mexico, awaiting orders for another campaign against these same Apache Indians, my troop commander having been ordered to Fort Bayard, New Mexico, on general court-martial duty, and during his absence having no commissioned officer available, I was in command of my troop subject to the orders of the post commander. At 12 o'clock at night, August 17, 1881, while in my tent asleep, the commanding officer's orderly knocked on my tent and informed me that the commanding officer wanted me to report to him at once. I asked the orderly what was up. He informed me that he supposed a scout was going out, as the commanding officer had sent for Lieutenant Smith, then in command of Troop H, 9th Cavalry.

I dressed myself promptly and reported, and found Lieutenant Smith and the commanding officer at the office on my arrival.

The commanding officer asked me about how many men I could mount for thirty days' detached duty, leaving so many men to take care of property and horses. I told him about how many. He ordered me to make a ration return for that number of men, and send a sergeant to draw rations for thirty days'

scout; and for me to hurry up, and when ready to report to Lieutenant Smith. By 12.45 my troop was ready and mounted, and reported as ordered, and at 1 o'clock Troop's B and H pulled out from Fort c.u.mming for Lake Valley, New Mexico; and when the sun showed himself over the tops of the mountains we marched down the mountains into Lake Valley, thirty-five miles from Fort c.u.mming. We went into camp hoping to spend a few hours and take a rest, and feed our horses and men.

About 9 o'clock a small boy came running through camp crying as if to break his heart, saying that the Indians had killed his mother and their baby. Some of the men said the boy must be crazy; but many of them made for their horses without orders. Soon Lieutenant Smith ordered "Saddle up." In less than five minutes all the command was saddled up and ready to mount. We mounted and pulled out at a gallop, and continued at that gait until we came to a high mountain, when we came down to a walk. And when over the mountain we took up the gallop, and from that time on, nothing but a gallop and a trot, when the country was favorable for such.

When we had marched about two miles from Lake Valley we met the father of the boy, with his leg bleeding where the Indians had shot him. We marched about half a mile farther, when we could see the Indians leaving this man's ranch. We had a running fight with them from that time until about 5 o'clock that evening, August 18th, 1881. Having no rations, we returned to Lake Valley with the intention of resting that night and taking the trail the next morning; but about 9 o'clock that night a ranchman came into camp and reported that the Indians had marched into a milk ranch and burned up the ranch, and had gone into camp near by.

Lieutenant Smith ordered me to have the command in readiness to march at 12 o'clock sharp, and said we could surprise those Indians and capture many of them and kill a few also.

I went and made my detail as ordered, with five days'

rations in haversacks, and at 12 o'clock reported as ordered.

About half-past 12 o'clock the command pulled out and marched within about a mile and a half of the milk ranch and went into camp; and at daylight in the morning saddled up and marched to the ranch. The Indians had pulled out a few minutes before our arrival. We took their trail and came up with them about 10 o'clock, finding the Indians in ambush.

Lieutenant Smith was the first man killed, and when I heard his last command, which was "Dismount," then the whole command fell upon your humble servant. We fell back, up a canon and on a hill, and held them until 4 o'clock, when a reinforcement came up of about twenty men from Lake Valey and the Indians pulled off over the mountains. The following-named men were killed in the engagement:

Lieutenant G.W. Smith; Mr. Daily, a miner; Saddler Thomas Golding; Privates James Brown and Monroe Overstreet.

Wounded--Privates Wesley Harris, John W. Williams and William A. Hallins.

After the Indians ceased firing and fell back over the mountains I cared for the wounded and sent Lieutenant Smith's body to Fort Bayard, New Mexico, where his wife was, which was about sixty miles from the battle-ground, and Mr.

Daily's body to Lake Valley, all under a strong detachment of men under a non-commissioned officer; when I marched with the remainder of the command with the dead and wounded for Rodman Mill, where I arrived about 5 o'clock on the morning of August 20 and buried the dead and sent the wounded to Fort Bayard.

One thing that attracted my attention more than anything else was the suffering of Private John W. Williams, Troop H, who was shot through the kneecap and had to ride all that night from the battle-ground to Brookman's Mill. Poor fellow!

I buried all my dead, and then marched for Fort c.u.mming, where we arrived about sunset and reported to General Edward Hatch, then commanding the regiment and also the district of New Mexico, giving him all the details pertaining to the engagement.

General Hatch asked me about how many men I could mount the next morning, the 21st. I informed him about how many. He ordered me to have my troop in readiness by daylight and report to Lieutenant Demmick, then commanding Troop L, and follow that Indian trail.

My troop was ready as ordered, and marched. We followed those Indians to the line of Old Mexico, but were unable to overtake them. Such was my last engagement with hostile Indians."

The formula that Negroes cannot command, with the further a.s.sertion that colored soldiers will neither follow nor obey officers of their own race, we have now taken out of the heads of its upholders, and away from its secure setting of type on the printed page, and applied it to the facts. Negro soldiers have shown their ability to command by commanding, not always with shoulder-straps, to be sure, but nevertheless commanding. With wearying succession, instance after instance, where Negroes have exercised all manner of military command and always creditably, have extended for us a recital to the border of monotony, and made formidable test of our patience. In France and the West Indies, in Central and South America, Negroes have commanded armies, in one instance fighting under Napoleon, at other times to free themselves from slavery and their countries from the yoke of oppression. In our own country, from the days of the Revolution, when fourteen American officers declared in a memorial to the Congress, that a "Negro man called Salem Poor, of Colonel Frye's regiment, Captain Ames' company, in the late battle at Charlestown, behaved like an _experienced officer_, as well as an excellent soldier;"[36] from the first war of the nation down to its last, Negro soldiers have been evincing their capacity to command. In the Civil War, where thousands of colored soldiers fought for the Union, their ability to command has been evidenced in a hundred ways, on scouts and expeditions, in camp and in battle; on two notable occasions, Negro officers gallantly fought their commands side by side with white officers, and added l.u.s.tre to the military glory of the nation. Upon the re-organization of the Regular Army at the close of the war the theatre shifted to our Western frontier, where the Negro soldier continued to display his ability to command. Finally, in the Spanish War, just closed, the Negro soldier made the nation again bear witness not alone to his undaunted bravery, but also to his conspicuous capacity to command.

Out of this abundant and conclusive array of incontestable facts, frankly, is there anything left to the arbitrary formula that Negroes cannot command, but a string of ipse dixits hung on a very old, but still decidedly robust prejudice? There is no escape from the conclusion that as a matter of fact, with opportunity, Negroes differ in no wise from other men in capacity to exercise military command.

Undoubtedly substantial progress has been made respecting colored officers since 1863, when colored soldiers were first admitted in considerable numbers into the army of the Union. At the period of the Civil War colored officers for colored soldiers was little more than thought of; the sole instance comprised the short-lived colored officers of the three regiments of Louisiana Native Guards, and the sporadic appointments made near the close of the war, when the fighting was over.

More than three hundred colored officers served in the volunteer army in the war with Spain. Two Northern States, Illinois and Kansas, and one Southern State, North Carolina, put each in the field as part of its quota a regiment of colored troops officered throughout by colored men. Ohio and Indiana contributed each a separate battalion of colored soldiers entirely under colored officers.

In 1863 a regiment of colored troops with colored officers was practically impossible. In 1898 a regiment of colored volunteers without some colored officers was almost equally impossible. In 1863 a regiment of colored soldiers commanded by colored officers would have been a violation of the sentiment of the period and an outrage upon popular feelings, the appearance of which in almost any Northern city would hardly fail to provoke an angry and resentful mob. At that period, even black recruits in uniforms were frequently a.s.saulted in the streets of Northern cities. We have seen already how Sergeant Rivers, of the First South Carolina Volunteers, had to beat off a mob on Broadway in New York city. In 1898 regiments and battalions of colored troops, with colored colonels and majors in command, came out of States where the most stringent black laws were formerly in force, and were greeted with applause as they pa.s.sed on their way to their camps or to embark for Cuba.

In Baltimore, in 1863, the appearance of a Negro in the uniform of an army surgeon started a riot, and the irate mob was not appeased until it had stripped the patriotic colored doctor of his shoulder-straps.

In 1898, when the Sixth Regiment of Ma.s.sachusetts Volunteers pa.s.sed through the same city, the colored officers of Company L of that regiment were welcomed with the same courtesies as their white colleagues--courtesies extended as a memorial of the fateful progress of the regiment through the city of Baltimore in 1861. One State which went to war in 1861 to keep the Negro a slave, put in the field a regiment of colored soldiers, officered by colored men from the colonel down. To this extent has prejudice been made to yield either to political necessity, or a generous change in sentiment. Thus were found States both North and South willing to give the Negro the full military recognition to which he is ent.i.tled.

With this wider recognition of colored officers the general government has not kept pace. In the four regiments of colored volunteers recruited by the general government for service in the war with Spain, only the lieutenants were colored. Through the extreme conservatism of the War Department, in these regiments no colored officers, no matter how meritorious, could be appointed or advanced to the grade of captain. Such was the announced policy of the department, and it was strictly carried out. The commissioning of this large number of colored men even to lieutenancies was, without doubt, a distinct step in advance; it was an entering wedge. But it was also an advance singularly inadequate and embarra.s.sing. In one of these colored volunteer, commonly called "immune" regiments, of the twelve captains, but five had previous military training, while of the twenty-four colored lieutenants, eighteen had previous military experience, and three of the remaining six were promoted from the ranks, so that at the time of their appointment twenty-one lieutenants had previous military training. Of the five captains with previous military experience, one, years ago, had been a lieutenant in the Regular Army; another was promoted from Post Quartermaster-Sergeant; a third at one time had been First Sergeant of Artillery; the remaining two had more or less experience in the militia. Of the eighteen lieutenants with previous military experience, twelve had served in the Regular Army; eight of these, not one with a service less than fifteen years, were promoted directly from the ranks of the regulars for efficiency and gallantry. At the time of their promotion two were Sergeants, five First Sergeants and one a Post Quartermaster-Sergeant.

The four others from the Regular Army had served five years each. Of the six remaining Lieutenants with previous military experience, four had received military training in high schools, three of whom were subsequently officers in the militia; fifth graduated from a state college with a military department; the sixth had been for years an officer in the militia. With this advantage at the start, it is no extravagance to say that the colored officers practically made the companies. To them was due the greater part of the credit for whatever efficiency the companies showed. Moreover, these colored officers were not behind in intelligence. Among them were four graduates of universities and colleges, two lawyers, two teachers, one journalist, five graduates of high schools and academies, and the men from the Regular Army, as their previous non-commissioned rank indicates, were of good average intelligence. There is no reason to believe that this one of the four colored volunteer regiments was in any degree exceptional.

These are the officers for whom the War Department had erected their arbitrary bar at captaincy, and declared that no show of efficiency could secure for them the t.i.tular rank which they more than once actually exercised. For they were repeatedly in command of their companies through sickness or absence of their captains. They served as officers without the incentive which comes from hope of promotion.

They were forced to see the credit of their labors go to others, and to share more than once in discredit for which they were not responsible. They were, and in this lay their chief embarra.s.sment, without the security and protection which higher rank would have accorded them. In case of trial by court-martial, captains and other higher officers filled the court to the exclusion of almost all others. These were white men. It is gratifying to record that the War Department recognized this special injustice to colored officers, and in the two regiments of colored volunteers recruited for service in the Philippines all the line-officers are colored men, the field officers being white, and appointed from the Regular Army in pursuance of a general policy. Thus far has the general government advanced in recognition of the military capacity of the Negro. In the swing of the pendulum the nation is now at the place where the hardy General Butler was thirty-seven years ago, when he organized the three regiments of Louisiana Native Guards with all line-officers colored.

The way in which modern armies are organized and perfected leaves little necessity for an equipment of exceptional personal gifts in order to exercise ordinary military command. The whole thing is subordinate, and the field for personal initiative is contracted to the minimum. In our own army the President is Commander-in-Chief, and the command descends through a mult.i.tude of subordinate grades down to the lowest commissioned officer in the service. We have "Articles of War" and "Regulations," and the entire discipline and government of the army is committed to writing. There is no chance to enshroud in mystery the ability to command. For ordinary military command, with intelligence the chief requisite, little is required beyond courage, firmness and good judgment. These qualities are in no respect natural barriers for colored men.

This last story of the Negro soldier's efficiency and gallantry, told in the pages of this book, teaches its own very simple conclusion. The Cuban campaign has forced the nation to recognize the completion of the Negro's evolution as a soldier in the Army of the United States.

The colored American soldier, by his own prowess, has won an acknowledged place by the side of the best trained fighters with arms.

In the fullness of his manhood he has no rejoicing in the patronizing paean, "the colored troops fought n.o.bly," nor does he glow at all when told of his "faithfulness" and "devotion" to his white officers, qualities accentuated to the point where they might well fit an affectionate dog. He lays claim to no prerogative other than that of a plain citizen of the Republic, trained to the profession of arms. The measure of his demand--and it is the demand of ten millions of his fellow-citizens allied to him by race--is that the full manhood privileges of a soldier be accorded him. On his record in arms, not excluding his manifest capacity to command, the colored soldier, speaking for the entire body of colored citizens in this country, only demands that the door of the nation's military training school be freely open to the capable of his race, and the avenue of promotion from the ranks be accessible to his tried efficiency; that no hindrance prevent competent colored men from taking their places as officers as well as soldiers in the nation's permanent military establishment.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Headquarters Department of the Gulf, New Orleans, August 22, 1862.

General Orders No. 63.

"Whereas, on the 23d day of April, in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-one, at a public meeting of the free colored population of the city of New Orleans, a military organization, known as the 'Native Guards' (colored), had its existence, which military organization was duly and legally enrolled as a part of the militia of the State, its officers being commissioned by Thomas O. Moore, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the militia of the State of Louisiana, in the form following, that is to say: