The Colored Regulars in the United States Army Part 7

FOOTNOTES:

[9] The army has been reorganized since. See Register.

[10] "My experience in this direction since the war is beyond that of any officer of my rank in the army. For ten years I had the honor of being lieutenant-colonel of the Ninth Cavalry, and during most of that service I commanded garrisons composed in part of the Ninth Cavalry and other organizations of cavalry and infantry. I have always found the colored race represented in the army obedient, intelligent and zealous in the discharge of duty, brave in battle, easily disciplined, and most efficient in the care of their horses, arms and equipments.

The non-commissioned officers have habitually shown the qualities for control in their position which marked them as faithful and sensible in the discharge of their duties. I take pleasure in bearing witness as above in the interest of the race you represent." WESLEY MERRITT.

[11] See chapter on Colored Officers.

[12] Young is now captain in the Ninth Cavalry.--T.G.S.

[13] The colored regulars were embarked on the following named ships: The 9th Cavalry on the Miami, in company with the 6th Infantry; the 10th Cavalry on the Leona, in company with the 1st Cavalry; the 24th Infantry on the City of Washington, in company with one battalion of the 21st Infantry; the 25th infantry on board the Concho, in company with the 4th Infantry.

[14] See Note, at the close of this chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

BRIEF SKETCH OF SPANISH HISTORY.

The following brief sketch of Spain, its era of greatness, the causes leading thereto, and the reasons for its rapid decline, will be of interest to the reader at this point in the narrative, as it will bring into view the other side of the impending conflict:

Spain, the first in rank among the second-rate powers of Europe, by reason of her possessions in the West Indies, especially Cuba, may be regarded as quite a near neighbor, and because of her connection with the discovery and settlement of the continent, as well as the commanding part she at one time played in the world's politics, her history cannot but awaken within the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Americans a most lively interest.

As a geographical and political fact, Spain dates from the earliest times, and the Spanish people gather within themselves the blood and the traditions of the three great continents of the Old World--Europe, Asia and Africa--united to produce the mighty Spaniard of the 15th and 16th centuries. It would be an interesting subject for the anthropologist to trace the construction of that people who are so often spoken of as possessing the pure blood of Castile, and as the facts should be brought to view, another proud fiction would dissipate in thin air, as we should see the Spaniard arising to take his place among the most mixed of mankind.

The Spain that we are considering now is the Spain that gradually emerged from a chaos of conflicting elements into the unity of a Christian nation. The dismal war between creeds gave way to the greater conflict between religions, when Cross and Crescent contended for supremacy, and this too had pa.s.sed. The four stalwart Christian provinces of Leon, Castile, Aragon and Navarre had become the four pillars of support to a national throne and Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning. Spain has now apparently pa.s.sed the narrows and is crossing the bar with prow set toward the open sea. She ends her war with the Moors at the same time that England ends her wars of the Roses, and the battle of Bosworth's field may be cla.s.sed with the capitulation of Granada. Both nations confront a future of about equal promise and may be rated as on equal footing, as this new era of the world opens to view.

What was this new era? Printing had been invented, commerce had arisen, gunpowder had come into use, the feudal system was pa.s.sing, royal authority had become paramount, and Spain was giving to the world its first lessons in what was early stigmatized as the "knavish calling of diplomacy."

Now began the halcyon days of Spain, and what a breed of men she produced! Read the story of their conquests in Mexico and Peru, as told with so much skill and taste by our own Prescott; or read of the grandeur of her national character, and the wonderful valor of her troops, and the almost marvelous skill of her Alexander of Parma, and her Spinola, as described by our great Motley, and you will see something of the moral and national glory of that Spain which under Charles V and Philip II awed the world into respectful silence.

Who but men of iron, under a commander of steel, could have conducted to a successful issue the awful siege of Antwerp, and by a discipline more dreadful than death, kept for so many years, armed control of the country of the brave Netherlanders? A Farnese was there, who could support and command an army, carry Philip and his puerile idiosyncrasies upon his back and meet the fury of an outraged people who were fighting on their own soil for all that man holds dear. Never was wretched cause so ably led, never were such splendid talents so unworthily employed.

Alexander of Parma, Cortez, the Pizarros, were representatives of that form of human character that Spain especially developed. Skill and daring were brought out in dazzling splendor, and success followed their movements. Take a brief survey of the Empire under Charles V: Himself Emperor of Germany; his son married to the Queen of England; Turkey repulsed; France humbled, and all Europe practically within his grasp. And what was Spain outside of Europe? In America she possessed territory covering sixty degrees of lat.i.tude, owning Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, New Granada, Peru and Chili, with vast parts of North America, and the islands of Cuba, Jamaica and St. Domingo. In Africa and Asia she had large possessions--in a word, the energies of the world were at her feet. The silver and gold of America, the manufactures and commerce of the Netherlands, combined to make her the richest of nations.

The limits of the present purpose do not permit an exhaustive presentation of her material strength in detail, nor are the means at hand for making such an exhibit. We must be content with a general picture, quoted directly from Motley. He says:

"Look at the broad magnificent Spanish Peninsula, stretching across eight degrees of lat.i.tude and ten of longt.i.tude, commanding the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with a genial climate, warmed in winter by the vast furnace of Africa, and protected from the scorching heats of summer by shady mountain and forest, and temperate breezes from either ocean. A generous southern territory, flowing with oil and wine, and all the richest gifts of a bountiful nature--splendid cities--the new and daily expanding Madrid, rich in the trophies of the most artistic period of the modern world; Cadiz, as populous at that day as London, seated by the straits where the ancient and modern systems of traffic were blending like the mingling of the two oceans; Granada, the ancient, wealthy seat of the fallen Moors; Toledo, Valladolid, and Lisbon, chief city of the recently conquered kingdom of Portugal, counting with its suburbs a larger population than any city excepting Paris, in Europe, the mother of distant colonies, and the capital of the rapidly-developing traffic with both the Indies--these were some of the treasures of Spain herself. But she possessed Sicily also, the better portion of Italy, and important dependencies in Africa, while the famous maritime discoveries of the age had all enured to her aggrandizement. The world seemed suddenly to have expanded its wings from East to West, only to bear the fortunate Spanish Empire to the most dizzy heights of wealth and power. The most accomplished generals, the most disciplined and daring infantry the world has ever known, the best equipped and most extensive navy, royal and mercantile, of the age, were at the absolute command of the sovereign. Such was Spain."

Such is not Spain to-day. A quite recent writer, speaking of Spain before the war, said, that although Spain in extent holds the sixth place in the European states, "it really now subsists merely by the sufferance of stronger nations." Thus has that nation, which three centuries ago dominated the world, lost both its position and its energy.

Without attempting to sketch chronologically, either this rise or this decline, let us rather direct our efforts to an inquiry into the causes of both the one and the other.

In attempting to explain the greatness of Spain we must give first place to the vigor of the Spanish race. The great Spaniard was a mighty compound. He had the blood of Rome mingled with the awful torrent that gave birth to the soulless Goths and Vandals. In him also flowed the hot blood of the Moors. He was both st.u.r.dy and fiery; he had the fervor of the South with the tenacity of the North; the pride of the Roman with the pa.s.sion of the Moor. The Spanish race was emphatically a rich race.

And then we must remember that this race had been forged in war.

Century after century, from the earliest times, they had lived with their arms in their hands. First came the long war between the Arian Vandals, and the Trinitarian natives; then the seven-hundred-year war with the followers of Mahomed. The whole mission of life to them was to fight.

Naturally there was developed in the people at large the most complete unification and subjection. Individualism gave place almost entirely to the common weal, and the spectacle was presented of a nation with no political questions. Maccaulay maintains that human nature is such that aggregations of men will always show the two principles of radicalism and conservatism, and that two parties will exist in consequence, one composed of those who are ever looking to a brighter future, the other of those who are ever seeking to restore a delightful past; but no such phenomena appear in the ascending period of Spain's history. The whole nation moved as an organized army, steadily forward, until its zenith was reached. This solidity was a marked element of its strength.

Mr. Buckle recognizes this, and accounts for the harmonious movements of the nation by the influence of two leading principles, which he is pleased to call superst.i.tion and loyalty. The Arab invasion had pressed upon the Christians with such force that it was only by the strictest discipline that the latter had managed to survive. To secure such discipline, and at the same time supply the people with the steady enthusiasm necessary to support a war from century to century, all the terrors and all the glories that could be derived from religion were employed. The church and the state, the prince and the priest, became as one, and loyalty and religion, devotion to the standard and to the cross, were but different names for the same principles and actions. Hence Spain emerged to greatness without the least dream of liberty of either person, conscience or thought. Her rallying cry was: For the Prince and the Church; not, For G.o.d and Liberty. She went up to greatness the most loyal and the most religious of nations; but Liberty, Justice and Truth were not upon her banners.

Look over the territory settled and conquered by her, and what do we see? Columbus, sailing under Spain, names the first land he discovers San Salvador; the first settlement made in this country is St.

Augustine; the second, Sante Fe. Look down over the southern half of our continent and such names as Espirito Santo, Corpus Christi, San Diego, San Juan, San Jose, San Domingo attest the religious zeal of the conquerors. They were missionaries of the Cross, robbing the people of their gold and paying them off with religion.

Steadfast in the faith and st.u.r.dy in her loyalty, Spain resisted all innovations with respect to her religious beliefs, and all insurrections against her government. Her Alva and her Torquemada but ill.u.s.trated how strong was her conservatism, while her Isabella and her Philip II show how grand and comprehensive and how persistent was her aggressiveness, under the idea of spreading and upholding the true faith. She not only meant to hold all she had of wealth and power, but she aspired to universal dominion; already chief, she desired to be sole, and this in the interest and name of the Holy Church.

The Reformation did not disturb Spain; it was crushed out within twenty years. The spirit of liberty that had been growing in England since Bosworth's Field, and that was manifesting itself in Germany and the Netherlands, and that had begun to quiver even in France, did not dare stir itself in Spain. Spain was united, or rather, was solidity itself, and this solidity was both its strength and its death. England was not so united, and England went steadily onward and upward; but Spain's unity destroyed her, because it practically destroyed individualism and presented the strange paradox of a strong nation of weak men.

As a machine Spain in the sixteenth century was a marvel of power; as an aggregation of thinking men, it was even then contemptible.

Ferdinand, Charles V and Philip II were able and ill.u.s.trious rulers, and they appeared at a time when their several characters could tell on the immediate fortunes of Spain. They were warriors, and the nation was entirely warlike. During this period the Spaniard overran the earth, not that he might till the soil, but that he might rob the man who did. With one hand he was raking in the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru; with the other confiscating the profits of the trade and manufactures of the Low Countries--and all in the name of the Great G.o.d and Saints!

How was Spain overthrown? The answer is a short one. Spain, under Philip II staked her all upon a religious war against the awakening age. She met the Reformation within her own borders and extinguished it; but thought had broken loose from its chains and was abroad in the earth. England had turned Protestant, and Elizabeth was on the throne; Denmark, Norway and Sweden, indeed all countries except Spain and Italy had heard the echoes from Luther's trumpet blast. Italy furnished the religion, and Spain the powder, in this unequal fight between the Old and the New. Spain was not merely the representative of the old, she WAS the old, and she armed her whole strength in its behalf.

Here was a religion separated from all moral principle and devoid of all softening sentiment--its most appropriate formula being, death to all heretics. Death--not to tyrants, not to oppressors, not to robbers and men-stealers--but death to _heretics_. It was this that equipped her Armada.

The people were too loyal and too pious to THINK, and so were hurled in a solid ma.s.s against the armed thought of the coming age, and a mighty nation crumbled as in a day. With the destruction of her Armada her warlike ascendancy pa.s.sed and she had nothing to put in its place.

She had not tillers of the soil, mechanics or skilled merchants.

Business was taking the place of war all over the world, but Spain knew only religion and war, hence worsted in her only field, she was doomed.

From the days of Philip II her decline was rapid. Her territory slipped from her as rapidly as it had been acquired. Her great domains on our soil are now the seat of thriving communities of English-speaking people. The whole continent of South America has thrown off her yoke, though still retaining her language, and our troops now embarked from Port Tampa are destined to wrest from her the two only remaining colonies subject to her sway in the Western World,--Cuba and Porto Rico. With all her losses. .h.i.therto, Spain has not learned wisdom. Antagonistic to truth and liberty, she seems to sit in the shadow of death, hugging the delusions that have betrayed her, while all other people of earth are pressing onward toward light and liberty.

The struggle in Cuba had been going on for years, and in that colony of less than two millions of inhabitants, many of whom were Spaniards, there was now an army four times as large as the standing army of the United States. Against this army and against the Government of Spain a revolt had been carried on previous to the present outbreak for a period of ten years, and which had been settled by concessions on the part of the home government. The present revolt was of two years'

standing when our government decided to interfere. The Cubans had maintained disorder, if they had not carried on war; and they had declined to be pacified. In their army they experienced no color difficulties. Gomez, Maceo and Quintin Banderas were generals honored and loved, Maceo especially coming to be the hero and idol of the insurgents of all cla.s.ses. And it can truthfully be said that no man in either the Cuban or Spanish army, in all the Cuban struggle previous to our intervention, has earned a loftier fame as patriot, soldier and man of n.o.ble mould than ANTONIO MACEO.

Cuba, by far the most advanced of all the West Indian colonies; Cuba, essentially Spanish, was destined to be the battle ground between our troops and the veterans of Spain. The question to be settled was that of Spain's sovereignty. Spain's right to rule over the colonies of Cuba and Porto Rico was disputed by the United States, and this question, and this alone, is to be settled by force of arms. Further than this, the issue does not go. The dictum of America is: Spain shall not rule. The questions of Annexation, Expansion and Imperialism were not before us as we launched our forces to drive Spain out of the West Indies. The Cuban flag was closely a.s.sociated with our own standard popularly, and "Cuba Libre" was a wide-spread sentiment in June, 1898. "We are ready to help the Cubans gain their liberty" was the honest expression of thousands who felt they were going forward in a war for others.

CHAPTER V.

Pa.s.sAGE, LANDING, AND FIRST BATTLE IN CUBA.

The Tenth Cavalry at Guasimas--The "Rescue of the Rough Riders"--Was There an Ambush?--Notes.

"The pa.s.sage to Santiago was generally smooth and uneventful," says General Shafter in his official report. But when the fact is called to mind that the men had been on board a week before sailing, and were a week more on the pa.s.sage, and that "the conveniences on many of the transports in the nature of sleeping accommodations, s.p.a.ce for exercise, closet accommodations, etc., were not all that could have been desired," and that the opinion was general throughout the army that the travel ration was faulty, it cannot be doubted that the trip was a sore trial to the enlisted men at least. The monotonous days pa.s.sed in the harbor at Port Tampa, while waiting for orders to sail, were unusually trying to the men. They were relieved somewhat by bathing, swimming, gaming and chatting on the coming events. A soldier who was in one of the colored regiments describes the inside life of one of the transports as follows: "After some miles of railroad travel and much hustling we were put on board the transport. I say _on board_, but it is simply because we cannot use the terms _under board_. We were huddled together below two other regiments and under the water line, in the dirtiest, closest, most sickening place imaginable. For about fifteen days we were on the water in this dirty hole, but being soldiers we were compelled to accept this without a murmur. We ate corn beef and canned tomatoes with our hard bread until we were anything but half way pleased. In the fifth or sixth day out to sea the water furnished us became muddy or dirty and well flavored with salt, and remained so during the rest of the journey.

Then, the ship's cooks, knowing well our condition made it convenient to themselves to sell us a gla.s.s of clean ice water and a small piece of bread and tainted meat for the sum of seventy-five cents, or one dollar, as the case might be."

A pa.s.sage from Port Tampa, around the eastern end of Cuba, through the Windward Pa.s.sage, even in June, is ordinarily pleasant. On the deck of a clean steamer, protected from the sun's rays by a friendly awning, it may be put down as nearly an ideal pleasure trip; but crowded into freight ships as these men were, many of them clad in thick and uncomfortable clothing, reduced to the uninviting travel ration, compelled to spend most of the time below decks, occupied with thoughts of home and friends, and beset with forebodings of coming events, it was very far from being to them a pastime. Of the thousands who are going to Cuba to magnify the American flag, not all will return. Occasionally the gay music of the bands would relieve the dull routine and cause the spirits to rise under the effects of some enlivening waltz or stirring patriotic air; or entering a school of flying fish the men would be entertained to see these broad-finned creatures dart from the waves like arrows from the bow, and after a graceful flight of perhaps near two hundred yards drop again into the sea; but taken altogether it was a voyage that furnishes little for the historian.

The transports were so arranged as to present an interesting and picturesque spectacle as they departed from our sh.o.r.es on their ocean march. Forming in three columns, with a distance of about 1,000 yards between the columns, and the vessels in the columns being distanced from one another about 400 yards, the fleet was convoyed from Port Tampa by small naval vessels until it reached a point between the Dry Tortugas and Key West. Here it was met by the n.o.ble battleship Indiana and nine other war vessels, thus making a convoy altogether of fifteen fighting craft. Transports and convoy now made an armada of more than forty ships, armed and manned by the audacious modern republic whose flag waved from every masthead. Thus spreading out over miles of smooth sea, moving quietly along by steam, carrying in its arms the flower of the American army, every man of which was an athlete, this fleet announced to the world the grim purpose of a nation aroused.