The crisis

by Various

NEGRO SOLDIERS.

The Boston Herald reports General Burt’s views on Negro soldiers as follows:

“That in the five qualifications that go to make up a good soldier, drilling, marksmanship, marching, discipline and fighting, the Negro soldiers of the United States army are paramount, was the contention of Brigadier-General Andrew S. Burt, retired, ex-commander of the Brownsville Black Battalion, in his address last night on ‘The Negro Soldier in Ancient and Modern Warfare,’ at a meeting of colored people in St. Paul’s Baptist Church, under the auspices of the Boston Literary Association.

“He cited two instances in the Spanish-American War when the colored troops showed their true value as soldiers. The first instance being the rescue of the Rough Riders by the Tenth Colored Cavalry, the second the heroism of the Twenty-fourth Colored Infantry in volunteering as nurses during the yellow fever epidemic.

“In speaking of army discipline he referred the audience to his sworn testimony before the Senate committee on the Brownsville ‘shoot-up,’ and challenged the comparison of any records of any class of good citizens to equal that of the Twenty-fifth colored regiment.

“Speaking of the Negro soldier generally, he said: ‘I can find nowhere in the histories of the Revolutionary, the Indian, the Spanish-American or the war in the Philippines, a single instance where a Negro regiment showed the white feather or refused to charge the enemy when called to do so.’”