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

by Edward A. Johnson

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 Guásimas, 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 assemblage 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 Guásimas, 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 Capron 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 assist 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 entitled "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 circumstances
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 preceeded 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 assured 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 assistance 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 assaults 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 entitled "Roosevelt and His Men":