The Sergeant's story:—
"While in sub-camp at Fort Cumming, 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 Cumming 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 Cumming.
In August, 1881, while my troop was in camp at Fort Cumming, 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 c ould 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 Cumming 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 Cumming. 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 Cumming, 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 assertion 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 lustre to the milita ry 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 col ored 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 assaulted 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 passed 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 Massachusetts Volunteers passed 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 entitled.
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 embarrassing. 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 Lieu tenants 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 titular 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 embarrassment, 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 regim ents 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 multitude 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.