"Brethren, fare you well, brethren, fare you well,
May God Almighty bless you until we meet again."
Singing these touching lines she passed out of sight. More than forty years have passed, and she and her loved ones have never met again, unless they have met in the Morning land, where partings are no more.
For the sufferings we have endured, leaving their traces indelibly stamped upon us, I claim your aid that we may have for our children this blessed Gospel, the panacea for all human ills.
The Negro has elements in his nature that make him peculiarly susceptible to religious training. He stands as a monument to faithfulness to humble duty, one of the highest marks of the Christ-life. He is humble and faithful, but not from cowardice, in evidence of which I recall his achievements at Boston, Bunker Hill, New Orleans, Milikens Bend, Wilson's Landing, and San Juan Hill.
He fought when a slave, some would say, from compulsion, but would he fight for love of the flag of the Union? God gave him a chance to answer the question at San Juan Hill. The story is best understood as told to me by one of the brave 9th Cavalry as he lay wounded at Old Point Comfort, Va.
* * * * *
Up go the splendid Rough Riders amid shot and shell from enemies concealed in fields, trees, ditches, and the block-house on the hill. The galling fire proves too much for them and back they come. A second and third assault proves equally unavailing. They must have help. Help arrives, in the form of a colored regiment. See them as they come, black as the sable plume of midnight, yet irresistible as the terrible cyclone. As is the custom of my race under excitement of any kind, they are singing, not
"My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of Liberty,
Of thee I sing,"
though fighting willingly for the land that gave them birth; not, "The Bonnie blue flag," though they were willing to die for the flag they loved; they sing a song never heard on battle-field before, "There's a hot time in the old town to-night." On they come, trampling on the dead bodies of their comrades; they climb the hill. "To the rear!" is the command. "To the front!" they cry; and leaderless, with officers far in the rear, they plant the flag on San Juan Hill, and prove to the world that Negroes can fight for love of country.