with a Sketch of the History of the Colored American, and an Account of His Services in the Wars of the Country, from the Period of the Revolutionary War to 1899....

Philadelphia A.M.E. Book Concern, 631 Pine Street. 1904...

Return to Table of Contents The material out of which the story of the COLORED REGULARS has been constructed has been collected with great pains, and upon it has been expended a serious amount of labor and care. All the movements of the Cuban campaign, and particularly of the battles, have been carefully studied by the aid of official reports, and conversations and correspondence with those who participated in them. The work has been performed with an earnest desire to obtain and present the tru

Headquarters of the Army, Washington, August 5, 1899. Rev. T.G. Steward, Chaplain 25th Infantry, Wilberforce, Ohio. Dear Sir:—Your letter of the 20th ultimo was duly received, but my time has been so much engrossed with official duties, requiring my presence part of the time out of the city, that it has not been practicable to comply with your request earlier; and even now I can only reply very briefly. You will remember that my acquaintance with negro character commenced during the Civil War. T

Return to Table of Contents To write the history of the Negro race within that part of the western world known as the United States of America would be a task to which one might devote a life time and still fail in its satisfactory accomplishment. The difficulties lying in the way of collecting and unifying the material are very great; and that of detecting the inner life of the people much greater. Facts and dates are to history what color and proportion are to the painting. Employed by genius,

The Importation of the Africans—Character of the Colored Population in 1860—Colored Population in British West Indian Possessions—Free Colored People of the South—Free Colored People of the North—Notes. Return to Table of Contents Professor DuBois, in his exhaustive work upon the "Suppression of the African Slave-Trade," has brought within comparatively narrow limits the great mass of facts bearing upon his subject, and in synopses and indices has presented all of the more important literature i

Early Literature of Negro Soldiers—Negro Soldiers in the War of the Revolution—The War of 1812—Negro Insurrections—Negro Troops in the Civil War—Notes. Return to Table of Contents "Do you think I'll make a soldier?" is the opening line of one of those delightful spirituals, originating among the slaves in the far South. I first heard it sung in the Saint James Methodist Church, corner of Spring and Coming Streets, Charleston, South Carolina, immediately after the close of the war. It was sung by

Organization of Negro Regiments in the Regular Army—First Move in the War—Chickamauga and Tampa—Note. Return to Table of Contents Altogether the colored soldiers in the Civil War took part and sustained casualties in two hundred and fifty-one different engagements and came out of the prolonged conflict with their character so well established that up to the present hour they have been able to hold an important place in the Regular Army of the United States. No regiment of colored troops in the s

Return to Table of Contents 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

The Tenth Cavalry at Guasimas—The "Rescue of the Rough Riders"—Was There an Ambush?—Notes. Return to Table of Contents "The passage 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 passage, and that "the conveniences on many of the transports in the nature of sleeping accommodations, space for exercise, closet accommodations, etc., we

The Capture of the Stone Fort by the Twenty-fifth Infantry. Return to Table of Contents "At 9 a.m. of the 25th Lieutenant Cardin, of the Revenue Marine, came aboard with orders for me to proceed to and disembark at Altares (Siboney). This officer also handed me a letter from the corps commander expressing his astonishment that I had remained away three days." General Kent also states in his report that his travel rations had been exhausted seven days before and that but one meal of field rations

Cavalry Division: The Ninth and Tenth Regiments. Return to Table of Contents When Lawton's division swung off to the right to engage the enemy at El Caney, with the results described in the preceeding chapter, the divisions of Wheeler and Kent were ordered to proceed directly along the Santiago road toward San Juan. Within a mile from El Pozo, the point where they had bivouacked for the night of the 30th, the troops arrived at the Aguadores River, which crosses the road here within less than a m

Kent's Division: The Twenty-fourth Infantry; Forming Under Fire—A Gallant Charge. Return to Table of Contents Turning now to the centre and left of the American line we follow the advance of that division of infantry commanded by General Kent, and which met the brunt of Spanish resistance at San Juan. This division, known as the First Division, Fifth Army Corps, consisted of three brigades, composed as follows: First Brigade, Brigadier-General Hawkins commanding, made up of the Sixth Infantry, t

In the Trenches—The Twenty-fourth in the Fever Camp—Are Negro Soldiers Immune?—Camp Wikoff. Return to Table of Contents After the battle of El Caney the Twenty-fifth Infantry started for the mango grove, where the blanket rolls and haversacks had been left in the morning, and on its way passed the Second Massachusetts Volunteers standing by the roadside. This regiment had seen the charge of the Twenty-fifth up the hillside, and they now manifested their appreciation of the gallantry of the black

Gallantry of the Black Regulars—Diary of Sergeant-Major E.L. Baker, Tenth Cavalry. Return to Table of Contents It is time now to sum up the work of the four regiments whose careers we have thus far followed, and to examine the grounds upon which the golden opinions they won in battle and siege are based. We have seen that in the first fight, that of Las Guasimas, on June 24th, the Tenth Cavalry, especially Troops I and B, both with their small arms and with the machine guns belonging to Troop B,

The Ninth Ohio Battalion—Eighth Illinois—Twenty-third Kansas-Third North Carolina—Sixth Virginia—Third Alabama—The Immunes. Return to Table of Contents The return of the army and the repatriation of the Spanish army from Cuba, brought before the country for immediate solution the problem of garrisoning that island; and in a very short time the question of similar nature regarding Porto Rico. Ten regiments of immunes had been organized in the volunteer service partly in anticipation of such a sit

By Captain Frank R. Steward, A.B., LL.B., Harvard, Forty-ninth U.S. Volunteer Infantry—Appendix. Return to Table of Contents Of all the avenues open to American citizenship the commissioned ranks of the army and navy have been the stubbornest to yield to the newly enfranchised. Colored men have filled almost every kind of public office or trust save the Chief Magistracy. They have been members of both Houses of Congress, and are employed in all the executive branches of the Government, but no Ne

Return to Table of Contents The correspondence following shows the progress of the negotiations for the surrender of the city of Santiago and the Spanish Army, from the morning of July 3d until the final convention was signed on the sixteenth of the same month. This surrender virtually closed the war, but did not restore the contending nations to a status of peace. Twenty-three thousand Spanish soldiers had laid down their arms and had been transformed from enemies to friends. On the tenth of Au