Shadow and Light: An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present CenturyGibbs, Mifflin Wistar
History
Shadow and Light: An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century
Gibbs, Mifflin Wistar
African Americans
When the Second Volunteer regiment of Immunes (white) became so
disorderly in Santiago that they had to be sent outside to the hills for
better discipline, General Shafter ordered into the city the Eighth
Illinois regiment of colored troops, who had an unsullied name for
sobriety and discipline, and enjoyed the thorough confidence of those in
command. And the following brief compendium of Spanish war mention from
a few of the leading press of the country is good reading. A soldier
writing home to friends in Springfield said: "You want to see the
Negroes; they let out a yell and charge, and the fight is over." Arthur
Partridge, of Co. B, writes: "At first we got the worst of it, but we
received reinforcements from the two regiments of colored infantry, who
walked right up to the block house, against their whole fire; they lost
heavily, but it put heart into everybody, and the way we drove those
Spaniards was a caution. A colored man can have anything of mine he
wants. When storming they yelled like fiends." Corporal Keating of Co. B
writes: "The Negroes are fighters from their toes up. They saved
Roosevelt at the first battle, and took one of the forts in the battle a
few days ago."
Thomas Holmes, a Rough Rider, who hails from Newkirk, Oklahoma, was the
magnet of attraction at St. Paul's Hospital, says a writer in the New
York Tribune. "He is a handsome, stalwart fellow, full of anecdote and
good humor, and popular all around. He was sitting next to Corporal
Johnson, of the Tenth Cavalry, a Negro who still carries a Mauser bullet
somewhere 'inside of me inside,' as he expressed it. 'The colored
cavalry fought well, eh?' interjected the clergyman. 'Indeed they did,'
said Holmes, fervently. 'That old idea about a "yellow streak" being in
a Negro is all wrong. No men could have fought more bravely, and I want
to tell you that but for the coming up of the Tenth Cavalry the Rough
Riders might have been cut to pieces.' 'Oh, he is just talking,' said
the colored man, who smiled like a happy child nevertheless."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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