Later on in the war, with the general enlistment of colored soldiers, a number of colored chaplains and some surgeons were commissioned. Towards the close of the war several colored line officers and a field officer or two were appointed. The State of Massachusetts was foremost in according this recognition to colored soldiers. But these later appointments came, in most cases, after the fighting was all over, and gave few opportunities to command. At the close of the war, with the muster out of troops the colored officers disappeared and upon the reorganization of the army, despite the brilliant record of the colored soldiers, no Negro was given a commission of any sort. The outbreak of the Spanish War brought the question of colored officers prominently to the front. The colored people began at once to demand that officers of their own race be commissioned to command colored volunteers. They were not to be deluded by any extravagant praise of their past heroic services, which veiled a determination to ignore their just claims. So firmly did they adhere to their demands that but one volunteer regiment of colored troops, the Third Alabama, could be induced to enter the service with none of its officers colored. But the concessions obtained were always at the expense of continuous and persistent effort, and in the teeth of a very active and at times extremely violent opposition. We know already the kind of opposition the Eighth Illinois, the Twenty-third Kansas, and the Third North Carolina Regiments, officered entirely by colored men, encountered. It was this opposition, as we have seen, which confined colored officers to positions below the grade of captain in the four immune regiments. From a like cause, we know also, distinguished non-commissioned officers of the four regular regiments of colored troops were allowed promotion only to Lieutenantcies in the immune regiments, and upon the muster out of those organizations, were compelled, if they desired to continue soldiering, to resume their places as enlisted men.