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 military 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.