Soon came the Ninth Cavalry, the Tenth Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth Infantry. While these were assembling there arrived on the ground also many white regiments, cavalry, artillery and infantry, and it was pleasing to see the fraternity that prevailed among black and white regulars. This was especially noticeable between the Twenty-fifth and Twelfth. In brigading the regiments no attention whatever was paid to the race or color of the men. The black infantry regiments were placed in two brigades, and the black cavalry likewise, and they can be followed through the fortunes of the war in the official records by their regimental numbers. During their stay in Chickamauga, and at Key West and Tampa, the Southern newspapers indulged in considerable malicious abuse of colored soldiers, and some people of this section made complaints of their conduct, but the previous good character of the regiments and the violent tone of the accusations, taken together with the well-known prejudices of the Southern people, prevented their complaints from having very great weight. The black soldiers held their place in the army chosen for the invasion of Cuba, and for that purpose were soon ordered to assemble in Tampa. From the 10th of April, when the war movement began with the march of the Twenty-fifth Infantry out of its Montana stations, until June 14th, when the Army of Invasion cleared Tampa for Cuba--not quite two months--the whole energy of the War Department had been employed in preparing the army for the work before it. The beginning of the war is officially given as April 21st, from which time onward it was declared a state of war existed between Spain and the United States, but warlike movements on our side were begun fully ten days earlier, and begun with a grim definiteness that presaged much more than a practice march or spring manoeuver.