Three of General Burt's sergeants, Russell, McBryar, and Hoffman, were promoted to the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Volunteers, and served, as lieutenants, for several months with their old regiment, the Twenty-fifth, until the arrival of their new regiments in Manila. During this time they were frequently under fire. General Burt bore high testimony to their soldierly bearing, their capacity and ability, and expressed great regret when he was forced to let them go. McBryar had won a medal of honor for gallantry against Indians in Arizona in 1890. In the Forty-ninth Volunteers, Company L, composed wholly of colored men, and commanded by Captain Edward L. Baker, a colored veteran of Santiago, who had served for seventeen years in the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and in the Tenth "Immunes," made a wonderful record. According to a statement which was widely published at the time and never denied, this company had on its rolls during a period of twelve months one hundred and six men who were fit for duty at all times and never lost a day on account of sickness. No white company remotely approached this record. More extraordinary still is the fact that during this same period not one of these men ever went before a court-martial. This is surely a striking illustration of what can be done by colored officers. It is noticeable, too, that neither the officers nor the men of any colored regiment have figured in the charges and counter-charges arising out of the use of the water-torture, except one man who at the time of his offense was not with his regiment. The Forty-ninth Volunteers was a very unhappy regiment during its brief life, but its troubles were largely due to its white officers. One of these, a major, was dismissed for misconduct, and his place was filled by the senior captain, a colored man. Several other white officers and one colored captain got into serious trouble, the last being dismissed. The Forty-eighth was, on the contrary, a contented organization in which the colored officers were treated in a kindly and courteous manner by their white associates and superiors. The two regiments afford a striking illustration of Napoleon's saying, "There are no such things as poor regiments,--only poor colonels."