The Tenth Regiment, with its Hotchkiss guns, and its trained men, took
its place in the line that morning to add if possible further lustre
to the distinction already won. In crossing the flat, in climbing the
heights, and in holding the ridge these brave men did all that could
be expected of them. Roosevelt said: "The colored troops did as well
as any soldiers could possibly do," meaning the colored men of the
Ninth and Tenth Cavalry. To their officers he bestows a meed of praise
well deserved, but not on the peculiar ground which he brings forward.
He would have the reader believe that it has required special ability
and effort to bring these colored men up to the condition of good
soldiers and to induce them to do so well in battle; while the
testimony of the officers themselves and the experience of more than a
quarter of a century with colored professional troops give no
countenance to any such theory. The voice of experience is that the
colored man is specially apt as a soldier, and General Merritt
declares him always brave in battle. The officers commanding colored
troops at Santiago honored themselves in their reports of the battles
by giving full credit to the men in the ranks, who by their resolute
advance and their cool and accurate firing dislodged an intrenched foe
and planted the flag of our Union where had floated the ensign of
Spain.
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