In case of trial by court-martial, captains and other
higher officers filled the court to the exclusion of almost all
others. These were white men. It is gratifying to record that the War
Department recognized this special injustice to colored officers, and
in the two regiments of colored volunteers recruited for service in
the Philippines all the line-officers are colored men, the field
officers being white, and appointed from the Regular Army in pursuance
of a general policy. Thus far has the general government advanced in
recognition of the military capacity of the Negro. In the swing of the
pendulum the nation is now at the place where the hardy General Butler
was thirty-seven years ago, when he organized the three regiments of
Louisiana Native Guards with all line-officers colored.
The way in which modern armies are organized and perfected leaves
little necessity for an equipment of exceptional personal gifts in
order to exercise ordinary military command. The whole thing is
subordinate, and the field for personal initiative is contracted to
the minimum. In our own army the President is Commander-in-Chief, and
the command descends through a multitude of subordinate grades down to
the lowest commissioned officer in the service. We have "Articles of
War" and "Regulations," and the entire discipline and government of
the army is committed to writing.
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