History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War; And Other Items of Interest (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER Y. MANY TESTIMONIALS IN BEHALF OF THE NEGRO SOLDIERS. A SOUTHERNER'S STATEMENT, THAT THE NEGRO CAYALRT SAVED THE "ROUGH RIDERS." Some of the officers who accompanied the wounded soldiers on the trip north give interesting accounts of the fighting around Santiago. " I was standing near Captain Cap- ron and Hamilton Fish, Jr., said a corporal to the Associated Press correspondent to-night, " and saw them shot down. They were with the Rough Riders and ran into an ambuscade, though they had been warned of the danger. If it had not been for the Negro Cavalry the Rough Riders would have been exterminated. I am not a Negro lover. My father fought with Mosby's Rangers, and I was born in the South, but the Negroes saved that fight, and the day will come when General Shatter will give them credit for their bravery."?Asso. Press." SOT THE ROUGH RIDERS, BUT THE NEGROES OF THE NINTH CAVALRY, TOOK SAN JUAN HILL?SO DECLARES MR. W. B. PHILLIPS IN A LECTURE. Chapel H1u,, N. C, Sept. 28.? (Special.)?A lecture which was greatly enjoyed here was that of Dr. W. B. Phillips. In an informal way he said many amusing and instructive things. Speaking of a visit he paid to the battlefields of Cuba, he said: "After everything is over is the best time to visit a battie-field. The position at San Juan Hill is unusually strong, and if any but Spaniards had held it we could not have taken it without losing 10,000 men. We owe its capture and the fall of Santiago to the Negro troops of the Ninth Cavalry, U. S. A. All this talk about the Rough Riders is poppy-cock and tommy-rot. But for those Negroes the Rough Riders would have been annihilated and the yist New York would never have gotten home. I was not there, but I have talked with many volunteers and regulars. Their unanimou...