[Illustration: SERGEANT FRANK W. PULLEN, Who was in the Charge on El
Caney, as a member of the Twenty-fifth U.S. Infantry.]

Since the days of reconstruction, when a great part of the country
(the South especially) saw the regular soldier in a low state of
discipline, and when the possession of a sound physique was the only
requirement necessary for the recruit to enter the service of the
United States, people in general had formed an opinion that the
regular soldier, generally, and the Negro soldier in particular, was
a most undesirable element to have in a community. Therefore, the
Secretary of War, in ordering changes in stations of troops from time
to time (as is customary to change troops from severe climates to
mild ones and _vice versa_, that equal justice might be done all) had
repeatedly overlooked the 25th Infantry; or had only ordered it from
Minnesota to the Dakotas and Montana, in the same military department,
and in a climate more severe for troops to serve in than any in the
United States. This gallant regiment of colored soldiers served
eighteen years in that climate, where, in winter, which lasts five
months or more, the temperature falls as low as 55 degrees below
zero, and in summer rises to over 100 degrees in the shade and where
mosquitos rival the Jersey breed.

Before Congress had reached a conclusion as to what should be done in
the Maine disaster, an order had been issued at headquarters of the
army directing the removal of the regiment to the department of the
South, one of the then recently organized departments.

At the time when the press of the country was urging a declaration of
war, and when Minister Woodford, at Madrid, was exhausting all the
arts of peace, in order that the United States might get prepared for