CHAPTER IV.


COLONEL THEODORE B. ROOSEVELT, NOW GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK, WHO LED THE
ROUGH RIDERS, TELLS OF THE BRAVERY OF NEGRO SOLDIERS.


When Colonel Theodore Roosevelt returned from the command of the
famous Rough Riders, he delivered a farewell address to his men,
in which he made the following kind reference to the gallant Negro
soldiers:

"Now, I want to say just a word more to some of the men I see standing
around not of your number. I refer to the colored regiments, who
occupied the right and left flanks of us at Guásimas, the Ninth and
Tenth cavalry regiments. The Spaniards called them 'Smoked Yankees,'
but we found them to be an excellent breed of Yankees. I am sure that
I speak the sentiments of officers and men in the assemblage when I
say that between you and the other cavalry regiments there exists a
tie which we trust will never be broken."--_Colored American_.

* * * * *

The foregoing compliments to the Negro soldiers by Colonel Roosevelt
started up an avalanche of additional praise for them, out of which
the fact came, that but for the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry (colored)
coming up at Las Guásimas, destroying the Spanish block house and
driving the Spaniards off, when Roosevelt and his men had been caught
in a trap, with a barbed-wire fence on one side and a precipice on