the other, not only the brave Capron and Fish, but the whole of his
command would have been annihilated by the Spanish sharp-shooters, who
were firing with smokeless powder under cover, and picking off the
Rough Riders one by one, who could not see the Spaniards. To break the
force of this unfavorable comment on the Rough Riders, it is claimed
that Colonel Roosevelt made the following criticism of the colored
soldiers in general and of a few of them in particular, in an article
written by him for the April Scribner; and a letter replying to
the Colonel's strictures, follows by Sergeant Holliday, who was an
"eye-witness" to the incident:

Colonel Roosevelt's criticism was, in substance, that colored
soldiers were of no avail without white officers; that when the white
commissioned officers are killed or disabled, colored non-commissioned
officers could not be depended upon to keep up a charge already begun;
that about a score of colored infantrymen, who had drifted into his
command, weakened on the hill at San Juan under the galling Spanish
fire, and started to the rear, stating that they intended finding
their regiments, or to assist the wounded; whereupon he drew his
revolver and ordered them to return to ranks and there remain, and
that he would shoot the first man who didn't obey him; and that after
that he had no further trouble.

Colonel Roosevelt is sufficiently answered in the following letter of
Sergeant Holliday, and the point especially made by many eye-witnesses
(white) who were engaged in that fight is, as related in Chapter V, of
this book, that the Negro troops made the charges both at San Juan and
El Caney after nearly all their officers had been killed or wounded.
Upon what facts, therefore, does Colonel Roosevelt base his
conclusions that Negro soldiers will not fight without commissioned