said ruefully, "even your Negroes fight better than any
other troops I ever saw."

The way the Negroes charged up the El Caney and San Juan hills
suggested inevitably that their African nature has not been entirely
eliminated by generations of civilization, but was bursting forth in
savage yells and in that wild rush some of them were fairly frantic
with the delight of the battle. And it was no mere craziness. They
are excellent marksmen, and they aim carefully and well. Woe to the
Spaniards who showed themselves above the trenches when a colored
regiment was in good range. MAGNIFICENT SHOWING MADE BY THE
NEGROES--THEIR SPLENDID COURAGE AT SANTIAGO THE ADMIRATION OF ALL
OFFICERS.

They were led by Southern Men--Black Men from the South Fought Like
Tigers and end a Question often debated--In only One or Two Actions of
the Civil War was there such a loss of Officers as at San Juan.

[TELEGRAM TO COMMERCIAL.]

WASHINGTON, July 6, 1898.

Veterans who are comparing the losses at the battle of San Juan, near
Santiago, last Friday, with those at Big Bethel and the first Bull Run
say that in only one or two actions of the late war was there such a
loss in officers as occurred at San Juan hill.

The companies of the Twenty-fourth Infantry are without officers. The
regiment had four captains knocked down within a minute of each other.
Capt. A.C. Ducat was the first officer hit in the action, and was
killed instantly. His second lieutenant, John A. Gurney, a Michigan
man, was struck dead at the same time as the captain, and Lieutenant
Henry G. Lyon was left in command of Company D, but only for a few
minutes, for he, too, went down. Liscum, commanding the regiment, was
killed.

NEGROES FIGHT LIKE TIGERS.

Company F, Twenty-fourth Infantry, lost Lieutenant Augustin, of
Louisiana, killed, and Captain Crane was left without a commissioned
officer. The magnificent courage of the Mississippi, Louisiana,
Arkansas and Texas Negroes, which make up the rank and file of this
regiment, is the admiration of every officer who has written here
since the fight. The regiment has a large proportion of Southern-born
officers, who led their men with more than usual exposure. These men
had always said the Southern Negro would fight as staunchly as any
white man, if he was led by those in whom he had confidence. The
question has often been debated in every mess of the army. San Juan
hill offered the first occasion in which this theory could