efer
to take the results at El Caney and San Juan as against Colonel
Roosevelt's imagination.

COLONEL ROOSEVELT'S ERROR.

TRUE STORY OF THE INCIDENT HE MAGNIFIED TO OUR HURT--THE WHITE
OFFICERS' HUMBUG SKINNED OF ITS HIDE BY SERGEANT HOLLIDAY--UNWRITTEN
HISTORY.

_To the Editor of the New York Age_:

Having read in _The Age_ of April 13 an editorial entitled "Our Troops
in Cuba," which brings to my notice for the first time a statement
made by Colonel Roosevelt, which, though in some parts true, if read
by those who do not know the exact facts and circumstances surrounding
the case, will certainly give rise to the wrong impression of colored
men as soldiers, and hurt them for many a day to come, and as I was
an eye-witness to the most important incidents mentioned in that
statement, I deem it a duty I owe, not only to the fathers, mothers,
sisters and brothers of those soldiers, and to the soldiers
themselves, but to their posterity and the race in general, to be
always ready to make an unprejudiced refutation of such charges, and
to do all in my power to place the colored soldier where he properly
belongs--among the bravest and most trustworthy of this land.

In the beginning, I wish to say that from what I saw of Colonel
Roosevelt in Cuba, and the impression his frank countenance made
upon me, I cannot believe that he made that statement maliciously. I
believe the Colonel thought he spoke the exact truth. But did he know,
that of the four officers connected with two certain troops of the
Tenth Cavalry one was killed and three were so seriously wounded as to
cause them to be carried from the field, and the command of these two
troops fell to the first sergeants, who led them triumphantly to the
front? Does he know that both at Las Guasima and San Juan Hill the
greater part of troop B, of the Tenth Cavalry, was separated from its
commanding officer by accidents of battle and was led to the front by
its first sergeant?

When we reached the enemy's works on San Juan Hill our organizations
were very badly mixed, few company commanders having their whole
companies or none of some body else's company. As it was, Capt.
Watson, my troop commander, reached the crest of the hill with about
eight or ten men of his troop, all the rest having been accidentally
separated from him by the thick underbrush during the advance, and
being at that time, as was subsequently shown to be the firing line
under some one else pushing t