, Adam Houston, bore
to the front not only his own flags, but those of the Third Cavalry when
the latter's color sergeant was shot down. In several emergencies where
troops or companies lost their white officers, the senior sergeants
took command and handled their men in a faultless manner, notably in the
Tenth Cavalry.

Indeed, the conduct of these men has done much to dispel the old belief
that colored soldiers will fight only when they have efficient white
officers. This may well have been true at one period of the civil war
when the colored race as a whole had never even had the responsibilities
attaching to free men. It is growing less and less true as time passes
and better educated men enter the ranks. In recognition of their
achievements at Santiago a number of these black non-commissioned
officers were made commissioned officers in several of the so-called
"immune" regiments of United States Volunteers raised in July, 1898.
None of these organizations were in service long enough to become really
efficient, and a few were never properly disciplined. Nevertheless,
a majority of the officers promoted from the colored regulars bore
themselves well under exceedingly trying circumstances. Some of them,
and a number of regular sergeants and corporals who had succeeded
to their former places, were made lieutenants and captains in the
Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Volunteer Infantry, which served in the
Philippines for two years, and to which we shall recur later.

At Santiago the characteristic cheerfulness of the negro soldiers was
as striking as their bravery. In his little book called The Nth Foot In
War, Lieutenant M. B. Stewart says of them:--

"The negro troops were in a high good humor. They had made the charge of
the day; they had fought with a dash and vigor which forever established
their reputation as fighters, and which would carry them down in the
pages of history. To have heard them that night no one would have ever
thought that they had lived for twelve mortal hours under a galling
fire. They were laughing and joking over the events of the day, in the
same manner they would have done had they been returning from a picnic.

"'Golly,' laughed a six-foot sergeant, 'dere was music in de air sho'
nuff. Dat lead was flying around in sheets, I tell you. I seen a buzzard
flying around in front of our line, and I says to myself, "Buzzard, you
is in a mighty dangerous position. You better git out uf dat, 'cause