tion more than anything
else was the suffering of Private John W. Williams, Troop H,
who was shot through the kneecap and had to ride all that
night from the battle-ground to Brookman's Mill. Poor
fellow!

I buried all my dead, and then marched for Fort Cumming,
where we arrived about sunset and reported to General Edward
Hatch, then commanding the regiment and also the district of
New Mexico, giving him all the details pertaining to the
engagement.

General Hatch asked me about how many men I could mount the
next morning, the 21st. I informed him about how many. He
ordered me to have my troop in readiness by daylight and
report to Lieutenant Demmick, then commanding Troop L, and
follow that Indian trail.

My troop was ready as ordered, and marched. We followed
those Indians to the line of Old Mexico, but were unable to
overtake them. Such was my last engagement with hostile
Indians."

The formula that Negroes cannot command, with the further assertion
that colored soldiers will neither follow nor obey officers of their
own race, we have now taken out of the heads of its upholders, and
away from its secure setting of type on the printed page, and applied
it to the facts. Negro soldiers have shown their ability to command by
commanding, not always with shoulder-straps, to be sure, but
nevertheless commanding. With wearying succession, instance after
instance, where Negroes have exercised all manner of military command
and always creditably, have extended for us a recital to the border of
monotony, and made formidable test of our patience. In France and the
West Indies, in Central and South America, Negroes have commanded
armies, in one instance fighting under Napoleon, at other times to
free themselves from slavery and their countries from the yoke of
oppression. In our own country, from the days of the Revolution, when
fourteen American officers declared in a memorial to the Congress,
that a "Negro man called Salem Poor, of Colonel Frye's regiment,
Captain Ames' company, in the late battle at Charlestown, behaved like
an _experienced officer_, as well as an excellent soldier;"[36] from
the first war of the nation down to its last, Negro soldiers have been
evincing their capacity to command. In the Civil War, where thousands
of colored soldiers fought for the Union, their ability to command has
been evidenced in a hundred way