CHAPTER 3
Our people can now see that the coolness and bravery that characterized our fathers in the [18]60s have been handed down to their sons of the [18]90s. If any one doubts the fitness of a colored soldier for active field service, when the cry of musketry, the booming of cannon, and bursting of shells seem to make the earth tremble, ask the regimental commanders of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth infantries and Ninth and Tenth Cavalry. Ask Generals Lawton, Kent, and Wheeler, of whose divisions these regiments form a part.
—M. W. Saddler, 25th Infantry, 1898
While serving on a diplomatic mission as a US military attaché to Hispaniola in 1906, Maj. Charles Young wrote a treatise in which he linked his perceptions of valor and courage to African-American empowering strategies in the new century. In a book titled Military Morale of Nations and Races, Young claimed that “military virtues can be cultivated,” and he appealed to “countrymen of all race extractions to foster and encourage the things that keep alive civic and military courage, patriotism, and the vigor, strength, and sturdiness of American manhood, upon which virile virtues depend so largely our national life and the honor and dignity among nations of our common country—our Motherland, America.”1
In many ways, Young’s racial interpretation of national military prowess may be seen as a directive for the acts of heroism performed by the regular cavalry and infantry units. This is most notably true for black Medal of Honor winners in the war against Spain in 1898, and during the rebellion in the Philippines in 1899. It points toward the ways in which black troops in the Spanish-American War used their guns to fight for dignity and honor on the battlefield, even though they were contending with the federally sanctioned indignities of a racially segregated army and constant harassment from white citizens.
As we have previously seen, since the Civil War, African Americans perceived military service and the donning of the nation’s uniform as a badge of honor, promoting an antiracist image and a strong, masculine sense of self. Writing about African-American military exploits in Cuba at the time, 25th Infantry chaplain Theophilus G. Steward expressed his hope “that the reader will be inspired to a more profound respect for the brave and skilled black men who passed through that severe baptism of fire and suffering, contributing their full share to their country’s honor.”
As the century drew to a close, the country faced pressing challenges both abroad and at home. By the time federal policymakers and pundits began to discuss the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor and America’s role in world affairs, black Americans were raising their voices, pointing out the painful contradictions between US professions of world leadership and the rising tide of violence at home. Coming from various points on the political spectrum, many African-American pro-war and anti-imperial advocates frequently used terms like protection, duty, and honor to compare the country’s skirmish with Spain over control of Cuba with the plight of black Americans at home. And by doing so, they enveloped the racially charged international conflict between the two colonial powers squarely in the context of the black struggle for equality in the United States.
In the months leading up to the American declaration of war, some members of the black press argued that the United States should not intervene in the Spanish-Cuban War to safeguard the rights of Cuban residents until Southerners obeyed the laws of the land. “Let Uncle Sam keep hands off of other countries till he has learned to govern his own,” asserted the Kansas City American Citizen. “Human life at home is at a low ebb now and should be protected before reaching out to protect others,” the newspaper contended. The Washington Bee echoed this sentiment: “The United States may play the coward in the [USS] Maine explosion by the Cubans, but whether it does or not the American negro must look to his own interest and protection. A government that claims to be unable to protect its own citizens against mob law and political violence will certainly not ask the negroes to take up arms against a foreign government.”
Around the same time, Ida B. Wells-Barnett traveled with a Chicago delegation of Illinois congressmen to the White House to meet with President William McKinley, and described the issue for the president in the following manner: “For nearly twenty years, lynching crimes, which stand side by side with Armenian and Cuban outrages, have been committed and permitted by this Christian nation. Postmaster [Frazier] Baker’s case was a federal matter, pure and simple. He died at his post of duty in defense of his country’s honor, as truly as ever a soldier on the field of battle. We refuse to believe this country, so powerful to defend its citizens abroad, is unable to defend its citizens at home.”2
“We refuse to believe this country, so powerful to defend its citizens abroad, is unable to defend its citizens at home.”
But other black pundits saw the war and black loyalty somewhat differently, viewing the group’s participation in the military conflict as a chance to test and prove their loyalty, to assert their manhood, and to gain public respect. The Iowa Bystander expressed its belief that “the present war will help the colored man in America, that is, his real worth will be more respected; his help is needed; his loyalty will establish a friendlier feeling in the South between the two races, his bravery and patriotism in the hour of need, may serve as a lesson to their southern brothers as to what loyalty, true and equal manhood is, and we hope will hereafter be more willing to grant equal justice and freedom to their neighbors and citizens.”
Immediately following on the heels of the congressional declaration of war against Spain, the Indianapolis Freeman stated, “As in other cities the Negro is discussing his attitude toward the government in case of war—shall he go to war and fight for his country’s flag? Yes, for every reason of true patriotism. It is a blessing in disguise for the Negro. He will if for no other reason be possessed of arms, which in the South, in face of threatened mob violence, he is not allowed to have. He will become trained and disciplined [. . .] he will get honor. He will have an opportunity of proving to the world his real bravery, worth, and manhood.”3
In time, the words uttered by black civil rights advocates like Ida Wells-Barnett and the black press framed the experiences of Medal of Honor recipients William Thompkins, George Wanton, Dennis Bell, Fitz Lee, Edward Baker, and Robert Penn, who served admirably during the Spanish-American War. More than 75 percent of the soldiers who earned the nation’s highest honor for valor did so while assigned to the celebrated 10th Cavalry; the sole exception—Robert Penn—served as a sailor on board the USS Iowa off the coast of Santiago. All of them, however, interpreted bravery and honor through lenses forged from their immediate pasts. For the most part, they were born and bred along the Eastern Seaboard and in the Great Plains region of the United States during the years following the Civil War, and had eagerly enlisted for military service out of concern for their own personal well-being and for the collective advancement of black people. Almost to a man, most served with the Regular Army in the Trans-Mississippi West, and spent some time in the South before venturing on to Cuba and the Philippines.
“He will have an opportunity of proving to the world his real bravery, worth, and manhood.”
In short, military service and the American imperial project provided them with a framework for understanding manhood and respectability both at home and abroad. As MOH recipient Edward L. Baker reflected, several years after serving in the war against Spain:
The great Napoleon is credited with the following assertion: that there were only two professions open to a gentleman—statecraft and the profession of Arms; in other words, the grandest known to the world is the profession of Arms. When a man satisfies the recruiting officer of his ability to enter the service, he is given a chance to convince himself as to whether or not he desires to accept the profession. His future, however, is, in a great measure, what he makes it. No one is indifferent to his obligations as a man and his duties as soldier. Certificates of merit, for distinguished service; medal of honor for distinguished gallantry in action and prizes for excellence in any target practice; [these] are manly pursuits and enviable acquisitions, but are in reach of us all.4
As the black regulars advanced through their training, they ran headlong into an old adversary. Throughout their training they faced pernicious Jim Crow laws and white racial antagonism that dogged their steps at nearly every turn. Despite the increasing presence of racial hostility, however, black troops, along with six white regiments, traveled to Tampa, where on June 14, 1898, they marched up the gangplanks of the Miami, Alamo, Comal, Concho, City of Washington, and Leona, bound for Cuba. As the transport ships dropped anchor off the coastline of Santiago, several contingents of black regulars stood poised for action on the Cuban mainland.5
After rowing ashore, three columns of Regular Army and volunteers established an American operations base at Daiquiri and Siboney before trudging west toward lightly fortified enemy defenses near Santiago. Led by Maj. Gen. William R. Shafter, their objective was to land on Cuba’s southern shore and march west toward Santiago, to capture the city and its harbor. But a contingent of the 10th Cavalry’s mission received an assignment to deliver food and ammunition to the Cuban insurgents who were operating in the western areas of the front. Among these troops were cavalry privates Dennis Bell from Washington, DC, Fitz Lee from Dinwiddie County, Virginia, and Paterson, New Jersey, natives William Thompkins and George Wanton. Little did they realize that within weeks, they would receive their first, bittersweet taste of war and a call to glory.
Dennis Bell, Fitz Lee, William Thompkins, and George Wanton and the Rescue Mission at Tayabacao, Cuba
On the night of June 30, Tunas, an area near the port of Cienfuegos, became the site of chaos. A small party of Cuban army regulars and fifty Americans led by Gen. Jose Manuel Nunez waded ashore in hopes of replenishing the food supplies and ammunition of a detachment of Cuban forces actively engaged in attacking a heavily defended enemy fort located in the area. After landing at the mouth of the San Juan River, however, the landing party found that reinforcing their comrades in arms required more than good fortune. As soon as the black regulars conquered the rough surf and reached a densely jungled area near Tayabacao, enemy artillery forced them to retreat back to the coastline. The invading soldiers fled to a nearby beachhead where they discovered that several of their landing boats had been damaged beyond repair by Spanish artillery fire. The party of regulars was forced to leave their wounded comrades exposed to fire from the heavily fortified blockhouse. One officer who witnessed the nightmarish assault stated, “Had I known the fate that awaited them, I would not have permitted my men to run so great a risk as the undertaking exposed them to.”
After learning about the unfolding events, the American command aboard the transport ship Florida launched a series of attempts to rescue the stranded survivors of the failed attack. Led by 9th Infantry captain George P. Ahern, a group of American regulars volunteered for a relief expedition aimed at rescuing the men left behind. Among the contingent of rescuers who immediately stepped forward for the covert operation were sergeants William Thompkins and George Wanton, and privates Dennis Bell and Fitz Lee of the 10th Cavalry. With the exception of Bell, all of the troopers served with M Company, and each soldier was no stranger to extreme danger. All had served a stint of duty in the Trans-Mississippi West with the Indian-fighting army prior to the turn of the twentieth century. George Wanton was somewhat the exception to the rule: Like William Thompkins, he was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey, but Wanton had entered the 10th Cavalry in 1889 after serving more than four years in the US Navy. For these GIs, rescuing the captured soldiers was a way to salvage what was left of the ill-fated invasion—not to mention the fact that each man considered the self-styled “filibusters” as “intimate friends of the wounded,” and simply wanted to bring the soldiers back home.6
Using nightfall to conceal their clandestine movement, the four men descended from the Florida and quietly rowed their boats ashore. The element of surprise proved short-lived for the quartet, however. Upon arriving at the shoreline where the wounded men had fallen, the party fell prey to a hail of enemy fire from a Spanish detachment. Unflinchingly calm, Wanton, Thompkins, and the rest of the volunteers shot the sentries who guarded the prison stockade and freed the captured soldiers. By the early-morning hours of July 1, they had successfully returned to the troop transport ship.
Congress conferred the Medal of Honor upon the four members of the 10th Cavalry four months later.
In the weeks that followed, their courageous acts of bravery drew praise from their superior officers. In the words of Troop M’s first sergeant James Williams, “It seemed as if this little band of heroes were doomed to find a watery grave on the coast of Cuba. But clearing themselves from the sandbar, they proceeded in capturing stores and munitions of war, winning to themselves the admiration of the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban forces.” For their efforts, Lieutenant Johnson recommended the squad of heroes for the nation’s highest award for bravery in February of 1899. After receiving commendations from their superior officers, Congress conferred the Medal of Honor upon the four members of the 10th Cavalry four months later.7
Edward Baker and the Valorous Conduct of the 10th Cavalry at Santiago
Meanwhile, the July offensive in the Province of Santiago posed a new set of challenges for American invading forces and created new moments of bravery for Medal of Honor recipients. Spanish defenders led by General Vara converted the houses on the low-lying hills of the heights of San Juan and Kettle Hills into a heavily armed fortress. Located just northeast of the village, the area was reinforced by a large blockhouse encircled by barbed-wire entanglements, rifle pits, and trenches. This strategic position provided the outer line of defense for the portals of Santiago.
The climate proved to be just as ominous as the fortified enemy positions. A week earlier, a detachment of newly arrived black troopers from the 10th had landed on the southeastern tip of Cuba near Santiago and marched westward toward El Caney. After advancing north toward the enemy stronghold, the men had to fight their way through the dense undergrowth. The jungle-like vegetation was so thick they could barely march single file. Overall, the troops fell thirty to forty minutes off the pace of their attack because of the steep and rugged slopes. What’s more, the searing Cuba heat and humidity weaved an ominous spell of exhaustion among the men and reduced the blanket rolls and the blue woolen and flannel uniforms they wore into mud-drenched pools of sweat. The terrain and climate were such that Edward Glass, an officer with the 10th Cavalry, observed, “Deployment was difficult owing to the high grass and vegetation. There was difficulty in maintaining any kind of skirmish line.” As he and his fellow troopers marched toward the enemy fortifications, Edward Baker noted that “the vapor from wet clothing rose with the sun, so that you could scarcely recognize a man ten feet away.”8
“The vapor from wet clothing rose with the sun, so that you could scarcely recognize a man ten feet away.”
A veteran noncommissioned officer with the 10th Cavalry, Edward Baker earned the Medal of Honor during the assault on San Juan Hill. Originally from Laramie County, Wyoming, Baker was familiar with the privations and hardships that accompanied inclement weather and impassable terrain, having become acquainted with frontier life at an early age. Born in 1865, he grew up in a multiethnic household, with an African-American mother and a French father. His parents were pioneers who survived the harsh summers and winters while traveling through the Rocky Mountain region during the waning days of the American Civil War. In fact, Baker’s first recollections of life on the Great Plains stem from an early childhood spent aboard a freight wagon crossing the Dakota Territory. While living in eastern Wyoming, Baker learned to ride horseback and rope cattle by the tender age of thirteen. Desiring something more out of life, he left the high plains frontier and enlisted in the army in July of 1882. He reported to active duty at Fort Riley, Kansas, and was assigned to the 9th Cavalry Regiment. He served with the celebrated unit for nearly ten years before reporting to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was reassigned to the 10th Cavalry.
While serving with the troops at the southwestern military outpost, Baker discovered that military service appealed strongly to his sense of self. His fluent language skills in Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and French, and his considerable abilities as a talented trumpeter and horseman, earned him a sterling reputation among his peers as a professional soldier of the highest order. After being reassigned to the 10th Cavalry’s Troop B, Baker was promoted from a lowly private to regimental quartermaster sergeant. His troop commander may have said it best when he wrote: “I have always found Sergeant Major Baker zealous, efficient and faithful in the performance of every duty. He is a fine type of the true American soldier and is a credit to the enlisted force of the United States Army.”
By the time he and his fellow troopers reached the bivouac site just below the heights surrounding the city of Santiago, Baker had concluded that black cavalrymen were essential to the fighting, and that the war in Cuba offered them a chance to present themselves as skilled soldiers, and as black men. “Our daring horsemen were all that was needed to make the situation complete,” he stated. “Without participation of cavalry, the ideal warrior disappears from the scene, and the battle and picture of war is robbed of its most attractive feature.”9
Edward Baker was not the only soldier whose post–Indian War years in the Southwest predated his call to duty at El Caney and San Juan Hill. There were several other Buffalo Soldiers who had previously received congressional recognition for bravery in battle. As a sergeant in Company K, William McBryar had developed a reputation as a skilled marksman while in battle against the Apache Indians in the Arizona Territory in 1890. By the time Troop K had arrived in Cuba, the thirty-seven-year-old Elizabethtown, North Carolina, veteran had been with the unit for nearly ten years.
Meanwhile, the 10th’s first sergeant and fellow MOH recipient Augustus Walley had been on active duty for nearly thirty years, and was ten years removed from receiving the nation’s highest award for his heroic acts of bravery against hostile Indians at Cuchillo Negro Mountains, New Mexico. When the unit landed at Daiquiri, officers and enlisted men credited the Baltimore, Maryland, noncommissioned officer with providing steady leadership for the squadrons of the regular cavalry regiment.10
Once the troopers of the 10th moved into position against the entrenchments at El Caney, they were joined by fellow 9th cavalrymen, along with the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments. But they also found themselves reacquainted once again with the all-white elements of the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry. Composed of volunteers from Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, the unit was organized by former assistant secretary of the navy Theodore Roosevelt and commanded by Col. Leonard Wood. The American volunteers were supplemented by other troops coming from New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and an assortment of Cuban forces. Altogether, fifteen thousand soldiers participated in the assault, making up the regiments of one of former Confederate general Joseph Wheeler’s advancing brigades.
Just a week earlier, the men of the 1st Volunteer Cavalry had witnessed the heroics of the black troopers firsthand. On June 24, an advancing column of men with the 1st had staged an ambush against the enemy stronghold at Las Guasimas. However, the smokeless fire from the Spanish guns and the thick vegetation had stymied their advance at every turn. With exploding shells and whizzing enemy bullets around them, eight men lay dead and eighteen were wounded along the slopes of the rugged hill. The situation was so dire that Theodore Roosevelt, the officer who commanded the unit for much of that day, later recalled, “The Spaniards who had been holding the trenches and the line of hills had fallen back upon their supports, and we were under a very heavy fire both from rifles and great guns. At the point where we were, the grass-covered hill-crest was gently rounded, giving poor cover, and I made my men lie down on the hither slope.”
Just as it appeared that the unit’s assault had reached a point of confusion and all was lost, a column of the 10th Cavalry rushed forward. American commanders had initially placed the all-black unit in reserve on one of the roads that led to the outpost. But when the Rough Riders began to display elements of disarray, the 10th quickly moved into position, exposing itself to deadly enemy fire for a sufficient period of time until the 1st Volunteers could reestablish themselves. In particular, Augustus Walley distinguished himself under fire. In the heat of the fighting, Walley carried a badly wounded American soldier to safety despite facing an endless stream of volleys from Spanish riflemen. The selfless heroism that Walley and other Buffalo Soldiers exhibited in the face of enemy fire that day captured the attention of their fellow officers. John J. Pershing, a quartermaster officer who served with the all-black unit, observed that day: “The Tenth Cavalry, having charged up the hill, scarcely firing a shot and being nearest the Rough Riders, opened a disastrous enfilading fire upon the Spanish right, thus relieving the Rough Riders from the volleys that were being poured into them from that part of the Spanish line.”11
On the morning of July 1, the dismounted companies of the 10th Cavalry once again faced the horrors of war. As part of a cavalry division, black regulars with the 10th Cavalry forded the San Juan River and advanced north toward the city of Santiago. Their mission was to accompany the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry as the all-white unit stormed the Spanish fortifications at El Caney to rout the enemy and capture the city. But as members of the Rough Riders quickly realized, the advance up San Juan and Kettle Hills tested their mettle in more ways than one. There, approximately eight hundred Spanish Regular Troops stood poised to defend the heavily armed outpost. As the dismounted troopers awaited their orders to press the attack, enemy sharpshooters used modern Mauser rifles to rain bullets down on them, causing numerous casualties in the process.
In some ways, the American attack strategy was hampered by the sheer limitations of its own weaponry and tactics. While US regulars like William McBryar, Augustus Walley, and Edward Baker were armed with M-1898 Krag-Jorgensen bolt-action rifles, most of the American cavalry volunteers shouldered single-shot Springfield rifles that belched black powder into the air when they were fired. As the fighting progressed, thick clouds of black powder emanating from the Springfield rifles hampered the sight of the assaulting units, making them easy targets for the Spanish while rendering all approaches by American forces along the slopes of San Juan and Kettle Hills nearly impassable.
In addition, the long lines of communication made it extremely difficult for commanders to relay their orders to the troops on the battlefield. Spanish sharpshooters zeroed in on the reconnoitering balloons that were deployed by a company of the Signal Corps, causing greater damage to approaching American troops. And to make matters worse, American troops launched the offensive forward, using the antiquated Civil War tactics of straight-line advancement, sustaining even greater losses at the hands of the Spanish enemy. Correspondent Richard Harding Davis recalled, “[M]en gasped on their backs, like fishes in the bottom of a boat, their heads burning inside and out, their limbs too heavy to move. They had been rushed here and there, wet with sweat and wet with fording the streams, under a sun that would have made moving a fan an effort, and they lay prostrate, gasping at the hot air, with faces aflame, and their tongues sticking out, and their eyes rolling.” Edward Baker later reflected, “The whole of Santiago seemed to be decorated with hospital flags.”12
Faced with a virtual fog of war and mounting losses, troops with the 1st Volunteer moved about in confusion on the hills leading up to the blockhouse. Once again, American troops found themselves bombarded by the enemy on all sides and stood on the brink of disintegration. As the minutes stretched into hours on the battlefield, Americans ultimately took possession of the summit—but at a tremendous price. More than 200 Americans lay dead, and 1,180 were wounded during the fighting.
“The whole of Santiago seemed to be decorated with hospital flags.”
As the fighting on San Juan Hill commenced, the 1st Cavalry and Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders advanced northward, toward the summit of Kettle Hill. Once he had reached the crest of the hill, the bespectacled 1st Volunteer commander discovered that he was not alone. On the southern top portion of the hill rested some of the dismounted Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. During the fighting, Sgt. George Berry of the 10th Cavalry had taken on the burden of carrying the 10th and the 3rd Cavalry’s battle flags. He could be heard shouting to his comrades, “Dress on the colors, boys, dress on the colors.” While ascending the hill, Horace B. Bivins, a noncommissioned officer with the unit, remembered, “I was sixty hours under heavy fire; four of our gunners were wounded. I got hit myself while sighting my Hotchkiss gun. I was stunned for five minutes but forgot that I had been hit. Bravery was displayed by all of the colored regiments. The officers and reporters of other powers said they had heard of the colored man’s fighting qualities, but did not think they could do such work as they had witnessed in the sixty hours’ battle.”
Kenneth Robinson, a Rough Rider who suffered extensive wounds during the charge up San Juan Hill that day, concurred, stating, “Without any regard to my own regiment, the whitest men in this fight have been the black ones.” The officers of the 10th suffered tremendous losses. Jules Ord, one of the commanders with the unit, was killed in action, and D Troop Commander John Bigelow Jr. was shot as the cavalry units reached the halfway point on the hill. Undaunted, Bigelow told his subordinates, “Men, don’t stop to bother with me; just keep up the charge until you get to the top of the hill.”
Indeed, of the contributions that the 9th and 10th made to the American attack that day, John J. Pershing later claimed, “We officers of the Tenth Cavalry could have taken our black heroes in our arms. They had again fought their way into our affections, as they here had fought their way into the hearts of the American people.”13
Among the “Black Heroes in Arms” that Pershing may have had in mind was Edward Baker. At daybreak on July 1, Baker and his unit received orders to proceed north of the blockhouse at El Caney and take up a position to the left of the 1st US Cavalry. However, as they approached the meandering San Juan River, they were greeted by a hail of bullets from Spanish enemy combatants that Baker described in his diary as “the Dons.” After obeying orders given by Lt. Col. Theodore Baldwin to drop their field packs and seek cover, the veteran noncommissioned officer and his men found themselves in the middle of a fierce firefight as enemy forces used the hot-air balloons deployed by the Signal Corps to pinpoint and fire bullets down on the unit.
The situation became even more dire when one of the enemy shells exploded near Baker and the men, crippling Baldwin’s horse and wounding the commanding officer in the process. While crouching in the underbrush to avoid the incoming volleys of fire, Baker heard what he later remembered as a groan coming from wounded private Lewis Marshall, who was flailing about in the river. Without thinking twice, he swam out to rescue his fallen comrade. He managed to drag the drowning enlisted man to safety, despite being exposed to vicious enemy shelling. Shortly afterward, Baker took the wounded soldier to unit headquarters where he was treated by the unit surgeon. While participating in the successful assault on San Juan Heights later that day, Baker himself would unknowingly sustain shrapnel wounds to his arm and left side. Less than four years later, the soft-spoken and unassuming sergeant major gained immortality when he received the nation’s preeminent medal for valor. Lt. Col. Theodore Baldwin commended Baker’s selfless act of bravery, saying, “There is no man more worthy of a medal than he, and I do not hesitate to recommend him for one.”14
By the time the smoke had cleared over Santiago, the sweet sounds of victory rang out for cavalrymen Fitz Lee, George Wanton, Dennis Bell, William Thompkins, and other members of the Fifth Army Corps. During the waning summer months of 1898, the Spanish Army gave Gen. William Shafter what he wanted as twenty-three thousand Spanish troops laid down their arms. By the end of September, eastern Cuba had fallen into American hands, and diplomatic operations moved steadily from an uneasy truce toward peace negotiations between the United States and Spain in Paris. By the beginning of 1899, the cessation of hostilities between the two nations would become reality as the Senate ratified the treaty that gave Cuba her independence and ceded control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines to the United States.
As summer faded into the fall of 1898, however, other black regulars with the 10th Cavalry—along with a detachment of the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry, who had survived the battles of Las Guasimas, El Caney, and San Juan Heights—proceeded from Cuba to Georgia before landing at the Montauk Point, New York, port of entry. After arriving at the Long Island camp, they were quarantined with most of the troops returning from the war. There they received the lion’s share of praise from the press, military commanders, and the black public.
The New York World stated:
Over against this scene of the cowboy and the college graduate, the New York man about town and the Arizona “Bad Man”—united in one coherent war machine, set the picture of the Tenth United States Cavalry—the famous colored regiment. Their marksmanship was magnificent. Their courage was superb. The Rough Riders and the black regiment. In those two commands is an epitome of almost our whole national character.
In the North American Review, a nationally syndicated magazine, journalist Stephen Bonsal wrote, “The Spanish War afforded the negro regulars their first opportunity to show their metal [sic] as trained troops upon the theatre of actual war.”
The image of brave black soldiers was becoming deeply enmeshed in the collective consciousness of white soldiers. As one Southerner who fought at San Juan Hill later recalled, “I am not a negro lover. My father fought with Mosby’s Rangers and I was born in the South, but the negroes saved that fight.” And while they were temporarily stationed at Montauk Point, a few of the men with the 10th looked on as the Rough Riders were mustered out of the service. Col. Theodore Roosevelt himself was among those in attendance. During the service, Roosevelt specifically pointed out the courageous acts performed by black soldiers with the 9th and 10th Cavalry, describing them as “an excellent breed of Yankees.” He claimed, “I speak the sentiments of every officer and every trooper here when I say that there is a tie between those two cavalry regiments and ours which we trust will never be broken.”
Roosevelt then asked the officers who were present if they could have his men and the black troopers in the audience come up single file so that he could shake hands with them. For black soldiers who proceeded up to the dais that day, the gesture was freighted with irony. Little did they realize at the time that the intrinsic bonds of trust, fidelity, and honor that Roosevelt wished to establish with them would be severed irreparably less than a year later.15
“All honor to the black troopers of the gallant Tenth! All honor to the Black Regiment!”
On the other hand, the black press framed the bravery of the troopers in the Santiago de Cuba campaign in the context of their fitness for leadership positions in the Regular Army. An editorial titled “Brave as the Bravest” in the Omaha, Nebraska, Afro-American Sentinel proclaimed, “All honor to the black troopers of the gallant Tenth! All honor to the Black Regiment! Theirs was a double duty: to sustain the reputation of the American arms and to make another plea by valor, heroism on the field for fair play and justice, to be officered by their own men and to receive the advancement ungrudgingly given to others in the service!”
Similarly, the Fort Scott, Kansas, Fair Play opined, “The colored man with an abiding confidence in his white brother’s high sense of justice has gone into the regular army with white officers, believing that when he had shown his worth as a private that he would be rewarded by being appointed to the commissioned offices. Whether this confidence has been misplaced remains to be seen.”16
In some respects, Edward Baker himself personified their hopes and despair. After sustaining a myriad of injuries in Cuba, Baker was sent home, where he spent some time convalescing at the Montauk Point camp. Besides the shrapnel and gunshot wounds that he sustained during the fighting, Baker’s condition was compounded by acute bouts of dysentery, along with a severe case of rheumatism. Ordered to Long Island, New York, he spent a period of time receiving treatment while being quarantined with other returning troops. There, he remained until he received orders to report to Fort Assiniboine, where he was reunited with his family.
But the ambition to lead troops on the battlefield still burned within the veteran Buffalo Soldier. On August 2, 1898, Edward Baker was appointed first lieutenant with the all-black 10th Infantry of the US Volunteers. Not long afterward, Baker, along with other “Immune” regiments, were assigned to Camp Haskell near Macon, Georgia, for five months, between 1898 and 1899, where they anxiously awaited deployment to Puerto Rico.17 The 10th Infantry never received the call from Official Washington, however, and was mustered out of the service. For his part, Baker was reassigned to Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he rejoined the 10th Cavalry at his previous rank of sergeant major.
Frustrated by this sequence of events, for months Baker chafed under this lack of opportunity to obtain an officer commission. Fate intervened in March of 1899, when the chief trumpeter was once again offered a volunteer commission, this time as a captain with the 49th US Infantry. After a series of reappointments and reassignments, Baker saw his fortunes rise dramatically as he and the all-volunteer regiment received orders to sail to the Philippine Islands, where they would begin a duty assignment as a detachment of the Philippine Scouts. Almost immediately upon his arrival in the Pacific Rim area, he received word from his commanding officer that he had been accorded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism at San Juan Heights. While stationed on Luzon, he served as an intermediary of disputes between indigenous civil and religious authorities in the northern region of the Philippine Islands.
But Baker and other black soldiers became increasingly disillusioned with the contradictory nature of American encounters with Filipinos in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War. Once the United States was ceded dominion over the Philippine Islands in December of 1898, large groups of black troops were deployed against guerrilla forces in an attempt to stem the Filipino drive for independence. Their positioning in the independence movement produced a wide range of questions regarding the existing status of African Americans back at home. They could not help but notice that many of the same epithets white Americans used to describe Filipinos were similar to those used to describe them, including “niggers,” “black devils,” and “gugus.” Why would they allow themselves to be used as instruments of conquest against similar darker brethren in the name of American empire? For Baker and his fellow soldiers, the dilemma of taking up the “White Man’s Burden” abroad while being denied the rights of citizenship at home must have been all too readily apparent.
William Simms, a 49th Infantry volunteer serviceman on a patrolling mission near Luzon at the time, observed, “I was struck by a question a little Filipino boy asked me, which ran about this way: ‘Why does the American Negro come to fight us when we are much a friend to him and have not done anything to him? He is all the same to me and me all the same as you. Why don’t you fight those people in America who burn Negroes, that make a beast of you?’”
“Black soldiers discovered that ‘Old Glory’ and Jim Crow arrived simultaneously in the Philippines.”
Historians Frank Schubert and Michael Robinson skillfully summed up the predicament African-American volunteers faced while serving on the islands: “Black soldiers discovered that ‘Old Glory’ and Jim Crow arrived simultaneously in the Philippines.”18
For Baker, the ambivalent feelings that black troops experienced while participating in the American imperial project manifested in his quest to obtain a commission in the Regular Army. While serving for nearly seven years on the islands, the seasoned black officer frequently found himself feeling overburdened by the increasing levels of responsibility that his superiors heaped on him, and frustrated by the painstaking, yet thankless, hours of garrison duty that he assumed as a company commander with the unit. By the end of the first decade of the new century, Baker’s flagging energies soon became a matter of official inquiry.
During the spring of 1908, Baker applied for promotion only to have a board of reviewing officers find his leadership capabilities wanting, his attention to detail lacking, and his diligence to close-order drill rather deficient. After determining that “Lieutenant Baker appears to the board to be much older than his years indicate,” board members concluded that he would not be promoted or recommissioned at the end of his current appointment. Despite numerous attempts to restore his reputation, the forty-three-year-old officer resigned his commission with the Philippine Scouts in 1909. Less than five years later, the retired quartermaster sergeant passed away at San Francisco’s Letterman General Hospital, succumbing to peritonitis and falling short of his dreams of leading Regular Army troops into action.19
Echoing Baker’s plight, a Jim Crow sequence of events reflected a similar downward spiral in white public perception of black soldiers’ conduct. In April of 1899, Theodore Roosevelt, a longtime supporter of the 9th and 10th Cavalry, expressed misgivings about the conduct of black soldiers under fire. In an interview with Scribner’s Magazine, Roosevelt recounted that during the Battle of San Juan Hill, “the colored soldiers began to get a little uneasy and to drift to the rear, either helping wounded men, or saying that they wished to find their own regiments. [. . .] This I could not allow,” Roosevelt recalled, “as it was depleting my line, so I jumped up, and walking a few yards to the rear, drew my revolver, calling out to them that I should shoot the first man who, on any presence whatever, went to the rear.”
While Roosevelt’s reasons for revising history remain unclear, and his account would not go unchallenged, its impact had a dampening effect on public perception of black regulars during this period, and afterward. In southwest Texas, long-standing white anxieties over the army’s stationing of black troops in the Southwest exploded into racial violence as members of the 25th Infantry squared off against white townspeople in nearby Brownsville. While it was unclear to military authorities what sparked the conflagration, or who fired the first shots, Roosevelt, the sitting president, seized upon the most negative attributes of black soldiers. As a result, three companies of the famed unit received dishonorable discharges from the army and were barred from seeking future employment with the federal government. By the beginning of the second decade of the twentieth century, the uptick in racism that was reflected in racial conflict between black servicemen and white residents in places like Brownsville and the actions taken by the military in its aftermath had cast serious doubt on the status of blacks in the US military. As noted historian Marvin Fletcher noted, “By 1917 the first golden age of the black soldier had ended.”20
Meanwhile, the so-called golden age for veteran cavalrymen Dennis Bell, William Thompkins, Fitz Lee, and George Wanton came in the form of Congressional Medals of Honor in late June of 1899. But the war’s end spelled different paths of destiny for each soldier. Dennis Bell and William Thompkins received their medals while they served with the occupational forces at Manzanillo, Cuba, parting ways shortly afterward. Bell went on to Texas and the Philippines, where he served until returning home to Washington, DC, where he left the army in 1906. Thompkins continued his military service, assigned first to the Philippine Islands between 1901 and 1907, and then placed on the retired list at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, in 1914, at the rank of first sergeant. Thompkins’s advancement up the noncommissioned ranks was not always smooth, as trouble seemed to follow the veteran soldier throughout the latter stages of his enlistment. While stationed at Subic Bay, Thompkins and a detachment of men with the 25th Infantry became embroiled in an incident involving the accidental shooting of a Zambales villager who happened to be fishing on a river nearby. After a thorough investigation, the army absolved the party of all wrongdoing, but reprimanded them for carelessness.21
Some 10th Cavalry soldiers left the Cuba campaign as proud and committed to their principles of loyalty and honor as ever, although their personal struggles and hardships were as diverse as the paths they took home. While convalescing at Fort Bliss, Texas, Fitz Lee received his medal. At that point, he had been with the decorated all-black unit for nearly ten years. But the young 10th Cavalry trooper was now at a crossroads in his career. The debilitating illnesses and battle injuries Lee had sustained during the fighting had apparently taken their toll, for he received a disability discharge just days after receiving his award. With waves of pain radiating throughout his body, the beleaguered former enlisted man moved on to Leavenworth City, where longtime acquaintances provided him with food and shelter while he received medical treatment. Lee’s moment of glory failed to provide him with a source of livelihood; penniless, he remained dependent on friends until he died on September 14, 1899, less than two years after his service in Cuba. Lee was so poor that a local undertaker had to supply suitable clothing for his remains.
Less is known about the career of Spanish-American War MOH recipient Robert Penn. During the conflict, the City Point, Virginia, native served as a sailor, performing his duty off the coast of Cuba. Two weeks after the epic Battle of San Juan Hill, the USS Iowa was trolling off the coast of Santiago when a manhole gasket in its boiler area suddenly exploded. As scalding hot water escaped from the boiler room, Fireman 1st Class Robert Penn risked his own safety by balancing on a plank in order to extinguish the coal fire that engulfed the area. On December 14, 1898, Penn’s selfless act of bravery earned him the Medal of Honor and the distinction of being the only black sailor decorated during the War with Spain. Penn’s subsequent military service and his life after the Spanish-American War remain hazy, and the legacy of the decorated sailor’s heroism has receded from public consciousness.22
Unlike Robert Penn, other black MOH recipients followed more definitive paths of action following the end of the war. When he received his award, George Wanton had not yet realized that the idea of a military career would grow on him—so much so that when the former corporal with the 10th Cavalry returned to his hometown of Paterson, New Jersey, he reenlisted in the army, even though he had sworn to family and friends that he would never do so again. While assigned to various troop organizations within the celebrated cavalry outfit, Wanton saw extensive duty in the Southwest, including at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where he and other troopers participated in the Punitive Expedition along the Mexican border against Pancho Villa. Wanton retired in 1925 after being promoted to the rank of master-sergeant. His 10th Cavalry commanding officer proudly proclaimed, “He is an excellent soldier and is a man of high character.” Wanton’s actions in Cuba created a legacy of service and honor that was also recognized by his peers. He became an active member of the American Legion, Spanish War Veterans, and the Retired Servicemen’s Association. In November of 1921, the veteran soldier was invited to Washington, DC, where he served as an honorary pallbearer at the burial of the Unknown Soldier in the Memorial Amphitheater at Arlington National Cemetery.
In 1930, Wanton’s ideals and principles were on full display when he appeared at a luncheon in Boston to honor the president of the United States and other previous Medal of Honor recipients.23 Most of the young people in the audience probably knew next to nothing about the travails that Wanton and other black recipients had endured during the American wars for empire, just as Wanton and his comrades knew very little about William Carney, Christian Fleetwood, and the men of valor from the Civil War era, or the Indian War heroes of the post-Reconstruction years of the 1870s and the 1880s.
“He is an excellent soldier and is a man of high character.”
This new generation of heroes found themselves standing on the threshold of worldwide catastrophe forged on the ashes of the past, where bravery would be redefined once again. In order to fully understand the demands inherent in this historic turn of events, we must move from the years of the emerging American empire to the rise of the modern US military, and explore the making of black heroes during American involvement in World War I.
While most of the heroes in the Spanish-American War receive ample space in this section, Robert Penn’s profile is noticeably shorter due to the fact that we know so little about his service and postwar life after his act of gallantry.