The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-06-26
TEN THOUSAND NEGRO TROOPS
COLoRED CITIZENS WILL FIGHT
FOR THE FLAG.
Mixture of White and Black Officers
Is Problem the War Department
Is Trying to Solve.

New York, JuLe pa special to the
Times from Washington says: When
the mastering in of the new organiza-
tons under the second call is complet-
ed, the volunteer army will include be-
tween 5000 and 10000 negro soldiers and
more negro officers than ever before
were in the service of the United
States.
1 Under the first-xolunteer call, a few
cOlOred troops were offered by the
states, the redistribution of the call to
the National guard having a tendency
to Shut out the colored men. When the
second call was issued, the president let
it be known that he would like to have
an opportunity given to negro volun-
! teers to enlist when the new organiZa-
tions We're to be taken in. In response
to this suggestion, seven companies of
colored troops are to be mustered in
North Carolina, which, added to the
three colored troops already in service
1 from that state, will make a ten-com-
! pany regiment of something more than
| 1000 men. In Alabama. a battalion of
negro troops was taken in under the
first call Two battalions of negro
| troops will be accepted from Virginia
under the second call
! There is now at Camp Alger a color
! ed battalion from Ohio, and one of the
Massachusetts regiments includes some
negro priVates. In addition to these
volunteers raised under the regular
| levieS, four of the so-called immune
regiments, the Seventh. Eighth, Ninth
and Tenth, will be composed of ne
groes.
In furnishing officers for these col
ored commands, the war department
has had a serious problem to deal with.
1t is the presidents desire to give the
negroes a representation as officers. In
the last war. when there were 91,7S9
negro troops-three-year men-in the
federal army, the officers were white
men.
When the proposition was made to
place negro officers over some of the
cOlored commands now being raised,
the question of how the officers mess
would be arranged when there were
white and colored officers in the same
regiment, came up. That question re-
mains to be settled.
The experiment of a negro regiment
wholly differed by negroes is to be
tried in the case of the North Carolina
regiment, whose colonel will be a col
ored man, and the only one of that
rank in the army. In the Alabama reg
iment, the officers will be white men.
In the immune negro regiments, there
will be a mixture, the colonies and
other field officers and the captains be
ing white and the lieutenants and other
lesser officers black.
1t is in this combination of white
and oolored officers that the color line
is expected to cause trouble.
A regular army lieutenant who is en-
gagged in mastering in negro companies
for one of the immune regiments, said
that the men promised to make good
soldiers. ''They are all right physical !
ly'' he said. "Of course, most of them
are illiteratei and they know nothing
about military tactics, but with good
officers and careful training they ought |
to fight WELL
Army experts regard the offering of
negro regiments with negroes as an
experiment which may or may not turn |
out well. The negro needs to be led !
well, they say, to make good fighter, |
and there is some doubt whether col |
ored troops will follow one of their own
race as well as they would white Off
Ger.
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