BEFORE DISCHARGING BLACK BUFFALO SOLDIERS FOR BROWNSVILLE AFFAIR, ROOSEVELT WAS SAVED BY THEM

(In observance of February  as Black History Month, we republish this post based on Harry Lambeck's book on President Teddy Roosevelt's relationship with the Buffalo Soldiers who played a crucial role in his victory in San Juan Hill, Cuba, in 1898. Only eight years later, Roosevelt ordered their dishonorable discharge for their alleged involvement in the Brownsville Affair. Years later, in 1972, the Army found the men innocent.)

By Juan Montoya

As a lowly assistant secretary of the Navy in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt probably did more than any other man to drag the United States into war.

After hearing reports of the blowing up of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana Harbor on February, to Roosevelt it meant that it was just a matter of time before the U.S. was at war with Spain.

In "Taking on Roosevelt," author Harry Lembeck narrates how the bellicose official "sent orders to ships instructing them where to position themselves for the coming battles, alerted other ships gently rocking in port to be prepared to get underway, transferring big guns to New York to defend the city from attack by way of the sea, asked Congress for special wartime legislation, and ordered American admiral George Dewey to steam his fleet to Hong Kong to bottle up the Spanish fleet and begin offensive operations against it when war was declared.

He did all this on his won authority without consulting anyone"

At the same time, in faraway Montana, where the Twenty-Fifth Infantry composed of colored troops was stationed, there was also intense speculation and even at that distance the colored units were also hearing rumors of war.

Almost a month before Congress declared war against Spain, it received orders to move out to Florida. In fact, it was the first army regiment ordered to war. The unit reassembled in Tampa, Fla. on May 7, the first time all the units of the regiment had been together in 18 years.

On June 6, the Twenty-Fifth received orders to embark for Cuba, and 16 days later it landed on the beach.

The soldiers of the Twenty Fifth which included their fellow Buffalo Soldiers of the Twenty Fourth Infantry and the Tenth Cavalry didn't know it, but they would play an important role in Roosevelt's charge of San Juan Hill,. The Tenth cleared the way ahead of him for the charge, and the Twenty-Fifth who had secured the foothills, joined the Roosevelt's Rough Riders after their successful taking of the high ground.

Roosevelt, upon the declaration of War, resigned his position as assistant secretary in the Navy and formed a group of volunteer cavalry and became its commanding officer. As such, his exploits not only earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor, but that detour also earned him the White House.

On July 1, Roosevelt and the Twenty-Fifth brushed up against each other as preparations began for the assault on San Juan Heights overlooking Santiago, the ultimate target of the American forces. The plan called for the Twenty-Fifth to join one group of American forces and take an adjacent hill called El Caney. When that was taken, those forces would unit and join with the Rough Riders and other units to storm San Juan Heights.

The taking of El Caney took more time than the generals had thought and instead of wrapping up the operation before noon, the hill wasn't taken until 4:30 p.m.

Roosevelt, champing at the bit and under the command of another general, saw American units start to advance on San Juan Heights and did not wait for orders to advance, pushing on his Rough Riders to seize the glory. 

The charge took a frightening toll but it would have been worse if the Buffalo Soldiers of the Tenth Calvary had not been out in front tearing down barbed wire defenses and clearing the enemy to allow Roosevelt's cavalry through.

Once San Juan Heights was secured, Roosevelt posed for the obligatory photograph that would propel him to the White House as a bone fide war hero. Here, too, his naked ambition for power showed through. The photograph of all the victorious troops was taken and included the negro soldiers of the Tenth Cavalry.

These soldiers, on the edges of the photograph, were cropped out when it was sent out to the national press. Until the original photograph was rediscovered, no one knew it. (See cropped photo at above at right.)

The Twenty-Fifth at the bottom of San Juan Heights could see the Americans at the top of the hill. One of its soldiers was quoted as saying:

"The next day about noon we heard that the Tenth Cavalry had rescued the Rough riders. We congratulated ourselves that although not of the same branch of service, we were of the same color, and that to the eye of the enemy we, troopers, cavalry and footmen (infantry) all looked alike."

A white southern soldier would say after he saw the colored troops in battle alongside him: "I've changed my opinion of the colored folks, for of all the men I saw fighting there were none to beat the Tenth Cavalry and the colored infantry in Santiago, and I don't mind saying so."
Even Roosevelt, who called them "Smoked Yankees," said they were always welcome to share canteen with him.

At first no one knew why Roosevelt used that odd expression.

Lembeck writes that it was until about a decade later that Twenty-Fifth veteran and then-Sergeant Mingo Sanders (the soldier pictured in the Harper's Weekly cover above) would recall when he and Roosevelt met at a place called Siboney. The army had not resupplied the Rough Riders and walking over to the Twenty-Fifth Infantry, Roosevelt made what Sanders would call a "special request."

"Would the Buffalo Soldiers share of their hardtack with the Rough Riders? 

They would. In both his biography and The Rough Riders, his memoirs of the war in Cuba, Roosevelt never mentioned the incident. 

"Mingo Sanders – one of the members of the Twenty-Fifth that Roosevelt would dishonorably discharge after the Brownsville Raid – never forgot it."