The Colored Regulars in the United States Army — Context and Discussion

A Documentary Structure Anchored in Official Reports

The book’s spine is a sequence of official military documents. Chapter V, for instance, reproduces Lieutenant-Colonel A.S. Daggett’s amended report on the 25th Infantry at El Caney, complete with numbered claims about his own decisions. Steward lets the reports speak, then adds his own notes. The casualty lists—eight killed, seventeen wounded—are printed in full. This method gives the work a forensic quality: the reader watches Steward assemble evidence rather than simply narrate heroism.

Recurring Images of Exposure and Advance

Across the excerpts, a repeated image is the exposed flank. Daggett’s report describes the right flank “in the air” and the left exposed by an advance beyond the rest of the brigade. The same language appears in the table of contents: “Forming under fire” and “A Gallant Charge” for the 24th Infantry at San Juan. Steward’s own preface mentions “all the movements of the Cuban campaign” studied carefully. The physical vulnerability of troops moving across open ground becomes a structural motif, linking the separate battle accounts.

Movement Between Scenes: From Chickamauga to the Fever Camp

The table of contents traces a clear geographical and temporal arc: from organization at Chickamauga and Tampa, to the passage and landing in Cuba, then to the battles of Guasimas, El Caney, and San Juan, and finally to the surrender and the fever camp. Chapter IX, “In the Trenches” and “The Twenty-fourth in the Fever Camp,” shifts from combat to the aftermath of disease. This movement between scenes—from training ground to battlefield to hospital—gives the book a rhythm of preparation, action, and consequence.

The Author’s Self-Conscious Role as Compiler

Steward repeatedly signals his own labor and reluctance. In the preface he writes of “great pains” and “serious amount of labor.” Daggett’s report includes a similar note: “Distasteful as it is to me, I deem it duty to my children to state the facts.” This shared language of reluctant self-assertion suggests Steward sees himself as a conduit for official records rather than a narrator. The book’s final chapter, by Captain Frank R. Steward, extends the documentary approach to the question of colored officers.

Readers will find this work most useful as a primary source collection rather than a continuous history. The official reports and casualty lists reward close attention to wording—especially the revisions Daggett made after revisiting the battlefield. Steward’s own voice emerges mainly in the chapter notes and the preface, so the book’s argument is built by juxtaposition of documents. For those interested in the tactical details of the Cuban campaign or the documentary record of Black regulars, this is a valuable reference.

I kept thinking about that old chaplain’s book, how he lingered on every name in those casualty lists, like each one whispered something private. It made me remember another quiet volume, The Negro as a soldier — Reading Notes, and how some histories feel less like facts and more like a hand on your shoulder. That weight stays.