]
"There was Sergeant Berry, for instance, of the Tenth Cavalry, who
might have boasted his meed of kisses, too, had he been a white man.
At any rate, he rescued the colors of a white regiment from unseemly
trampling and bore them safely through the bullets to the top of
San Juan hill. Now, every one knows that the standard of a troop is
guarded like a man's own soul, or should be, and how it came that this
Third Cavalry banner was lying on the ground that day is something
that may never be rightly known. Some white man had left it there,
many white men had let it stay there, but Berry, a black man, saw it
fluttering in shame and paused in his running long enough to catch
it up and lift it high overhead beside his own banner--for he was a
color-bearer of the Tenth."
"Then, with two flags flying above him, and two heavy staves to bear,
this powerful negro (he is literally a giant in strength and stature)
charged the heights, while white men and black men cheered him as they
pressed behind. Who shall say what temporary demoralization there may
have been in this troop of the Third at that critical moment, or what
fresh courage may have been fired in them by that black man's act!
They say Berry yelled like a demon as he rushed against the Spaniards,
and I, for one, am willing to believe that his battle-cry brought
fighting energy to his own side as well as terror to the enemy.
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