General Morgan says:
"The question of the color line has assumed an acute stage, and has
called forth a good deal of feeling. The various Negro papers in the
country are very generally insisting that if the Negro soldiers are to
be enlisted, Negro officers should be appointed to command them. One
zealous paper is clamoring for the appointment, immediately, by the
President, of a Negro Major-General. The readers of _The Independent_
know very well that during the civil war there were enlisted in the
United States army 200,000 Negro soldiers under white officers, the
highest position assigned to a black man being that of first sergeant,
or of regimental sergeant-major. The Negroes were allowed to wear
chevrons, but not shoulder straps or epaulets. Although four Negro
regiments have been incorporated in the regular army, and have
rendered exceptionally effective service on the plains and elsewhere
for a whole generation, there are to-day no Negro officers in the
service. A number of young men have been appointed as cadets at West
Point, but the life has not been by any means an easy one. The only
caste or class with caste distinctions that exists in the republic is
found in the army; army officers are, par excellence, the aristocrats;
nowhere is class feeling so much cultivated as among them; nowhere
is it so difficult to break down the established lines. Singularly
enough, though entrance to West Point is made very broad, and a large
number of those who go there to be educated at the expense of the
Government have no social position to begin with, and no claims to
special merit, and yet, after having been educated at the public
expense, and appointed to life positions, they seem to cherish the
feeling that they are a select few, entitled to special consideration,
and that they are called upon to guard their class against any
insidious invasions.
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