With this wider recognition of colored officers the general government has not kept pace.  In the four regiments of colored volunteers recruited by the general government for service in the war with Spain, only the lieutenants were colored.  Through the extreme conservatism of the War Department, in these regiments no colored officers, no matter how meritorious, could be appointed or advanced to the grade of captain.  Such was the announced policy of the department, and it was strictly carried out.  The commissioning of this large number of colored men even to lieutenancies was, without doubt, a distinct step in advance; it was an entering wedge.  But it was also an advance singularly inadequate and embarrassing.  In one of these colored volunteer, commonly called “immune” regiments, of the twelve captains, but five had previous military training, while of the twenty-four colored lieutenants, eighteen had previous military experience, and three of the remaining six were promoted from the ranks, so that at the time of their appointment twenty-one lieutenants had previous military training.  Of the five captains with previous military experience, one, years ago, had been a lieutenant in the Regular Army; another was promoted from Post Quartermaster-Sergeant; a third at one time had been First Sergeant of Artillery; the remaining two had more or less experience in the militia.  Of the eighteen lieutenants with previous military experience, twelve had served in the Regular Army; eight of these, not one with a service less than fifteen years, were promoted directly from the ranks of the regulars for efficiency and gallantry.  At the time of their promotion two were Sergeants, five First Sergeants and one a Post Quartermaster-Sergeant.  The four others from the Regular Army had served five years each.  Of the six remaining Lieutenants with previous military experience, four had received military training in high schools, three of whom were subsequently officers in the militia; fifth graduated from a state college with a military department; the sixth had been for years an officer in the militia.  With this advantage at the start, it is no extravagance to say that the colored officers practically made the companies.  To them was due the greater part of the credit for whatever efficiency the companies showed.  Moreover, these colored officers were not behind in intelligence.  Among them were four graduates of universities and colleges, two lawyers, two teachers, one journalist, five graduates of high schools and academies, and the men from the Regular Army, as their previous non-commissioned rank indicates, were of good average intelligence.  There is no reason to believe that this one of the four colored volunteer regiments was in any degree exceptional.