Perhaps the most notable act performed by a colored American during the war was the capture and delivery to the United States forces of the rebel steamer Planter, by Robert Smalls, of Charleston.  Smalls was employed as pilot on the Planter, a rebel transport, and was entirely familiar with the harbors and inlets, of which there are many, on the South Atlantic coast.  On May 13, 1862, the Planter came to her wharf in Charleston, and at night all the white officers went ashore, leaving a colored crew of eight men on board in charge of Smalls.  Smalls hastily got his wife and three children on board, and at 2 o’clock on the morning of the 14th steamed out into the harbor, passing the Confederate forts by giving the proper signals, and when fairly out of reach, as daylight came, he ran up the Stars and Stripes and headed his course directly toward the Union fleet, into whose hands he soon surrendered himself and his ship.  The act caused much favorable comment and Robert Smalls became quite a hero.  His subsequent career has been in keeping with the high promise indicated by this bold dash for liberty, and his name has received additional lustre from gallant services performed in the war after, and in positions of distinguished honor and responsibility in civil life.  The Planter, after being accepted by the United States, became a despatch boat, and Smalls demonstrating by skill and bravery his fitness for the position, was finally, as an act of imperative justice, made her commander.

With the close of the Revolutionary War the prejudice against a standing army was so great that the army was reduced to scarce six hundred men, and the Negro as a soldier dropped out of existence.  When the War of 1812 closed sentiment with regard to the army had made but little advancement, and consequently no place in the service was left for Negro soldiers.  In the navy the Negro still lingered, doing service in the lower grades, and keeping up the succession from the black heroes of ’76 and 1812.  When the War of the Rebellion closed the country had advanced so far as to see both the necessity of a standing army, and the fitness of the Negro to form a part of the army; and from this position it has never receded, and if the lessons of the Cuban campaign are rightly heeded, it is not likely to recede therefrom.  The value of the Regular Army and of the Black Regular were both proven to an absolute demonstration in that thin line of blue that compelled the surrender of Santiago.

In July, 1866, Congress passed an act adding eight new regiments of infantry and four of calvary to the nineteen regiments of infantry and six of calvary of which those arms of the Regular Army were at that time composed, thus making the permanent establishment to consist of five regiments of artillery, twenty-seven of infantry, and ten of cavalry.  Of the eight new infantry regiments to be formed, four were to be composed of colored men; and of the four proposed for the calvary arm, two were to be of colored men.  The President was empowered by the act also to appoint a chaplain for each of the six regiments of colored troops.  Under this law the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry Regiments were organized.