who summerized the whole philosophy of rifle shooting in the statement that it all consists in knowing where to aim, and how to pull—­in knowing just what value to assign to gravitation, drift of the bullet and force of the wind, and then in being able to pull the trigger of the piece without disturbing the aim thus judiciously determined.  This includes all there is in the final science and art of firing a rifle.  If the Negro can thus master the revolver, the carbine and the rifle, why may he not master the field piece or siege gun?

But an ounce of fact in such things is worth more than many volumes of idle speculation, and it is remarkable that facts so recent, so numerous, and so near at hand, should escape the notice of those who question the Negro’s ability to serve the artillery organizations.  Negro artillery, both light and heavy, fought in fifteen battles in the Civil War with average effectiveness; and some of those who fought against them must either admit the value of the Negro artilleryman or acknowledge their own inefficiency.  General Fitz-Hugh Lee failed to capture a Negro battery after making most vigorous attempts to that end.  This attempt to raise a doubt as to the Negro’s ability to serve in the artillery arm is akin to, and less excusable, than that other groundless assertion, that Negro officers cannot command troops, an assertion which in this country amounts to saying that the United States cannot command its army.  Both of these assertions have been emphatically answered in fact, the former as shown above, and the latter as will be shown later in this volume.  These assertions are only temporary covers, behind which discomfitted and retreating prejudice is able to make a brief stand, while the black hero of five hundred battle-fields, marches proudly by, disdaining to lower his gun to fire a shot on a foe so unworthy.  When the Second Massachusetts Volunteers sent up their hearty cheers of welcome to the gallant old Twenty-fifth, as that solid column fresh from El Caney swung past its camp, I remarked to Sergeant Harris, of the Twenty-fifth:  “Those men think you are soldiers.”  “They know we are soldiers,” was his reply.  When the people of this country, like the members of that Massachusetts regiment, come to know that its black men in uniform are soldiers, plain soldiers, with the same interests and feelings as other soldiers, of as much value to the government and entitled from it to the same attention and rewards, then a great step toward the solution of the prodigious problem now confronting us will have been taken.

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