This account, from Leslie's Weekly Illustrated magazine, provides information on Captain William J. Williams, First Lieutenant William H. Jackson, and Second Lieutenant George W. Braxton. According to the article, these men were the first African American officers to serve in a state volunteer regiment during the Spanish American War. In addition, their company, 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Company L, was the first, and possibly only, African American company to be attached to a white regiment.
The account is quoted from the magazine as it appeared in the magazine.
The 6th Massachusetts served in Puerto Rico during the war
The Account:
Famous Negro Fighters
The Celebrated Company L, of the Sixth Massachusetts Volunteers
When
Company L, Sixth Massachusetts United States Volunteers,
the only colored military company in Massachusetts, left Camp Dewey, South
Framingham, Massachusetts, on the evening of May 20th, to join General
Graham’s second army corps, it seemed as if the whole colored population
of Boston, where the company belongs, had taken a holiday to see their
brethren off. Certainly a fifth of the 25,000 people who went to Framingham
to bid the regiment adieu were colored people. Captain William J. Williams
[pictured at left], who commands Company L, is the first colored man in
the country to enter the United States volunteer army with a captain’s
commission, though the same claim is made for First Lieutenant William
H. Jackson. Another claim to distinction is that it is the only colored
company in the United States attached to a white regiment. No better behaved
or better equipped company has been sent from Massachusetts. Captain Williams
is over six feet tall. As his company was passing in review the day they
left for Falls Church, Virginia. Governor Wolcott, turning be graduated
from g to his staff, remarked: ‘I tell you, there isn’t a better-looking
officer in the regiment than Captain Williams.’ Captain Williams
is a lawyer. He is a product of the public schools of Boston, where he
received his first lessons in military art, as a member of the school regiment.
He has been a member of the Massachusetts militia since 1891. First Lieutenant
William H. Jackson is a Virginian, but has lived in Massachusetts since
he was a child. He received his schooling, and was graduated with honors
from the Boston University a few years ago. He, like Captain Williams,
received his first military instruction in the public schools, and was
adjutant of the school battalion of Worchester, where he received hi early
education. Second Lieutenant George W. Braxton was also born in Virginia,
but came North with his parents in 1863, settling in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
He was the first colored boy to be graduated from the Portsmouth High School.
Every one of these colored troops is a marksman”
Leslie’s Weekly Illustrated, Vol. LXXXVI No. 2232 (New York: Arkell Publishing Co., June 23, 1898). 407
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