Colonel Milts had intended having his whole brigade make the final charge, but the Twenty-fifth didn't wait for orders.

It was there to take that hill, and take the hill it did.
One of the Spanish officers captured there seemed to think that the Americans were taking an unfair advantage of them in having colored men who fought like that.

He had been accustomed to the Negroes in the insurgent army, and a different lot they are from those in the United States army.
"Why," he said ruefully, "even your Negroes fight better than any other troops I ever saw." The way the Negroes charged up the El Caney and San Juan hills suggested inevitably that their African nature has not been entirely eliminated by generations of civilization, but was bursting forth in savage yells and in that wild rush some of them were fairly frantic with the delight of the battle.

And it was no mere craziness.

They are excellent marksmen, and they aim carefully and well.