<Tr> <Th> Commands held </Th> <Td> 10th Cavalry Regiment </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Battles / wars </Th> <Td> Indian Wars Spanish--American War Philippine--American War Pancho Villa Expedition World War I </Td> </Tr> <P> Charles Young (March 12, 1864--January 8, 1922) was the third African - American graduate of West Point, the first black U.S. national park superintendent, first black military attaché, first black man to achieve the rank of colonel, and highest - ranking black officer in the Regular Army until his death in 1922 . </P> <P> Charles Young was born in 1864 into slavery to Gabriel Young and Arminta Bruen in Mays Lick, Kentucky, a small village near Maysville . However, his father escaped from slavery early in 1865, crossing the Ohio River to Ripley, Ohio, and enlisting in the Fifth Regiment of Colored Artillery (Heavy) near the end of the American Civil War . His service earned Gabriel and his wife their freedom, which was guaranteed by the 13th Amendment after the war . Arminta was already literate, which suggests she may have worked as a house slave before her freedom . The Young family settled in Ripley when Gabriel was discharged in 1866, deciding that opportunities there in Ohio were probably better there than in postwar Kentucky . Gabriel Young received a bonus by continuing to serve in the Army after the war, and he had enough to buy land and build a house . </P>

Who was the highest-ranking black officer in the u.s. army at the beginning of the first world war