THE BUFFALO SOLDIER

From the History of the 10th Cavalry

The colored regiments participated in many of the hard-fought battles of the Civil War notably Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Ft. Wagner, Petersburg, Fair Oaks, Vicksburg, Bermuda Hundreds, Chapin's Farm, etc. and were time and again cited for their heroic conduct in battle and their excellent behavior and steadfastness under the trying conditions of field service. That the colored troops in the Civil War did far more than was expected of them by even their sincerest advocates there can be no question, and the long list of individual awards for gallantry in action made to colored soldiers is further proof of their worth as soldiers. The sterling worth of the colored soldier was proved on many battlefields of the Civil War. Congress was eminently right in providing for four regiments of colored soldiers, in the reorganization bill of 1866.

THE BIRTH OF THE TENTH CAVALRY

Section III of an "Act to Increase and Fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States," provided "that to the six regiments of cavalry now in service, there shall be added four regiments, two of which shall be composed of colored men." These two became the Ninth and Tenth Regiments of Cavalry.

The Tenth Cavalry on the 28th day of July, 1866, thus came into being, to join her sister regiments among the elite of the army, and in the years that followed, created for itself a record which cedes primacy to none.

In the silence of cannons that followed Appomatox, new gunfire could be heard from afar. The Sioux in the Dakotas, the Blackfoot in Montana, the Cheyenne along the Platte and Arkansas rivers, the Plains Indians and the Apaches were all on the warpath. They saw the four-year withdrawal of Federal troops to fight in the Civil War as a sign of retreat. Charged with new confidence, they obliterated peace treaties, gathered their braves and swooped down on frontier settlements large and small to plunder, burn, torture and kill.

The Indians' fury was understandable. Those who had tasted reservation life some northern Apaches were forced onto Arizona reservations as early as 1860 wanted no part of it. They were exploited and humiliated. Mercenaries sold them guns and bootleg liquor and "boomers" stole their land. Government promises of protection and assistance were rarely kept. The Indian Bureau in Washington was a bureaucratic farce. But what most enraged the Indians was the deliberate destruction of buffaloes both as sport and for skins which had become suddenly fashionable "back East." At the end of the Civil War there were twice as many buffaloes as people in North America. By 1877, the once vast herds were all but depleted, the Indians were starving, and by the end of thecentury government conservationists could hardly find enough buffaloes to form a protected herd to keep the species alive. It was into this hostile, highly charged atmosphere of bitterness and destruction that the buffalo soldier was called to duty. Doubtlessly, no army in history ever seemed less suited for the job that stood before it.

The Ninth Cavalry mustered at Greenville, Louisiana, the Tenth at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. They were a woeful lot rice and cotton growers, chicken pluckers, former slaves, servants, grooms. Few had ridden anything but mules and all were illiterate. Last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau findings for 1971, the average American Negro family had acquired a better education, a better home and a better-paying job than ever before. Understandably, the Negro at the end of the Civil War, still wearing homemade, rope-strung pantaloons that hung six inches off the ground, had not ventured much up the eco-sociological scale past barefoot plantation days. Lacking independence and self-reliance, as little of the soldier could be seen in him as was seen of an angel in a Michelangelo block of marble before he applied the chisel.

Mustering drew a surprising number of applicants, most of whom were turned down, those under 18, over 45 or physically unfit. Years of slavery's wretched food and sordid living conditions had taken their toll. Those accepted for the minimum five-year enlistments received the basic trooper's pay of $13 a month payday was every two months plus quarters, meals and uniforms, such as they were. Eventually all would wear the famed "yellow-leg" blues, but for now they received only the castoff remnants of two armies. Veterans with Civil War experience were appointed corporals and sergeants.

A major inducement for enlistment was the prospect of learning how to read and write. General William T. Sherman, commander of the Military Division of the Missouri, deemed it necessary that company chaplains deliver academic blessings as well as spiritual ones. Prior to Lincoln, Negroes, by law, were prohibited an education. In fact, the woman who owned the plantation on the site where the Pentagon in Washington now stands was once fined $100 for teaching a slave to count in order that he might do her marketing.

Recruits were plentiful, but officers were scarce. Even with the promise of greater rank and fast promotions, good, qualified officers were difficult to find. Most, including George A. Custer, whose decision may paradoxically have led him on the fateful road to Little Big Horn, flatly refused to serve with black troops. Resentment ran high against the four and a half million emancipated Negroes whose appearance on the post-war labor market drove wages down sharply in the North as well as in the South. For the new recruits, cotton compressors served as barracks. Meals were a monotonous diet of boiled beef, hash, beans, bread and occasionally coffee.

Personally appointed by Ulysses S. Grant, Colonel Edward Hatch of Maine and Colonel Benjamin Grierson of Illinois were named commanders of the Ninth and Tenth, respectively. Both were tough old soldiers with brilliant Civil War records who grew genuinely fond of the troopers serving under them. It was Grierson who ordered his company commanders never to use the word "colored" in their reports. "The regiment is simply the Tenth Regiment of Cavalary, United States Army," he said. Period.

Black cavalry men were frequently thrown out of barrooms or beaten in the streets, but perhaps the greatest indignity heaped upon them was the pitiful quality of the horses that they were assigned. Traditionally, U.S. Cavalry mounts are the finest available large horses that make the best walkers, handsome bays, blacks or greys with hides that match in color for a more uniform appearance. But the Negro cavalry received only discarded Civil War cripples or animals so old and scraggly that one hoof was already in the glue factory. But the men discovered quickly enough that the condition of even the sorriest-looking horse frequently means the difference between life and death. In the field, the animals were often better cared for than the men themselves. After a long march, they were the first to be watered and fed. As a point of pride, and in boredom, they were rubbed and combed incessantly. Strong attachments were formed. Men who lost their hoses in battle wept openly. And there were times in the burning wilderness when a cherished mount had to be killed for food, or its blood drained and drunk to stave off death from thirst for a few more agonizing hours.

Cavalry discipline was severe. Anyone mistreating or injuring a horse intentionally or through carelessness was forced to walk, even on grueling southwest desert patrols. At night, elevated fires were lighted so that the men straggling along onfoot could find their way to the campsite. Drunkenness, sleeping on duty or insubordination generally resulted in a year or more in the stockade. Petty theft and other minor discrepancies inspired such harsh and humiliating punishment as having to sit inside an empty barrel all day, or stand at attention on top of it. Desertion was a continual problem, but to encourage those who might voluntarily return leniency was almost always granted.

foot could find their way to the campsite. Drunkenness, sleeping on duty or insubordination generally resulted in a year or more in the stockade. Petty theft and other minor discrepancies inspired such harsh and humiliating punishment as having to sit inside an empty barrel all day, or stand at attention on top of it. Desertion was a continual problem, but to encourage those who might voluntarily return leniency was almost always granted.

The blacks were slow in taking to the snappy, spit and polish routine of military life. In his journals for Outing Magazine, recently edited and published in book form by Arthur Woodward of Patagonia, Lt. John Bigelow made a number of frank if not biased assessments while saving with the Tenth Cavalry:

The job in 1885 of illustrating Lt. Bigelow's journals turned out to be the first major assignment of a struggling young artist whose punchy style and dramatic realism appealed to the editors of the then highly popular Outing Magazine and went on to win him world-wide recognition Frederic Remington. Young Remington also drew verbal pictures. He wrote of the Negro troopers: "They are charming men with whom to serve. Officers have often confessed to me that when they are on long and monotonous field service and are troubled with a depression of spirits, they have only to go about the campfires of the Negro soldier in order to be amused and cheered by the clever absurdities of the men. Personal relations can be much closer between white officers and colored soldiers than in the white regiments without breaking the barriers which are necessary to army discipline. The men look up to a good officer, rely on him in trouble, and even seek him for advice in their small personal affairs."

The black soldiers were extremely superstitious. They adorned their hats and uniforms with beads, bangles, charms and amulets. For more than two and a half decades they carried blue jay feathers, Indian medicine bags and rabbits' feet into battle with them across the plains of Kansas, the arid, barren expanse of West Texas, in Mexico, along the Rio Grande, over the rugged hills of Colorado and the Dakotas and in the parched sands of New Mexico and Arizona. Interestingly, black airmen of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson recently received official Air Force approval to wear black wrist bands with their uniforms, today a sign of unity among Negroes.

In 1885, when law and order had been secured in Texas, the Tenth Cavalry was issued orders to transfer to the Arizona frontier where Geronimo and his Chiricahua Apaches were on the slaughter. The full Tenth Regiment, by then under the command of General George Crook, known to the Indians as "Grey Wolf," gathered together at one place for the first time in its history, Fort Davis, and all twelve companies 38 officers and 696 enlisted men marched in file along the tracks of the Southern Pacific Railroad to what would prove in the months to come to be its finest hour.

Chiricahua is the Indian word for turkey, but at the time it might more appropriately have meant rattlesnake or tiger. The Apaches of southern Arizona were undoubtedly the fiercest and most cunning of all Indian warriors. For more than 300 years they had warred against the Spanish and Mexicans. The horses they rode were descendants of the fine, fast steeds the Spanish brought with them to conquer the New World. The Apaches had repeating rifles sold to them by unscrupulous white traders, and they were excellent marksmen with bows and arrows. They were brutal. Bodies of settlers were grossly mutilated.

Brutality on the Arizona frontier, of course, was not a trait that belonged exclusively to the Apaches. A bounty on Chiricahua scalps that sometimes ran as high as $200, man, woman or child, revealed a greedy lust for blood on the part of the settlers. Honey crackers laced with strychnine were often left in saddle bags to be discributed among the Apache children, the scalps of whom were later collected.

During the Apache campaign of 1885-1886, Geronimo, who with his Chiricahua followers had twice "jumped" the reservation, led the buffalo soldiers on a deadly game of hideand-seek through the stark canyons and mountains of Arizona and finally deep into the Sierra Madres of Mexico. General Crook's shrewd use of Apache scouts who were willing to turn against their brothers is what finally drove Geronimo to defeat. Top army scouts such as Kit Carson generally received authorized pay of five dollars a day, but Indian scouts received little more than a day's ration of food which they insisted on cooking themselves, over their own fires. Army cooks won no gourmet prizes even with the Indians.

It was in the Sierra Madres that Geronimo, realizing the tide had turned well against him, sent word to General Crook that he was willing to meet and discuss terms of surrender. The famous conference took place on March 25, 1886, in the Cañon de los Embudos. A photo taken at the time, now on display at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, shows Geronimo with his shoulder-length hair to have the face of an old woman, and Crook, wearing what appears to be a Quaker's hat, has full, flaring sideburns, like tufts of Brillo. The next day, Geronimo, as was typical of him, decided he didn't want to surrender. He and his men escaped south, again into Mexico.

Geronimo's escape so upset General Sheridan in Washington that Crook, in a pique of depression, asked to be relieved. He was replaced by General Nelson A. Miles, to whom Geronimo finally did surrender the following September. It was Miles who used the heliograph, a signaling system that was able to pinpoint Indian positions so accurately that it is credited with having broken the Indians' spirit. The device is a tripod with an adjustable mirror at the apex. A key resembling a telegraph transmitter mechanically covers and uncovers the mirror, allowing operators, employing Morse code, to send reflections of sunlight from mountaintop to mountaintop. In various forms, the heliograph principle of signaling was used by the Greeks and Romans more than 2,000 years ago.

By the time of the Apache's final surrender, the buffalo soldiers had distinguished themselves as two of the best fighting units in the army. Twelve of their members were decorated with the nation's highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor. Among them was Sergeant George Jordan for “gallantry and courage” in preventing a possible civilian slaughter during an Apache attack at Old Fort Tularosa; Sergeant Moses Williams and Private Augustus Walley for “conspicuous gallantry in action;” Corporal William O. Wilson for “conspicuous gallantry and coolness under fire;” and Lt. Powhattan H. Clarke, who, while under a hail of bullets during an Apache ambush, raced out from behind a boulder to pull a wounded corporal to safety. The black men in blue uniforms had won the right to be proud, and it showed. The rate of desertion in the Tenth Cavalry, once high, steadily declined until it was singled out as the lowest of any regiment in the army. In the years that followed the Apache campaign, the Tenth went on to fight in the Spanish-American War, participating in Teddy Roosevelt's famed charge up San Juan Hill, and to serve in the Philippine Insurrection. John J. Pershing served with the Tenth as a young lieutenant.

One of the last photographs of General Pershing in uniform shows him inspecting a mounted troop of the 10th at Fort Myer, Virginia - 1932.

Private Adam Paine, a Seminole-Negro Scout in the Apache Campaigns proudly wore his Medal of Honor on his uniform." Artist Jose Cisneros. Page 38 Buffalo Soldiers West. Old Army Press By 1900, most of the frontier military posts in Arizona had been abandoned. Today, only Fort Huachuca, a mammoth 85,000-acre Signal Corps complex, remains an active military post. A small but impressive museum on the base is rich in frontier memorabilia. Included in the displays is a McClellan saddle with a large slit in the middle; designed to sit more comfortably on the horse. Although available in three different sizes, it was uncomfortable for the rider. The hard, rawhide seat often cracked and curled, cutting into his bottom. A black campaign hat, designed to fold flat when not in use, was a complete failure and was replaced in 1874. "Long John" Springfield rifles were named for an army slang expression at the time. Horseshoe nails crudely bent into ring shapes were used for fistfights. The museum is currently being expanded.

Eighty-year-old George Jones of Tucson served as a sergeant on border patrols with the Tenth Cavalry from Fort Huachuca in 1916. He recalls his days with the buffalo soldiers of having to qualify with a 45-caliber automatic pistol on horseback at full gallop. He also remembers hunting venison and other game at a temporary camp near the water supply in Huachuca Canyon. Troopers supplemented their meat supply in those days.

The buffalo soldiers are no more, of course, but their con tribution to the opening of America's vast frontier lives on. That they were forced to prove themselves against an adver sary who suffered from the white man's oppression, just as they themselves had suffered, can only be held to their credit.

General Pershing contributed this valuable letter for a special number of the regi mental weekly, the "Buffalo Bulletin:".

GENERAL OF THE ARMIES, WASHINGTON

January 8, 1921.

Colonel Edwin B. Winans, Commanding Tenth U. S. Cavalry, Fort Huachuca, Arizona.

My Dear Colonel Winans: I am glad and honored to contribute something for a special number of the Tenth Cavalry Bulletin. Many years have passed-twenty-two, to be exact since my last service in the Tenth, but my mind is filled with recollections of those days in the Old Army, days of as much excitement as in the new, and possibly more variety.

The regiment was at Fort Assiniboine in October, 1895, when I first joined and reported for duty with D Troop. The Pine Ridge campaign a few years before had closed the era of Indian warfare on the plains, and the scattered units of the little Regular Army awaited in their frontier posts of their late campaign, the next phase of our national development, which was to carry them overseas to battle with a European power.

Meanwhile, in the summer of 1896, several troops of the regiment were sent to round up a number of bands of Cree Indians who had crossed the international boundary follow ing the suppression of their rebellion in Canada. Troop D, under my command, took a leading part in this task, doing some hard riding to overtake or surprise bands located in Montana and Idaho, sending some by rail to Canada, and finally escorting a band of some six hundred across the border.

My troop required little of its officers. The ranks were filled with veterans and the power and prestige of the old top sergeant was sufficient to maintain rigid discipline and manage the minor details of administration. Almost perfect at drill, most of our interest centered in keen competition on the rifle range and in hunting.

I recall a visit to General Nelson A. Miles, then Commander of the Army, which was largely spent in hunting the game which abounded in the vicinity of the post. As a result of this visit I was soon afterwards relieved from duty with the regiment and assigned to his office in Washington.

The concentration of troops for the Spanish-American War in 1898 carried the Tenth to Chickamauga, where I joined as Regimental Quartermaster, and thence to Tampa. Landing at Siboney on June 23rd, we were almost immediately involved in the prelim inary skirmish of the war, in company with the Rough Riders. The following days were strenuous and exciting, culminating in the charge up San Juan Hill. Here I rejoined my old troop, D, which had covered itself with glory in the heaviest of the fighting.

The Battle of Santiago was a small affair, a mere skirmish in comparison with our recent experiences, but it tried the valor and endurance of the strongest men, and our casualties were very heavy. The splendid discipline of the Regular Army made possible the success gained despite inconceivable confusion, lack of preparation and material, and the old veterans of the Tenth became famous throughout the country for their fine per formance on that battlefield.

This terminated my association with the regiment, but I have never forgotten the valuable lessons learned at the time, and I shall always look back with affection and pleasure to my days in the Tenth Cavalry.

To you and your officers and men I send my warmest regards and best wishes for the New Year.

Very sincerely yours, JOHN J. PERSHING.

RANGE WORK Nothing does a young horse as much good as plenty of range work. Most of them enjoy it.

Horse-ology In Six Easy Lessons By Charlie Dye

BROKE GENTLE When a horse is safe enough for kids to compete on him, he is a sure finished animal.

CUTTING OUT Separating stock takes catlike speed. A good cutting horse is very valuable to a cow outfit.

From Chapter IX, The Log Of A Cowboy by Andy Adams Bison Books Edition - University of Nebraska Press Now when the trail is a lost occupation, and the reverie and reminiscence carry the mind back to the day, there are friends and faces that may be forgotten, but there are horses that will never be. There were emergencies when the horse was everything, his rider merely the accessory. But together, man and horse, they were the force that made it possible to move the millions of cattle which passed up and over the various trails of the West.

horses of the west By James E. Serven

The Seventh Cavalry was on the move. Mounted on horses of Morgan and thoroughbred blood, they were headed toward a hostile Indian encampment to teach the Sioux and allied bands a lesson they would not forget. But the ill-conceived and impetuous attack of their commander, General George A. Custer, was destined to teach a different kind of lesson. As the sun went down in the valley of the Little Big Horn on June 25, 1876, the only survivor of Custer's attacking force was Captain Myles Keogh's horse "Commanche."

When news was flashed to the nation that 225 men of the crack Seventh Cavalry had been wiped out by a large mounted force of Indians, the great difference horses had made in western warfare was tragically demonstrated. On foot, the redmen would have been easy victims for a hard striking force of U. S. cavalrymen. But now the Indians were mounted on tough, well-trained ponies. An entirely new way of life had emerged for them with the coming of the horse. They were excellent horsemen and they were fighting for their homeland.

A story of the origins, course of distribution and vital roles of the horse in American progress

The introduction of horses into the western Indian territories is a major factor in the spread of horses in America. In order to best understand the horse's introduction, distribution and evolution on this continent it is necessary to backtrack somewhat.

We shall leave the early evolution of the animal which came to be known as a horse to the paleontologists and the anthropologists. We pick up the horse's course as a recognizable equus caballus at his known early presence in Asia. From there these animals spread over a large area inhabited by the nomadic Bedouins of Arabia and across the north African (Barbary) coast to Morocco.

During the eighth century the Moors invaded Spain, bringing with them their Arab-Barb horses. They remained in Spain as conquerors until they were finally driven out in 1492. During this occupation the Arab-Barb strain of the Moors' horses was crossed with native horses of somewhat colder blood.

Historians usually tell us that the first horses brought to the western hemisphere by Columbus in 1493 were "Andalusians." There appears to be differences of opinion as to the breeding of the Spanish Andalusian horses, but in any case the Spanish horses which accompanied Hernando Cortes on his historic conquest of Mexico in 1519 played a vital role so vital a role that Cortes is quoted as stating: "The horses and mares were our salvation."

Indeed the horses were the major reason that Cortes' greatly outnumbered force was victorious over the native Indians and a foothold on the new continent was secured. In time, horse ranches were established by the Spaniards in Cuba and other islands whence came the foundation stock for an expanding number of haciendas on the mainland devoted to the raising of cattle and horses. These Spanish horses carried a strong strain of Arab-Barb blood.

Horse breeding and importation proceeded at a rapid rate in Mexico (New Spain). Twenty years after Cortes landed, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado had no trouble assembling over a thousand head of horses and mules for his two-year trek (1540-1542) up through Sonora and into what is now New Mexico. One of his scouting parties reached the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Not finding the fabled golden city of Quivira and after experiencing great hardships, surviving members of the Coronado expedition made their way back to Mexico. Echoing Cortes' sentiments, Coronado stated, "Next to God we owed our victory to the horses." As the eminent historian J. Frank Dobie of Texas has commented, it would have been more properly stated as "salvation" than "victory."

Other ventures were undertaken to establish a foothold on the North American continent even earlier than Coronado's explorations. Expeditions to Florida and elsewhere along our east coast were savagely repulsed by the Indians. What horses were not saved by returning them to the ships are said to have been filled with arrows and eaten by the Indians.

Where, then, was the first successful introduction and firm establishment of the horse on our soil? The theory that estrayed horses from the ill-fated Spanish east coast ventures or from Coronado's expedition founded the wild (feral) horses of America has been rather thoroughly disproved.

The first real distribution of Spanish horses in what is now the United States followed founding of the settlement of San Juan on the upper Rio Grande in New Mexico by Juan de Oñate in 1598. Santa Fe replaced San Juan as the Capital of New Mexico about ten years later. Military invasion of Mexico by the Spaniards had been soon followed by settlement. Precious metals, and especially silver, were discovered. Mining camps were established and quickly came the need for horses in grinding the ore, threshing grain, transportation, and other uses. As mentioned earlier, large haciendas were established and on these eventually appeared great herds of horses and cattle. Thus in Mexico there gradually came into being an oversupply of these animals, and they were valuable items of trade in Spanish expansion to the north.