The Name "Buffalo Soldier"

Named by the Indians partly because of the Negro's dark and strange kinky hair was so similar to the buffalo, but most importantly it was a sign of respect. The Indians felt that like the mighty Buffalo, the Buffalo Soldiers fought ferociously to the end.

Their motto became "Ready and Forward."

The Beginning:

Shortly after the Civil War on July 28th, 1866, provisions were made or the Negroes to serve in the regular peacetime army. Six regiments, 2 of Cavalry and 4 of infantry were authorized. Most African Americans were eager to enlist, as the army gave them the chance for social and economic betterment of life.  Recruits were plentiful, though officers were few. Something difficult to achieve in a society all but closed to them. The Civil War was over, but many knew nothing of the world outside, the world beyond the city or plantation where they had spent most  their whole life. They could not go back, now they were free, but many did not have skills to go forward or a place to go. Many felt that the army would be a better new home. To others, it was the adventure of being sent west to help tame an untamed wilderness. Perhaps this could lead them to their great dream, the dream of building a new life on their own land.  The Ninth (9th Cavalry) and Tenth (10th Cavalry) Regiments duties included guarding the mail, escorting and / or guarding stage coaches, cattle drives, railroads crews and surveyors. They built roads and telegraph lines, mapped and explored. They played a major part in building the west and making it safe for the coming westward expansion. Those who were accepted, for the minimum of 5 years, received the basic troopers pay of thirteen dollars per month, plus quarters, meals and uniforms. They felt they were now on their way to acceptance, little did they know of the hardship they would face in the west. Most started with uniforms and equipment that was castoff remnants of both Civil War armies. New recruits used cotton compressors as barracks, ate boiled beef, hash, beans, corn bread and occasionally sweet potatoes, molasses and coffee, not much better off than what they had come from. But to most, the major inducement for enlistment was the prospect of learning how to read and write. They felt this would bring them closer to learning and earning the respect of the white men, and by knowing what the white man new would help them survive and prosper. The cavalry had always been given the finest of horses, but not the Negroes. They received the crippled and sickly horses left from the Civil War. But they quickly learned that sometimes your horse could be the difference between life and death. They soon learned to care for their horses better than they cared for themselves.

Recruitment of White officers proved to be a serious problem for both the 9th and 10th Cavalries. Despite enticements of fast promotion, many officers, including George Armstrong Custer and Frederick Benteen, refused commissions with African-American units. The following advertisement from the Army and Navy Journal illustrates the dilemma:

"A first Lieutenant of Infantry (white) stationed at a very desirable post.....desires a transfer with an officer of the same grade, on equal terms if in a white regiment; but if in a colored regiment, a reasonable bonus would be expected."  

Col. Edward Hatch was selected to command the new regiment. Hatch, who was a brevet Major General by the close of the Civil War, was an able and ambitious officer. He served admirably in this position until his death in 1889. In March, 1867 Colonel Edward Hatch received orders transferring his regiment to Texas. Two companies, L and M were to take station at Brownsville on the Rio Grande while the remaining 10 companies were to encamp near San Antonio and undergo further training. But marching orders had come to soon. Hatch had little more than an ill- disciplined mob on his hands and the stage was set for violence and tragedy. Enroute to San Antonio mutiny flared in K company and was suppressed only with great difficulty. When the city was reached, no brass bands turned out to welcome black men in blue uniforms, after all this had been Confederate territory, and friction developed quickly between the troopers and citizens. Clashes with the police became an almost daily occurrence. Serious trouble was only a matter of time, and it came on April 9th as too few officers strove to control their men. Mutiny broke out in A, E and K companies, and before order was restored, young Lieutenant Seth Griffin of A Company received a mortal wound and Lieutenant Fred Smith of K company was forced to shoot two of his own troopers.

The 9th Cavalry Cavalry was ordered to Texas in June of 1867. There it was charged with protecting stage and mail routes, building and maintaining forts, and establishing law and order in a vast area full of outlaws, Mexican revolutionaries, and raiding Comanches, Cheyennes, Kiowas, and Apaches. To compound their problems, many Texans felt that they were being subjected to a particularly harsh form of post-war reconstruction by Washington, and saw the assignment of the Black troopers as a deliberate attempt by the Union to further humiliate them. 

As such, the relationship between the troopers and locals was often at or near the boiling point. Despite prejudice and the almost impossible task of maintaining some semblance of order from the Staked Plains to El Paso to Brownsville, the 9th Cavalry established themselves as one of the most effective fighting forces in the Army.  The 9th Cavalry was transferred to the District of New Mexico during the winter and spring of 1875 and 76. Over the next six years they were thrust into what had been a 300-year struggle to subdue the fiercely independent Apaches. In 1874 - sparked by pressure from greedy contractors supplying the reservations, and by cattlemen, lumber men, and settlers hungry for Apache land - Washington approved a policy of concentrating the Apaches on a select few reservations. Unfortunately, the main reservation was at San Carlos, Arizona, a desolate wasteland despised by the Apache. The independent lifestyle and culture of the Apaches and their hatred of the San Carlos reservation insured the hostilities that were to come. The renegade Apaches that periodically fled the reservations were highly skilled horsemen with a superior knowledge of their ancestral lands. Under the command of skilled warriors like Skinya, Nana, Victorio, and Geronimo, the Apaches proved to be an illusive and worthy adversary for both the troopers of the 9th Cavalry and later the 10th Cavalries.   As 1881 came to a close, the battle-weary Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry had been serving continuously on the Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona frontiers for 14 years.

   That November the headquarters of the 9th Cavalry was transferred to Fort Riley, Kansas, with portions of the regiment assigned to Fort Sill, Fort Supply, and Fort Reno in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Over the next four years, the troopers were primarily concerned with the unpleasant task of evicting white settlers known as "Boomers," who were attempting to settle on Indian land. The 9th's unpopular duty continued until the regiment was transferred to Wyoming in June of 1885. From here companies were stationed at Fort Robinson and Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, and Fort Duchesne, Utah. 

In 1891 the 9th Cavalry was called on to assist in subduing the Sioux in what became known as the Ghost Dance Campaign. Once rulers of the northern plains, the Sioux were desolate and poverty stricken on their North and South Dakota reservations. In 1889 word spread of a messiah - a Paiute named Wovoka - who had seen through a vision that the ghosts of Plains Indians would return, bringing with them the buffalo herds slaughtered by the whites. The new "religion" swept through the Indians, alarming Dr. D. F. Royer, the newly appointed agent at the Pine Ridge reservation. Royer over-reacted, pleading for troops to protect him and his staff. By the end of November, one-half of the U.S. Army was concentrated on or near the reservations. The Army's show of force was intended to scare the Sioux into submission. However, many Indians, fearing a massacre, bolted from the reservations and fled into the Badlands. The subsequent actions of the Army to pacify and return the Sioux to their reservations culminated in the massacre of 146 men, women, and children at Wounded Knee on December 29th. 

The 9th Cavalry played no role in the slaughter. This was to be their last campaign on the frontier.

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