Buffalo Soldiers in the West: A Black Soldiers Anthology

Part II - The Black Soldier

part II TheBlackSoldier The selection by the editors of “Cathay Williams: Black Woman Soldier, 1866–68” by DeAnn Blanton as the first article in this section represents a contradiction, paradox, and an anomaly since all nineteenth-century blacks who served as soldiers except one was a man, legally only men could be soldiers, and even an ingenious act of deception normally should warrant little attention. However, Cathay, Cathey, or Cathy Williams who on November 15, 1866, presented herself to the St. Louis, Missouri, military recruiter as William Cathay represents the complexity and contradiction of African American life and serves as a metaphor of the black soldiering experience. Cathay Williams had no right to join the military since her gender eliminated such service. The various spellings of her name are indicative of the inattention given to many ex-slaves by a society that had little value for them, and her cursory physical examination reflects the urgency of the nation to fill its ranks with all available manpower. The two years of service without apparent detection also suggests that artificial restrictions of race, class, and gender were false indicators of competency. The black soldier historically has been called to duty for every major conflict on American soil, but it has been a muted call: serve with little recognition, serve for less pay, serve under white leadership, and serve only under dire circumstances. It was not until 1866 that the nation allowed black men to become a part of the standing army, and it was the buffalo soldier who would be the first to gain that distinction. These black soldiers were assigned duties in the western part of the nation for over four decades with little rotation from the region. They were called upon to fight and protect Indians; patrol stage and wagon routes; escort paymasters; build and maintain forts, roads, and telegraph lines; chase and arrest outlaws, renegades, whiskey peddlers, horse and cattle thieves; perform standard garrison duties; and maintain conformable relations with the town folk who often despised them. Since reestablishing order on the plains following the Civil War was a central motivation for dispatching the buffalo soldier to western outposts , relations with the Indians by necessity occupied a portion of the army’s attention. Many students of western history have signaled the irony of one oppressed group fighting another at the behest of their mutual oppressor. This question has generated an interesting and sometimes vitriolic debate: Did the buffalo soldiers and the Indians give each other quarter whenever possible? Many scholars have labeled the notion that either group related in any way other than combatants as romantic nonsense while some detractors have argued that very point. Some scholars have pointed to the television film, Buffalo Soldiers, where buffalo soldiers capture an Apache leader and his band but after a brother-to-brother powwow allow them to go free, as both sentimental and ahistorical. The above tête-à-tête never happened, and scholars were correct to view this Hollywood version of political correctness with chagrin since in military campaigns and contests, adversaries essentially are concerned with winning and ultimate victory. Any nonmilitary consideration on its face would seem unusual and exceptional, yet the question of racial motivation sometimes was raised by the buffalo soldiers themselves. In “One Soldier’s Service: Caleb Benson in the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, 1875–1908” by Thomas R. Buecker, Caleb Benson makes what Buecker calls “a somewhat bizarre (possibly apocryphal) observation on the relationship between the black cavalrymen and the Plains Indians.” (56) Private Caleb Benson as a member of the Ninth Cavalry, Company D in late 1879 was dispatched to Milk Creek, Colorado, where he was engaged in one of the major battles of the West. The White River Utes, upset with the treatment they had received from Indian agent N. C. Meeker, attacked and killed Maj. T. T. Thornburgh and ten of his men while wounding twenty-three others. Several hundred well-positioned Ute sharpshooters kept the remaining members of the three cavalry companies and one of infantry dug in under heavy fire. The novelty of the black-faced buffalo soldiers who came to the aid of their distressed comrades may have played a decisive role in the Utes’ unusual response to their arrival. According to official military 98 part II reports, not a buffalo soldier (including Private Benson) was harmed as they...