African American History in New Mexico: Portraits from Five Hundred Years

7: Civilians and Black Soldiers in New Mexico Territory, 1866–1900: A Cross-Cultural Experience

101 7 Civilians and Black Soldiers in New Mexico Territory, 1866–1900 A Cross-Cultural Experience monroe l. billington • • • Following the Civil War the American people regularly praised the veterans of that conflict. They held celebrations and awarded numerous accolades and honors to those citizens turned temporary soldiers. The U.S. government was generous with monuments, commemorations , and pensions. All of this was in stark contrast to the place and treatment given to the professional troops who served the countryinthepostwarperiod.After1866apervasiveantimilitaryethos enveloped men who served in the army. Although these men served during the period of the Indian wars, they were considered peacetime soldiers, and they did not command the respect directed toward the thousands of volunteer citizen-soldiers who had fought in the Civil War. This postwar army had few members who were from the upper or middle classes. Rather, it was composed primarily of lower-class urban workers, European immigrants, and blacks.1 Many Americans often expressed contempt for the members of this peacetime army. Except for a few artillerymen who served in forts along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, most men in the post–Civil War army served on the western frontier. They were stationed there to protect Americans as they traveled to and settled in the West. They broke the resistance of marauding Indians and patrolled reservation boundaries. In many specific instances they protected individual settlers, and their presence discouraged additional attacks on others. Farmers, ranchers, miners, 102 monroe l. billington and railroad construction workers often called on military troops, assuming without question that help would be forthcoming. Because of this assistance, one might assume that all westerners were appreciative of the soldiers’ efforts. Such was not the case. Members of the nonmilitary population often criticized the soldiers for not taking action or not acting quickly enough. And when the soldiers were unsuccessful in a specific instance, an unappreciative population often poured its wrath upon them. To be sure, some frontiersmen praised the troops for their protection, but for every person who could say that the army protected him, another and perhaps more were critical. An uneasy lovehate relationship existed between the soldiers and many civilians. In an era when Americans were committed to a strong work ethic, many civilians in the West could find little that was economically or socially beneficial in the spectacle of drunken soldiers carousing on payday. And when a few soldiers ran afoul of local authorities, the population often generalized that all soldiers were non-law-abiding no-accounts. Fighting, gambling, and stealing did not help endear soldiers to the civilians. The presence of houses of prostitution, saloons, and gambling halls near almost every fort—and the soldiers’ frequenting them and often contracting or spreading social diseases—offended the Puritan ideals of local inhabitants, even when these inhabitants did not always live up to those ideals themselves. Even those westerners who made money because of the presence of the troops did not necessarily respect them. Prostitutes, saloon keepers, cheating beef contractors, swindling horse and mule dealers, and others who preyed on the soldiers and the military were glad the army was in the West, but they did not necessarily like its troopers. To this point, what I have said about the relationships and attitudes of civilians toward soldiers applied to both white and black enlisted men. But white and black soldiers had some experiences that were different , these experiences stemming primarily from color. While white soldiers felt the civilian population’s prejudice because they were in the military, blacks received a double dose of negative attitudes and responses—because they were soldiers and because they were black. Since nearly two hundred thousand black soldiers had served in the Union army during the Civil War—making up 10 percent of the total manpower—and since most of those soldiers had performed creditably , it is not surprising that the postwar army included black enlisted Civilians and Black Soldiers in New Mexico Territory 103 men as well, a historically significant development in the composition of the regular army. When Congress passed a bill in 1866 to reorganize the army, the legislation designated two cavalry regiments (the 9th and 10th) and four infantry regiments (the 38th through the 41st) for black troops. When Congress reorganized the army in 1869, a new 24th Regiment was composed of the old 38th and 41st, and a new 25th Regiment was made up of the old 39th...