SOLDIERING ON

Research by Nick Alexandrov

BEGINNING IN THE CIVIL WAR, BLACK SOLDIERS IN INDIAN TERRITORY FOUGHT THE CONFEDERATES, KEPT THE BOOMERS AT BAY, AND HELPED BUILD WHAT WOULD BECOME OKLAHOMA. IN THE PROCESS, THEY EARNED A PLACE OF HONOR IN AMERICAN HISTORY. MEET THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS.

There were six regiments, these sons of Africa, who wore the blue and the gold.

It is a shame that history failed to properly record their gallant deeds, but now at long last their story is being told.

Maybe it was their curly black hair, all covered with dust, that reminded the Indians of the hair of the buffalo, maybe that’s why they called them the “Buffalo Soldiers,” anyway just that’s how the story goes.

WALLACE C.

THOUGH THE HISTORY of African American men fighting alongside the U.S. military dates to the Revolutionary War—George Washington and Andrew Jackson both fought with black soldiers—the first all-black regiments did not exist until the Civil War. More than 180,000 black men fought—and more than 36,000 died—as part of the United States Colored Troop in volunteer units from 1863 until the war’s end two years later, but they weren’t allowed to join the Army until the war was over. Many did just that, eventually comprising four segregated regiments that became known as the Buffalo Soldiers, a name given to them by Native warriors.

“The origin of the term buffalo soldier is uncertain,” wrote historian William H. Leckie in his 1967 book The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West, “although the common explanation is that the Indian saw a similarity between the hair of the Negro soldier and that of a buffalo. The buffalo was a sacred animal to the Indian, and it is unlikely that he would so name an enemy if respect were lacking. It is a fair guess that the Negro trooper understood this and thus his willingness to accept the title.”

The exploits of these black soldiers are as intrinsic to the Oklahoma story as the Indigenous Americans they battled in the name of Manifest Destiny or the frontier posts they constructed that became present-day towns and cities. Buffalo Soldiers were of vital importance in the development of Indian Territory.

President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 began the era of black soldiers in the Union army. But it was not wellreceived by all, as many Union men op posed the integration of their ranks— one division in Ohio even plotted to go home. But a commission with a black regiment often led to faster promotion, which served as ample enticement for some white officers. Though some of the animosity dissipated when the white soldiers witnessed their black colleagues’ acts of valor and grit, that didn’t end the discrimination or increase the black soldiers’ pay—which totaled seven dollars compared to the white soldiers’ thirteen.

Some of the first black soldiers to enlist during the Civil War worked in Indian Territory, and they helped the Union succeed on several fronts. The First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment, who were stationed at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, engaged in two critical battles here.

In 1861, the U.S. government relocated its smaller forces in the territory to the east, where skirmishes were more populated, more violent, and more regular. Shortly after this relocation, the Confederacy signed treaties of alliance with the Cherokee, Muscogee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole nations. Together, this alliance controlled Indian Territory for a year without hindrance. Union troops returned in April 1863, led by Colonel William A. Phillips of Kansas, and set up camp at Fort Gibson with the aim of dominating the Confederates and returning control of the Texas Road— and the territory—to the United States.

The army was an attractive alternative for many men, and now, their pay was equal to the white rank and file.

The First Battle of Cabin Creek, which took place July 1 and 2 1863, marked the first time black soldiers fought in company with Indigenous and white troops. Leading a Union supply train from Fort Scott, Kansas, to Fort Gibson, Colonel James M. Williams and his men—which also included the Third Indian Home Guard—clashed with Confederate Cherokee Colonel Stand Watie and his forces. Williams, tipped off by captured Confederate soldiers, knew that Watie was readying an attack, so the Union men forced Watie’s battalions away with two cavalry charges and artillery fire.

THE DECISION TO use the Negro as a soldier did not necessarily grow out of any broad humanitarian resolve,” wrote Civil War historian Bruce Catton in his 1936 book The Story of the Union Side of the Civil War. “It seems to have come more largely out of the dawning realization that, since the Confederates were going to kill a great many more Union soldiers before the war was over, a good many white men would escape death if a considerable percentage of those soldiers were colored.”

Keeping the supply line open from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson was a constant struggle for Phillips. It didn’t help that the rebels made camp twenty miles southwest of Fort Gibson in Honey Springs near present-day Rentiesville. But these Confederates did more than camp—they constructed a log hospital, a commissary building, arbors, and several tents. And they had plenty of spring water nearby.

Considered the largest Civil War engagement in Indian Territory—involving a total of more than 9,000 soldiers—the Battle of Honey Springs occurred on a rain-soaked July 17, 1863. The First Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry Regiment were tasked with capturing the four-gun Confederate artillery battery supporting the 20th and 29th Texas Cavalry Regiments. Their valor in battle may have been attributable in part to the fact that the Confederate troops had brought shackles to the battlefield in order to return captured black soldiers to slavery in the South.

“The First Kansas (colored) particularly distinguished itself; they fought like veterans and preserved their line unbroken throughout the engagement,” read the official battle report by Major General James G. Blunt. “Their coolness and bravery I have never seen surpassed; they were in the hottest of the fight and opposed to Texas troops twice their number, whom they completely routed. One Texas regiment (the 20th Cavalry) that fought against them went into the fight with three hundred men and came out with only sixty.” ranks as an experiment—and one that might fail. Could recently emancipated black men—many of whom were illiterate by design—conduct themselves in a manner befitting the U.S. military?

SHORTLY AFTER THE war’s end, the federal government returned to its policy of maintaining a small peacetime army. According to the Annual Report of the Secretary of War for the year 1866, the army numbered 38,540 troops. The nation had no time to catch its breath, with brewing conflicts with Natives in the West and along the Mexican border.

Congress, in a hotly debated quest to address these matters, passed an act on July 28, 1866, that paved the way for African American men to serve in the regular army. The act authorized the founding of six black regiments: two cavalry, the 9th and the 10th; and four infantry units, the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st. It also included unique mandates, including one that chaplains be assigned to regiments rather than posts so they could teach the black soldiers reading, writing, and basic math. Across the country, many saw the inclusion of black soldiers in the peacetime