In the spring of 1865, with the Civil War finally over, American lawmakers began to debate whether Black soldiers would have a permanent place in the peacetime Army. Some 180,000 Black men had fought in the Union ranks, but never before in the nation’s history had they been allowed regular status in the armed forces. In the West, white settlers were clashing with Indian tribes who were determined to protect their land and lives from aggression. Soon, Congress would authorize six new Black Army regiments to support America’s westward expansion. Hundreds of Black men answered the call and set off for remote outposts on the frontier, searching for opportunities denied to them in civilian life. They became known as the first buffalo soldiers.Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterListen to American History Tellers on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season. Unlock exclusive early access by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial today by visiting wondery.com/links/american-history-tellers/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Picture this. You're transported back in time, witnessing history unfold right before your eyes without any modern-day interruptions. That's the magic of Wondery Plus. Immerse yourself in the stories that shaped our nation with ad-free episodes, early access to new seasons, and exclusive bonus content.
Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts and experience American history like never before. Imagine it's dawn on Christmas Day, 1866, in Williamson County, Tennessee. You ease the door of your cabin closed and gingerly step onto the frosty ground, hoping you don't wake anyone inside.
Christmas is the one day a year that your mother sleeps in, and the last thing you want is to have to explain yourself. But as you reach the edge of the yard, a noise stops you in your tracks. You turn around to see your younger brother, John, rubbing his eyes as he emerges from the cabin.
Where are you going? None of your business. Go back to bed. If you don't tell me, I'm going to wake Mom. Fine. I'm going to Nashville. To do what? To enlist in the Army. The Army? In case you hadn't noticed, the war is over. I know the war is over. But they're recruiting black men to go west and fight Indians. I heard about it in town. You? In the Army?
You aren't even tall enough to look over a fence. Who in their right mind is going to let you have a gun? I promise I'm going to send money home. The army pays regular wages. It'll be more than I'm making here, that's for sure. But what about Ma? What about me? I can't stay here and be a sharecropper, working for a man who thinks he still owns me, dying in the field like our old man did.
He gave everything away and got nothing in return. I want something more.
John glances at the bag slung around your shoulders and looks down at the ground and kicks the frozen dirt lost in thought. Finally, he meets your gaze and nods.
Just don't get yourself killed. Ma would never let me hear the end of it. You take care of each other while I'm gone. I'll send money when I can.
You step forward to wrap your arms around him. You can't let him know that you're just as scared as he is. But you can't just waste away on this plantation. You have to be your own man, even if it means risking your life. American History Tellers is sponsored by Hills Pet Nutrition. Every shelter pet deserves a second chance, and you're making it possible for thousands of them every day.
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American History Tellers is sponsored by the new Netflix limited series Zero Day, a conspiracy thriller about a catastrophic cyberattack that downs America's infrastructure.
To lead a commission with broad powers to find the perpetrators, a respected former president, played by Robert De Niro, is called out of retirement, only to discover that he may be losing his grip on the truth and possibly even reality.
Zero Days stars Robert De Niro in his first-ever television series, alongside Angela Bassett, Jesse Plemons, Connie Britton, Matthew Modine, Lizzie Kaplan, and Joan Allen. Watch Zero Day on February 20th, only on Netflix. From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers, our history, your story.
On our show, we'll take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped America and Americans, our values, our struggles, and our dreams. We'll put you in the shoes of everyday people as history was being made. And we'll show you how the events of the times affected them, their families, and affects you now.
On Christmas Day, 1866, a 19-year-old former slave named George Jordan traveled to Nashville to enlist in a new all-Black Army regiment. It was the start of a 30-year career as a professional soldier. In the Army, Jordan learned to read and write, rose to the rank of sergeant, and eventually received the nation's highest military honor.
Jordan joined one of six new black regiments created by Congress in 1866. For the first time in American history, black men had a permanent place in the U.S. military. Most were stationed in isolated posts on the frontier, charged with making the West safer settlement.
In scorching deserts and frozen plains, black soldiers built roads, laid telegraph lines, mapped thousands of square miles, and protected railroad crews and settlers. But opening the West meant fighting and displacing the Native Americans the U.S. government deemed a threat to white settlement.
For decades, black soldiers helped the United States wage war against Native tribes in a series of conflicts known as the Indian Wars. The Native Americans they fought dubbed them Buffalo Soldiers. During a time of intense racial turmoil in the South, service in the Army provided Black men with a steady income, education, and a chance to claim equal status as American citizens.
But while fighting Indians on the battlefield, many Buffalo soldiers also fought prejudice within the Army. Their legacy of service is a reminder of the complicated relationship of Black soldiers to their government and to the Native people they helped suppress. This is Episode 1 in our three-part series on the Buffalo Soldiers, The Brass Letters.
On July 6, 1863, America's leading abolitionist Frederick Douglass stood before a packed audience in Philadelphia's National Hall and delivered a rousing call to arms.
He declared, Once we let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth which can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship. By then, America was more than two years into the Civil War.
President Abraham Lincoln had finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing enslaved people in the Confederate States and authorizing the enlistment of black men into the Union Army. But the idea of arming black men was controversial in both the South and the North.
Black soldiers had fought in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, but they had never served in the regular army, and they were banned from state militias. And even as Union army losses mounted, Lincoln and his advisors were reluctant to allow black men to take up arms. But as the Civil War dragged on and the death toll climbed, sentiment began to change.
Over time, President Lincoln's desire to end the conflict outweighed his fears of any public backlash. So, in the wake of the Emancipation Proclamation, thousands of Black men rushed to join the Union ranks. In total, roughly 180,000 Black men served in segregated regiments known as the United States Colored Troops, or USCT.
They believed, as Frederick Douglass did, that Army service would help them lay claim to full citizenship once the war was won. Over the next two years, USCT soldiers fought bravely in some of the war's most brutal battles, and 16 Black soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor in combat, the nation's highest military recognition.
By the war's end in April 1865, 40,000 Black men had died to save the Union, end slavery, and seek their own freedom and citizenship. But there were early signs that the path to citizenship would not be straightforward. In May 1865, nearly a quarter of a million Union soldiers paraded through Washington, D.C. in a celebratory Grand Review.
The victorious Union Army marched proudly from the Capitol to the White House, past thousands of cheering, flag-waving spectators. And in the days that followed, most of the soldiers would muster out of the Army and return to civilian life. But the troops who marched down Pennsylvania Avenue that day were nearly all white.
The black soldiers who helped carry the Union to victory were nowhere to be seen because most of them were still on active duty across the South. They would soon find themselves waging a new war. Imagine it's June 1865 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's a hot, humid evening, and your uniform clings to your skin.
You're a sergeant in the United States Colored Troops, charged with keeping the peace in Baton Rouge in the aftermath of the war. After a long day on patrol, you and five soldiers in your unit walk into a small bar tucked away on a dusty side street. You blink, your eyes adjusting to the dim light inside. The other patrons stare at you as you and your fellow soldiers step up to the bar.
Six beers, please. The bartender, a white man in his fifties, looks up from the glass he's cleaning. He narrows his eyes.
We don't serve your kind here. You all better find somewhere else to go.
You take a deep breath, willing yourself to keep your cool.
We just want a drink to cool down. That's all. As best you don't make any trouble.
He slams a glass down on the bar and the room falls silent.
I ain't the one causing trouble. You all are the ones plundering our homes and stirring up the freedmen. It ain't right.
The bar erupts in applause. Your men shift uneasily beside you and your muscles tense.
All we're doing is protecting those freedmen from anyone who wants to do them harm. You think wearing that blue army coat makes you a man? You think it makes you better than me? It makes me a soldier. It makes me someone who fought for freedom, for the Union. I think that at least gives me the right to a drink after a long day.
The bartender's hands grip the edge of the bar, his knuckles going white, and his gaze full of venom.
Oh, so you think you're some kind of hero, then? Wait until I show you and your friends what you really are.
Before you can react, the bartender throws down his rag and storms around the bar coming straight for you. You glance around the room. All eyes are on you, but no one moves to help. You and your fellow soldiers are on your own. While most white soldiers mustered out of the army and made their way home, the majority of USCT soldiers remained on active duty.
Some 120,000 of them were still stationed in the South even after the war ended. Many of them had enlisted in 1863 for three-year terms, and their white officers deemed their terms incomplete. But the Army also kept the black soldiers in service for practical reasons. Army officials knew that most of the soldiers were former slaves who faced an uncertain future once they mustered out.
The New York Times explained, they would be in great measure helpless and friendless wanderers were they disbanded en masse as our white troops have been. So for the time being, tens of thousands of black soldiers remained on duty in the South. They were tasked with maintaining order, defending the Union victory, and protecting the freedom of former slaves.
But many white Southerners refused to accept the presence of thousands of armed black men in uniform. White Southerners taunted and harassed the black soldiers they met in the street. And they did everything they could to damage their reputations.
In Texas and Louisiana, white civilians went so far as to don blackface and disguise themselves as USCT troops before committing crimes against other whites. Even in border states like Kentucky, white legislators petitioned federal officials to replace the black soldiers with white ones.
General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant expressed his own concerns, describing the need to avoid unnecessary irritation and the demoralization of labor in those states. He also feared for the safety of black soldiers if they continued serving in the South. And as time went on, clashes between white Southerners and black occupation troops only became increasingly common.
In May 1866, a group of soldiers in Memphis who had recently mustered out of the USCT got into an argument with white police officers. Crowds gathered on the scene, and the argument escalated into gunfire that ignited violence across the city. After three days, 46 black people and two white people had been killed, and five black women had been raped.
Dozens of black homes, schools, churches, and businesses were burned. The New York Times placed part of the blame on the behavior of the USCT soldiers, declaring, Since the muster out, they have frequented whiskey shops and been guilty of excesses and disorderly conduct.
This tension and violence between black soldiers and white civilians made the long-term future of black men in the Army uncertain. By the spring of 1866, a year had passed since the end of the Civil War, and most USCT regiments had been disbanded. Now the debate turned to the question of whether black men would have a permanent place in the regular peacetime Army, and resistance was fierce.
Some Democratic legislators used racist arguments to insist that Black men were inherently unfit to serve. Other opponents pointed to recent evidence of animosity between white civilians and Black soldiers, arguing that enlisting Black soldiers would be contrary to the goal of restoring peace and harmony after the war. Delaware Senator Willard Salisbury Sr.
declared, If you were to send Negro regiments into the community in which I live to brandish their swords, pistols, and guns, their very presence would be a stench in the nostrils of the people.
Republican Senator Benjamin Wade responded to Salisbury, declaring, If it is necessary to station troops anywhere to keep the peace in this nation, I do not care how obnoxious they are to those who undertake to stir up sedition. Most Republican politicians wholeheartedly supported Black enlistment, pointing to Black soldiers' strong record of service in the Civil War.
And those lawmakers were well aware of the reliability of black soldiers during the war. Senator Wade insisted that black soldiers would be less likely to desert their posts than their white counterparts because of the lack of employment opportunities for black men outside the Army.
In the end, the Republican majority in Congress prevailed, and on July 28, 1866, Congress passed the Army Reorganization Act, authorizing the creation of 30 new Army regiments. This included six new segregated regiments of Black troops, two cavalry regiments, the 9th and 10th, and four infantry regiments that within three years would be consolidated into two, the 24th and the 25th.
For the rest of the century, Black soldiers would make up roughly 10% of the U.S. Army, the total size of which hovered around 25,000 to 30,000 troops, down from 1 million at the end of the Civil War.
But legislators knew that many Black soldiers would be illiterate former slaves, so a key provision of the new law mandated that a chaplain be assigned to each regiment tasked with educating the soldiers in reading, writing, and math so that they could handle paperwork and read and write messages.
And it was widely understood that the new regiments would be led by white commissioned officers, following the precedent set by the USCT regiments during the Civil War. Many white Americans opposed the idea of black men serving as commissioned officers, especially if they would have authority over white soldiers.
But despite the new law's limitations, it was a turning point in the history of the U.S. Army. And soon, white officers would turn to the task of recruiting black soldiers for their regiments. Thousands of black men would heed the call to arms, seeking a new pathway to equality and full American citizenship. American History Tellers is sponsored by Liquid IV.
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In the summer of 1866, Army recruiters swept through American cities with the goal of filling the ranks of six newly created all-Black regiments. The four infantry regiments organized quickly by drawing from the large pool of Civil War veterans.
However, finding recruits for the new cavalry regiments would prove more difficult because very few Black men had served in the cavalry during the Civil War. The Army also needed to be able to find officers to command these new regiments, and for the cavalry, General Ulysses S. Grant had two veteran officers in mind. He recommended that Colonel Edward Hatch lead the 9th U.S.
Cavalry and that Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson command the 10th. Hatch was a blonde, blue-eyed native of Maine who served as a colonel of the 2nd Iowa Cavalry. He survived a bullet wound in his lung in battle in Moscow, Tennessee, and later he was lauded for his bravery and aggression, spearheading the cavalry advance at the Battle of Nashville.
Off the battlefield, his personable nature earned him the trust and admiration of his troops. But Benjamin Grierson was an unlikely cavalry commander. When he was eight years old, a horse kicked him in the face, leaving him with a large scar across his cheek and a strong dislike of horses.
When the Civil War began, he left his job as a small-town music teacher in Illinois and sought a commission as an infantry officer. Instead, he was appointed as a major in the cavalry. Despite his initial disappointment, though, Grierson threw himself into the challenge.
He poured over books on battle tactics to make up for his lack of military education, and he soon turned his recruits into first-rate cavalrymen. In the spring of 1863, he led a daring 600-mile raid through the heart of Mississippi to divert Confederate attention from Grant's attack on Vicksburg. General William Tecumseh Sherman praised the raid as the most brilliant expedition of the war.
Afterwards, Grierson was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, and his portrait was published on the cover of Harper's Weekly. During the war, he also developed a respect for the combat capabilities of black men.
Following the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, in the summer of 1863, Grierson wrote to his wife Alice, declaring that the good fighting qualities of Negroes had been settled beyond a doubt. His high regard for black soldiers made him the ideal man to lead the 10th Cavalry.
After accepting his appointment, Grierson established headquarters at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, while Hatch went to work in Greenville, Louisiana. Next, both men turned their attention to the problem of filling the officer ranks of their regiments. but they soon discovered that there were few experienced officers who were willing to command black troops.
Brevet Major General Eugene Carr declined a commission, insisting that black men could not make good soldiers, and accepted a lower rank so he could serve with a white regiment. And the young rising star George Custer, who went on to lead troops against Native Americans in the controversial Battle of Little Bighorn, refused Hatch's offer to serve as a second-in-command.
Instead, he took the same position with the all-white 7th Cavalry. And recruitment was not just difficult for officers. Even in New Orleans, Louisiana, where large numbers of Black Civil War veterans lived, recruiters for the 9th Cavalry faced an uphill battle in the fall of 1866. The previous summer, a white mob attacked dozens of Black protesters peacefully marching for voting rights.
At least 50 Black residents were killed, many of them war veterans. Only months later, the city was still reeling from the violence, and white hostility to Black men in uniform persisted. But despite white resistance, recruiters managed to enlist roughly 800 men into the 9th Cavalry. One of those men was 19-year-old Emanuel Stantz, who became one of the first to enroll in October 1866.
Although he was born into slavery, he could read and write, which made him an attractive recruit, despite his five-foot stature. His literacy also helped him quickly rise through the ranks of non-commissioned officers, and within a few months, he would be appointed sergeant. Army service was an appealing prospect for men like Stantz.
In the aftermath of the war, Black Southerners faced violence, discrimination, and high unemployment. The military offered food, shelter, and steady pay. Thirteen dollars a month was a meager wage, but it was the same offered to white soldiers and more than they could expect to earn as civilians.
Army service also offered Black men an opportunity to prove their manhood in a society that had largely devalued their worth. But despite the promises of military life, the 9th Cavalry's early experiences were anything but ideal. In Orleans, the new recruits were crammed into a poorly ventilated former cotton packing plant, even as a cholera epidemic raged through the city.
Nearly 40 recruits died that fall, while others simply gave up and fled. Meanwhile in Kansas, Benjamin Grierson faced his own challenges organizing the 10th Cavalry and training his new recruits. Though many enlistees joined the military to escape discrimination and civilian life, they would soon find that prejudice had followed them into the Army ranks.
Imagine it's a Sunday morning in June 1867 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. You're an Army colonel and commander of the 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment. As is custom, all units in the garrison are parading today. The summer sun beats down on you as you lead your recruits in formation on the fort's dusty parade ground.
Attention!
Your men snap to attention. Their newfound precision and discipline fills you with pride. But just as you're about to order them to march, Major General William Hoffman enters your peripheral vision. He strives towards you, a familiar scowl etched on his face.
Get those people off the ground. Your regiment will remain at rest today.
You meet his gaze, willing yourself to maintain your composure as you face another argument with the commander of the fort.
Sir, these men will parade just like everyone else. They are no different than any other unit. They will be treated as equals. They are not equals. You'll do well to remember that.
A hot surge of frustration rises in your chest. You've had enough.
First, you quarter my men in the most flood-prone area of the fort. Do you know how many of them have fallen ill with pneumonia? And now this? I will not accept any more indignities. I'm drawing the line.
Hoffman takes a step towards you, his face taut with anger.
You dare contradict a direct order from your superior officer? General, these men have trained hard. They've earned the right to parade here just like any other unit in this fort. You can call it insubordination if you like, but I won't dishonor these men by sending them away for your comfort. I ought to have court martial charges drawn up against you. Go right ahead and try.
Without waiting for a response, you turn on your heel to face your regiment.
Forward, march!
You watch your men march with fierce satisfaction. You're more determined than ever to get your unit away from Fort Leavenworth and away from Hoffman's bigotry. You need to get them into the field as soon as possible, to somewhere they can serve with the dignity befitting soldiers of the United States Army.
When the 10th Cavalry organized at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the fort's openly racist commander, Major General William Hoffman, made it his mission to make the black soldiers' experience as miserable as possible. He denied the black recruits adequate equipment, leveled petty charges against them, and ordered them to stay 10 to 15 yards from white troops at all times.
He also quartered them in low grounds susceptible to flooding. Before long, several recruits were hospitalized with pneumonia. Grierson did what he could to fight back against such blatant discrimination, instructing his company commanders to avoid using the term colored in reports and emphasizing that they were simply the 10th Cavalry Regiment.
He also protested to his department headquarters, demanding fair and equal treatment for his men. He affirmed, "...colored troops will hold their place in the Army of the United States as long as the government lasts." But Grierson was still desperate to escape Fort Leavenworth and requested a transfer for his regiment.
In the meantime, he busied his soldiers with rigorous training in horseback riding, marching, and marksmanship. Then, in the spring and summer of 1867, the 9th and 10th Cavalries would head west to serve in the Great Plains and in the mountains and deserts of New Mexico and Arizona.
The soldiers would be tasked with supporting westward expansion by building roads and telegraph lines, protecting settlers and railroad construction crews, and escorting U.S. mail carriers. But above all else, they would be charged with subduing the American Indians who stood in the way of this westward expansion. For centuries, Indians of the Great Plains were free and independent.
They roamed the prairies, hunting buffalo for meat and hide. But by the middle of the 19th century, white settlers had threatened their way of life by introducing diseases, devastating foraging grounds, contaminating water sources, and running off buffalo herds.
Nevertheless, tens of thousands of Indians insisted on remaining free rather than agreeing to live on reservations at the mercy of white men. For their resistance to white settlement, the U.S. government considered them hostile. But conflict with Indian tribes was not the only reason for sending black soldiers west. The politics of reconstruction also came into play.
Army officials hoped that by keeping black soldiers away from the South, they could reduce tensions. So in March 1867, Emanuel Stantz and the other soldiers of the 9th Cavalry left Louisiana for Fort Davis in West Texas. But during their travels, the soldiers quickly discovered they would be fighting a war on two fronts, one against the Indians and one with their own army.
The soldiers were accompanied by Lieutenant Edward Hale, a white company commander who quickly gained a reputation as a sadistic bigot. In April, the regiment arrived at San Pedro Springs, outside San Antonio. While there, Hale ordered several black soldiers to be hung by their wrists from tree limbs for responding too slowly to his orders.
When the black sergeant, Harrison Bradford, protested, an argument escalated into gunfire that killed Bradford and a lieutenant. As a result of this incident, several black soldiers were court-martialed while Hale got off with only a reprimand.
So, before they even arrived at their final post, the 9th Cavalry was stained by accusations of mutiny, and soon they would face the challenge of guarding hundreds of miles of one of the most turbulent frontiers in American history. In July, the 9th Cavalry finally arrived at Fort Davis, a dilapidated army outpost named after Jefferson Davis, who was Secretary of War when the fort was constructed.
It was nestled in a mile-high desert canyon in west Texas near the Mexican border, roughly 200 miles southeast of El Paso. But there at Fort Davis, their main duty was to defend 600 miles of the meandering Rio Grande frontier and a vast region in West Texas. Water was often scarce, and temperatures ranged from over 100 degrees in summer to below freezing in winter.
Displaced Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Indians who had refused to settle on reservations roamed the area. Indian warriors, Mexican bandits, and white cattle thieves found a haven in the thick brush along the Rio Grande, and they had brought the area to a state of near-anarchy. The 9th Cavalrymen would quickly discover that keeping at peace was nearly impossible.
And conditions were no less difficult for the soldiers of the 10th Cavalry, stationed nearly 900 miles to the north. They would soon find themselves plunged into the thick of a raging struggle for control of the southern plains. One small unit would enter the fray in a surprise attack, and threatened to turn into a massacre.
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In the summer of 1867, Colonel Benjamin Grierson and the men of the 10th Cavalry left the misery of Fort Leavenworth behind after receiving transfer orders. They traveled more than 100 miles west to their new headquarters of Fort Riley, Kansas. From there, three companies were stationed to the south in what was then Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma.
The rest were posted along the Kansas Pacific Railroad, then under construction in central Kansas. But soon, the rookie soldiers would face their first test from Southern Plains Indians determined to make a stand. Since the 1840s, the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho had faced increasing pressure from white settlement.
These settlers had brought livestock to the region that spread disease among the free-roaming buffalo and depleted their forage. The Army's 1864 massacre of hundreds of unarmed Cheyenne near Sand Creek, Colorado, had also ignited armed conflict across the southern plains, and construction of the transcontinental railroad deepened Native resentment.
And in April 1867, an army campaign to subdue hostile tribes only worsened the situation, sparking a full-scale war throughout much of the region. A black infantry commander wrote to the Army and Navy Journal that summer, declaring, This is the beginning of the great and last Indian struggle for his existence.
So in early August 1867, the soldiers of the 10th Cavalry were ordered to find a group of Cheyenne warriors who had attacked a railroad construction crew. Thirty soldiers tracked them down at the Saline River in central Kansas, where they suddenly found themselves surrounded by 400 warriors.
The outnumbered soldiers, who had not yet experienced major combat, dismounted and maneuvered themselves into a hollow square around their horses. Maintaining this position, they began marching back to their fort while fending off attacks from all sides.
After six hours of battle, the Cheyenne finally retreated, and the 10th had suffered their first combat death, Sergeant William Christie, but the rest survived. Their white captain declared, It is the greatest wonder in the world that my command escaped being massacred. He applauded his soldiers' devotion to duty and coolness under fire.
By the end of the summer of 1867, the 10th Cavalry had shed their rookie status, and soon Plains Indians began referring to them as Buffalo Soldiers. While the origin of this nickname is disputed, many believe the Cheyenne were the first to use it, likening black soldiers to bison, either due to their curly hair or because of their ferocity in battle.
The cavalrymen did not initially adopt the name, but they would later come to embrace it, including the image of a buffalo on their regimental crest as a symbol of pride. The name Buffalo Soldiers eventually became synonymous with all the black regiments formed in 1866.
But wherever the term came from, after a summer of violence, the Buffalo Soldiers were relieved that the fall of 1867 brought a fragile peace to the Southern Plains. In October, the U.S. government signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty with the Southern Plains tribes. The Comanche and Kiowa tribes were allotted a 3 million acre reservation in Indian Territory.
In exchange for agreeing to settle on this reservation, the U.S. government promised to provide the tribes with food, supplies, and protection. But in the end, Congress failed to release the funds needed to live up to the treaty's promises, and by the next summer of 1868, there was renewed violence in the plains, prompting one of the most harrowing episodes of the Indian Wars.
Imagine it's the morning of September 25th, 1868. For eight days, you and dozens of other scouts under the command of Major George Forsythe have been trapped on a sandbar in Colorado's Arikari River following an attack by hundreds of Cheyenne warriors. You lie in the sand, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in your broken leg. It's swollen now and twisted awkwardly beneath you.
Your friend Thomas crouches beside you. His lips are cracked and his face is sunken and covered in grime. He holds out a chunk of shriveled horse meat.
Here, have some of this.
Your stomach churns and you shake your head.
That horse meat makes me sick. It was bad enough before it went rancid. Come on, you need to keep your strength up. Just one bite and I'm fine.
You nibble on the meat, its taste bitter and metallic, but you force yourself to chew. The throat is dry, and it takes everything in you to swallow it down.
I can't take this anymore. If there are any bullets left, you may as well shoot me dead. Don't talk like that. We're going to be rescued. Jack and Pierre ran for help a week ago and still haven't returned. They're probably dead. Just like you and I will be soon. If we're lucky. You can't lose hope. We just need to hold on a little longer.
You look over to the ditch where your commanding officer Major Forsythe lies dying.
Someone should put Forsythe out of his misery. He's a fighter. Just like the rest of us. We've all survived this long. There's got to be a reason. We can't give in now.
Suddenly, you hear galloping horses, and your heart starts to race.
That must be the Cheyenne coming to finish us off.
Thomas looks past you, and a grin spreads over his face. You follow his gaze where a group of black cavalrymen are galloping down the hillside.
Is that what I think it is? A rescue party?
Shock and relief wash over you as the soldiers approach the river. You never expected to be overjoyed by the sight of black men in uniform, but one day longer and you may not have survived. On the morning of September 17, 1868, a large group of Cheyenne warriors attacked 48 white civilian scouts under the command of Major George Forsythe.
Taking cover on a small, brushy sandbar in the Erickery River in eastern Colorado, the scouts fended off repeated charges until the warriors finally departed that night. Six men were killed and 15 wounded, and the remainder were stuck on the island without rations or medical supplies in the middle of hostile territory. But two scouts managed to slip away that night.
For nearly five days, they wandered some 85 miles before encountering two black soldiers riding out from Fort Wallace in Kansas. The black troopers raced to alert their superior officer, Captain Lewis H. Carpenter, who quickly set out on a rescue mission with a company of 10th Cavalrymen. Three days later, the soldiers discovered a gruesome scene.
When they approached the island in the Arikari River, the stench of death lingered in the air. Fifty dead horses formed a ring around the survivors who had been without food or water, surviving on decaying horse meat for more than eight days. Their wounds were infested with maggots, and Major George Forsyth was badly wounded, lying in a hole in the sand.
Much to the relief of the surviving men, the 10th Cavalry troops had brought a wagon of food and supplies. They pitched tents, separated the dead from the wounded, and fed the survivors. Forsyth and his men knew that without the 10th Cavalry's rescue efforts, they would have perished.
Black soldier Reuben Waller reflected that in the aftermath of the rescue, the White Scouts sure treated us Black soldiers right for what we had done for them. And it wouldn't be their last act of heroism.
The 10th Cavalry came to the rescue again in mid-October, when 500 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors attacked while the Buffalo soldiers were escorting Major General Eugene Carr to his command on Beaver Creek. Carpenter's men quickly formed a defensive position and repelled the attackers with no losses on their side.
In both incidents that fall, the 10th Cavalry had come to the rescue of white officers who had previously doubted their abilities. General Philip Sheridan personally commended the black soldiers and recommended Carpenter for a Medal of Honor. But white officers were not the only ones to receive the Medal of Honor for their bravery on the frontier.
In Texas, the 9th Cavalry's Emanuel Stantz logged more than 630 miles of hard riding, scouting, and escorting in 1869. At the end of that year, he and other members of the 9th Cavalry's F Troop were moved to Fort McCavitt, nearly 300 miles further west.
And on May 20, 1870, the officer in charge of F Troop learned that Apache Indians had abducted two white children four days earlier about 40 miles east. He sent Stance with a 10-man detachment to Kickapoo Springs to search for the children and apprehend the kidnappers. On the way, Stantz and his men encountered a band of Indians threatening a wagon train. He described what happened next.
I immediately attacked by charging them. They tried hard to make a stand, but I set the Spencer rifles to talking and whistling about their ears so lively that they broke in confusion and fled to the hills. Although Stantz failed to recapture the abducted children, he had bravely defended the wagon train and recovered several stolen horses.
As a result, Stantz's commander recommended him for a Congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest recognition. On July 24, 1870, the medal was presented in front of the entire garrison at Fort McCavitt.
Stantz later reflected on his pride that day, declaring that he would cherish the gift as a thing of priceless value and endeavor by my future conduct to merit the high honor conferred upon me. He was the first Black soldier to receive a Medal of Honor in the post-Civil War period. By 1870, Buffalo Soldiers had proved their mettle in the most challenging of circumstances.
But resistance remained to Black men leading within the commissioned officers' ranks. And soon, the nation's premier officer training school would become a new front in the Buffalo Soldiers' long battle for equality and justice. From Wondery, this is episode one of our three-part series, Buffalo Soldiers from American History Tellers.
In the next episode, James Webster Smith becomes the first black cadet in the 70-year history of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. And in the desolate Staked Plains of West Texas, a routine scouting mission turns deadly. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Audio editing by Christian Paraga. Sound design by Molly Bach. Music by Lindsey Graham. Voice acting by Ace Anderson.
This episode is written by Ellie Stanton. Edited by Dorian Marina. Produced by Alita Rosansky. Managing producer Desi Blaylock. Senior managing producer Callum Flues. Senior producer Andy Herman. And executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marsha Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.
A few miles from the glass spires of midtown Atlanta lies the South River Forest. In 2021 and 2022, the woods became a home to activists from all over the country who gathered to stop the nearby construction of a massive new police training facility, nicknamed Cop City.
At approximately 9 o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was moving through various sectors of the property, an individual without warning shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper.
This is We Came to the Forest, a story about resistance.
The abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty and shut down.
Love and fellowship. It was probably the happiest of everybody in my life. And the lengths we'll go to protect the things we hold closest to our hearts. Follow We Came to the Forest on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of We Came to the Forest early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.