From Slavery to Service on the Frontier

In the years after the Civil war, newly freed men stepped into uniforms and became part of the U.S. Army’s first Black regiments. Known later as the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry, these soldiers built forts, guarded settlers, patrolled reservations and carried the weight of frontier duty across the Great Plains and beyond. 

In this episode, we follow their story from Fort Robinson in Nebraska, from the experimental Iron Riders Bicycle Corps in Montana to the remarkable service of Cathay Williams, the first documented black woman to enlist in the Army. Along the way, we’ll hear about the medals they earned, the prejudice they faced and the legacy they left behind. 

The name “Buffalo Soldiers” would come later, but their courage and discipline forged a reputation that still echoes today. 

Want to see more? See photos, maps and more glimpses of prairie life on Instagram: @rootedintheplains 

Want to learn more? 

•  “Buffalo Soldiers Photographs.” Nebraska State Historical Society, July 3, 2024. https://history.nebraska.gov/buffalo-soldiers-photographs/. 
• Brian G Shellum, “Charles Young and the Buffalo Soldiers after the Indian Wars,” Nebraska History 95 (2014): 28-35 
• Crone, Dawn M. “BUFFALO SOLDIERS:  PROTECTING THE AMERICAN WEST .” Brownsburg, IN: EDSITEment!, November 2023. 
• Dolifka, Richard, Sheryl Smith-Rodgers, Sally Hunter, and David Boevers. “We Can, We Will! The Story of the Buffalo Soldiers: The First African Americans to Serve in the Regular Army.” Austin, TX: Texas Parks and Wildlife, 2020. 
• Djossa, Christina   Ayele. “The First (Documented) Black Woman to Serve in the U.S. Army - Atlas Obscura.” The First (Documented) Black Woman to Serve in the U.S. Army, February 28, 2018. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cathay-williams-buffalo-soldier. 

Transcript

From Slavery to Service on the Frontier Transcript

Welcome to Rooted in the Plains, a podcast about the people, places, and moments that shape the Great Plains. I'm Nicole, and in each episode, I take you back to a time when sod houses lined the prairie, railroads carved through the tall grass, and community meant survival. For photos, maps, and glimpses of Plains life, be sure to follow along on Instagram at Rooted in the Plains. 

This episode begins with a truth that still echoes today. Equality has never come easy in America. It has been challenged, resisted, and redefined in every generation. After the Civil War, when the nation struggled to understand what freedom would mean for millions of formerly enslaved people, black men stepped forward to enlist in the US Army. They built forts, fought in wars, and protected settlers across the Great Plains. They endured harsh conditions and open prejudice, yet they became some of the most disciplined, loyal regiments in the army. Later, a name would follow them, one that grew into a symbol of pride and resilience. 

In July 1866, just a year after the Civil War ended, Congress passed an act creating new regiments for the US Army. Six were designated for black soldiers. For the first time, black men could serve as regular soldiers in the standing army. After three years, and with peace within the country stabilizing, the number of regiments was reduced to four, the 9th and 10th Cavalry, and the 24th and 25th Infantry. Many of the recruits were formerly enslaved men or veterans who had already served in the Union Army, with nearly half having prior combat experience. Back home, opportunities were scarce, literacy rates were low, and steady employment was hard to find. The Army offered stability with regular pay, food, uniforms, medical care, and a chance to learn. Chaplains and officers taught reading, writing, and arithmetic alongside military drills, giving the soldiers skills needed for a future beyond the battlefield. Privates earned $13 a month, the same as their white counterparts. Pay quality was rare, and it made it an attractive option. 

The 9th Cavalry Regiment was formed in New Orleans in 1866 and spent its first years in Texas fighting the Comanche and the Apache. They moved through New Mexico, Kansas, and Indian Territory and eventually onto Nebraska. By 1885, the 9th had arrived in Fort Robinson in northwest Nebraska. From 1887 to 1898, the fort served as regimental headquarters. The soldiers even had helped build the new post during its 1887 expansion. In 1890, their service brought them into one of the most dramatic episodes of the Plains. That winter, a religious revival called the Ghost Dance swept across the reservations, promising Native people that if they lived faithfully and danced, their ancestors would return and their old ways of life would be restored. U.S. officials, however, saw the movement as a threat of open rebellion. When tensions peaked on the Pine Ridge Reservation, about 100 miles northeast of Fort Robinson, the 9th Calvary was the first unit dispatched. Just weeks later, the crisis culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre, where hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children were killed. It marked the violent close of the Indian Wars. For the soldiers stationed at Fort Robinson, this episode underscored how deeply they were entangled in the conflicts in the plains. It was a tragedy that cast a long shadow across the region. 

Life returned to drills and patrols, but the memory of Pine Ridge lingered. Most days, though, life at the fort was less dramatic. The fort sat against the buttes of northwestern Nebraska, its rows of wooden barracks and parade grounds surrounded by wild prairie. Life at Fort Robinson followed the rhythm of routine, drills, inspections, long patrols across the plains. Soldiers cared for their mounts, endured fatigue duty, and survived on plain rations of hardtack, bacon, and beans. 

Yet to despite their routine, service at Fort Robinson carried weight. It was the place where black Calvary men proved their discipline, their endurance, and their value to an army that often doubted them. Among the men at the post were notable figures. Lieutenant John Alexander, only the second black graduate of West Point, served here, as did Chaplain Henry Plummer, the first black chaplain in the regular army. At Fort Robinson, black Calvary units often served along White infantry regiments, that mixed tension. Many White officers admitted Black soldiers could be molded into disciplined troops, but still doubted their independence, believing they needed White leadership. 

Despite prejudice, the Black soldiers built a reputation for loyalty and discipline. Their desertion rates were lower than most of the White regiments, and their re-enlistment rates were higher. In 1889, Secretary of War Redfield Proctor even suggested creating a black artillery regiment because of their outstanding record. These factors contributed to the growing respect of many of their white officers. As the frontier itself was changing, the army turned to new tasks. For black regiments, proving their value in these assignments carried as much weight as any battlefield.

 By the late 1880s and 1890s, with fewer large-scale battles to fight, the role of the 9th and 10th Cavalry shifted. One of their most important duties was protecting the country's national parks. From 1886 until the creation of the National Park Service in 1916, it was the U.S. Army, often black regiments, which maintained Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Sequoia. 

But not all of their assignments were about guarding landscapes. Some tested the very limits of what soldiers could endure. At Fort Missoula, Montana, in 1896, townspeople paused in astonishment as a line of black soldiers peddled through the streets, a sight that seemed almost impossible on the frontier. As they weren't mounted on horses, but on heavy, single-speed bicycles, they rode off on a new kind of military mission. Newspapers would nickname them the Iron Riders. Lieutenant James Moss wondered if bicycles could replace horses for transport. Washington approved the experiment, and the Spalding Bicycle Company donated the bicycles. For the men of the 25th Infantry, the challenge was unlike anything they had faced. Their bicycles weighed nearly 75 pounds loaded, iron frames, wooden rims, and solid rubber tires. Moss drilled them in formation, stream crossings, and fence jumps, rewriting the manuals as needed. Daily rides of 14 to 40 miles built endurance for something bigger. The first test was a ride from Fort Missoula to McDonald Lake near St. Ignatius. Encouraged by that success, Moss selected 20 volunteers for a far greater challenge, a 2,000-mile expedition from Missoula to St. Louis. 

The summer of 1897, they set off. Each day meant at least 50 miles across mountains, prairies, and rivers. They battled rain, mud, blistering heat, alkaline water that made them sick, and constant mechanical failures. Wheels broke, axles bent, men collapsed from exhaustion, but they pressed on. Six weeks later, the Bicycle Corps rolled triumphantly into St. Louis. More than a thousand cyclists turned out to escort them into the city, cheering the soldiers who had proven that bicycles could endure where horses once ruled. The 25th Infantry had made military history, not by fighting, but by riding. 

Their service did not end there. Lieutenant Moss had planned their next trip for the following year to end in San Francisco. Moss had just finished filing his proposal for a San Francisco ride when the news broke that the USS Maine had exploded in the Havana Harbor. In that moment, experiment gave way to war, and the 25th Infantry was among the first units called to duty. 

Behind the regimental numbers and statistics were people, men and women, whose stories carried both struggle and determination. One of the most remarkable was Cathy Williams. Born enslaved in Missouri in 1842, she was freed during the Civil War and worked as a cook for Union troops. After the war, she watched Black men enlist in the new regiments and decided she wanted to serve as well. The problem, women were not allowed to enlist. So Cathy disguised herself as a man and took the name William Cathy and joined the 38th US Infantry. For nearly two years, she carried out her duties, drilling, marching, and keeping her identity secret.

But by January 1868, her health began to decline. She was hospitalized five times in less than a year, yet no one discovered that she was a woman. In 1992, an article titled Black Woman Soldier, author Richard Blanton observed that her case raises questions the quality of medical care, even by mid-19th century standards available to the soldiers of the US Army, or at least to African American soldiers. Eventually, her condition forced her to reveal her identity and to her commanding officer, who discharged her honorably. 

She never received her recognition or pension she applied for, but she holds a unique place in history as the first documented black woman to enlist US Army. Her service, though cut short, showed the lengths African Americans were willing to go to serve the country that did not always serve them in return. While Cathy's path was extraordinary, countless other soldiers distinguished themselves on the battlefield. 

Between 1865 and 1899, during the Indian Wars, 417 Medals of Honor were awarded across the U.S. Army. Eighteen went to black regulars from these regiments. Ten of those recipients served at Fort Robinson, including Sergeant Emanuel Stantz, the first black soldier to receive a Medal of Honor, recognized in 1870 for his combat leadership. Together, stories like those of Cathy Williams and Sergeant Emanuel Stantz remind us that they were part of more than just units on the frontier. They were individuals whose lives, choices, and sacrifices have carved out a legacy that is still remembered today. 

Across more than two decades of frontier duty, Black regiments shaped the American West. They fought in the Indian Wars, escorted settlers, protected mail and railroads, and even helped open the first national parks. They endured prejudice and hardships yet built a reputation for loyalty and discipline that carried them into new roles, from Cuba and the Philippines to the Mexican border. Over time, they gained not just recognition but a name that would endure. The title Buffalo Soldiers did not come from the army itself. According to the Cheyenne and the Comanche accounts, in the late 1860s and early 1870s, the name was given to the black regiments. Most say it came from their dark skin and curly hair, which reminded the tribes of buffalo. Others argue it reflected their fierce fighting spirit. The soldiers themselves rarely used the name in the 19th century. It first appeared in print in 1873 in The Nation, and it was later popularized by the artist Frederick Remington in a 1891 article. Only in the 20th century did it evolve into a point of pride and eventually a symbol for all African Americans in the U.S. military. 

Today, the story of the Buffalo Soldiers is remembered in museums, monuments, and memorials, from Fort Robinson in Nebraska to the Buffalo Soldiers National Museum in Houston. Their legacy challenges us to think about service and sacrifice, but also about the persistence of inequality. Their name, once a label given by others, became a lasting emblem of resilience, pride and identity, an echo that still carries forward today. 

Thanks for listening to Rooted in the Plains. I hope you learned something new today. For photos, maps, and a little glimpse of Plains life, visit the Instagram page Rooted in the Plains. And if you enjoyed this episode and want to dig a little deeper, check out the show notes for additional reading and a full list of sources used in this episode. Thanks.