Buffalo Soldiers During the Plains Wars

Thomas Boyne was born enslaved in Prince Georges County, Maryland, in 1849. He fought during the American Civil War as part of Battery B, Second Colored Light Artillery. After the war, he joined the Ninth U.S. Cavalry, a Buffalo Soldier regiment. Boyne was awarded the Medal of Honor for two separate engagements in 1879. He also served in the Fortieth Infantry and Twenty-fifth Infantry.

Benjamin Brown was an early African American recipient of the Medal of Honor, and had a military career that took him throughout the United States and the world.

John Denny enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1867 in Elmira, New York and served with the Ninth Cavalry. In 1879 at Las Animas Canyon, New Mexico, Sergeant John Denny saved a fellow comrade in battle. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

Clinton Greaves was born in 1855 Virginia. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in the Florida Mountains of New Mexico in January 1877. He died on August 18, 1906, in Columbus, Ohio. He is buried in Columbus at Green Lawn Cemetery, Section 27, Lot 88.

Henry Johnson was born enslaved in 1850. He enlisted in the cavalry in 1867. By October 1879, he reached the rank of sergeant. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Milk River, October 2-5, 1879. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 23, Lot 16547.

George Jordan came to the Army like many other African American young men of the time, illiterate and in search of meaning in their lives. Jordan would go on and become a well-respected leader among his men in his storied military career that spanned three decades.

Isaiah Mays was born enslaved in Virginia. On May 11, 1889 Mays was a corporal in Company B of the 24th Infantry when he was attacked in the “Wham Paymaster Robbery.” During the fighting he crawled and ran over two miles to the nearest ranch to get help. He was awarded the Medal of Honor on February 19, 1890. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Section 1, Grave 630-B.

William McBryar, a Buffalo Soldier in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, received the Medal of Honor for his participation in the 1890 Cherry Creek Campaign in the Arizona Territory. He was later a member of another Buffalo Soldier regiment, the Twenty-Fifth U.S. Infantry, during the Spanish- American War.

Sgt. Thomas Shaw was one of several Buffalo Soldiers who would wind up receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions during the Indian Wars on the frontier.

Sergeant Emanuel Stance of the Ninth U.S. Cavalry was the first African American soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor in the post-Civil War era. Stance was born into slavery in Carroll Parish, Louisiana, in 1844. He enlisted in the Ninth U.S. Cavalry on October 2, 1866. Stance received the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award, on June 20, 1870.

Fort Davis, in Texas, and the all-Black Buffalo Soldiers played important roles on the Texas frontier. Various groups of Buffalo Soldiers called Fort Davis home for almost 20 years, from 1867 to 1885. Today Fort Davis is a national historic site under the aegis of the National Park Service.

Fort Concho was established in 1867 in west Texas. It served as the regimental headquarters of Tenth Cavalry from 1875 to 1882. Today the fort is preserved as Historic Fort Concho and is a national historic landmark.

Co. A of the 10th U.S. Cavalry was stationed at Fort Larned from April 1867 to January 1869. Although they served with dedication, their time at the fort was troubled by racial prejudice.

The Guadalupe Mountains were one of the last strongholds of the Mescalero Apache who had been fighting for nearly three centuries to preserve their lands and their way of life. In the late 1870s the US Army established a force projection camp garrisoned by African American soldiers at Pine Springs in present-day Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Buffalo Soldier of Fort Niobrara, Nebraska, circa 1880's.

African Americans have served in every war in United States history since the American Revolution. In 1866, a year after the Civil War ended, Congress authorized the formation of the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, establishing Black military presence in the peacetime regular Army. These regiments became known as the Buffalo Soldiers. The 10th Calvary, formed at Fort Leavenworth, KS, is distinctive in military history.

On June 28, 1866, the U.S. Congress passed a law that created the Buffalo Soldier regiments. The original Buffalo Soldier Regiments were the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, Thirty-eighth, Thirty-ninth, Fortieth and Forty-first Infantry.

Black Seminoles were descendants of self-emancipated formerly enslaved people from Coastal Carolina and Georgia who partially assimilated with the Seminole people of Florida. In 1870 a group of Black Seminoles who had migrated to Texas from Mexico formed the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts. They scouted for the U.S. Army on the Texas frontier. Four Black Seminoles received the Medal of Honor.

After the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, African American military regiments were established, called the Buffalo Soldiers. On the Texas and New Mexican frontiers U.S. troops, comprised mostly of Buffalo Soldiers, encountered fierce opposition from the Lipan, Mescalero, and Warm Springs Apache, as well as the Comanche and Kiowa. Archeologists investigated the interlaced record of Apache and military activities at Pine Springs Camp, on the mountains' eastern slopes.