The Men Who Tamed the West For many years the uneasy peace in the Wester territoties was kept by the United States Army, which included Negro unites--the 9th and 10th Cavalies and the 24th and 25th Infantries. They were stationed at various times from the Rio Grande to the Canadian border. They fought bandits as well as Apaches, Sioux, and Comanche. They took the filed against Billy the Kid, Geronimo, Crazy Horse, and a Negro chief of the Apaches named John Horse. During the Indian wars, fourteen of these black soldiers won the nationd highest military decoration, the Congressional Medal of Honor. A unit of 61 members of the 10th Cavalry survived 86 hours without water on the Texas plains. And by 1877, West Point had graduated its first Negro officer, Henry O. Flipper of Ga, who was assigned to the 10th Cavalry. The black troopers of the 9th and 10th Cavalries constituted a fifth al all the United States mounted troops assigined to protect the frontier. They wer commanded by white officers who considered the assignments a professional honor. Lieutenant John J. Pershing led the 10th in Montana, in the charge up San Juan Hill, in the Philippines, and during the pinitive expedition into Mexico in 1916-- and was nicknamed Blackjack Pershing. We officers of the 10th Cavalry, recalled the tough, emotionless Pershing, could have taken our black heroes in our arms. Isaiah Dorman rode into fame and death with General George Custer as the Liitle Big Horn. For many years Dorman had served as a courier for the War Deparment in the Dakota territory. In May of 1876 General Custer requested that Dorman be assigned to his command and report for duty to accompany the expedition as Interpreter into Montana. Dorman may have been part Sioux, which would explain his ability to serve as interpreter. On June 25 and 26 Dorman was among the 264 men who fought and died with Custer. For reasons never made clear, the Sioux did not scalp and mutilate Dorman as they did the white soldiers. In April 1875 Pompey Factor, Indian Scout with the 24th Infantry, won the Medal of Honor for heroically defending a small party of United States troops against thirty Indians near the Pecos and Rio Grande eivers in Texas. It was not until 1965 that research uncovered the fact that Factor was a Negro, one of many who had joined the Semioles. During the period pf Reconstruction and extending into the 1890s, Negro Texan were among those elected to the state legislature, They worked to protect cattlemen and build a more prosperous state. In 1870 a former slave named Richard Allen devised the Texas pension law for veterans. As chairman of the Committee on Roads and Bridges of the Texas legislature, Representative Allen helped link his vast state with a system of bridges and roads. Negro legislator Alexaner Asberry sponsored a law to protect the grazing herbs of cattle by holding the railroads responsible for cattle run down by their trains. State Senator G. T. Rubys bill was directed against lawlessness in the Lone Star State. Another of Rubys resolutions provided for a survey of the vast resources of the state. This led to the uncovering of important mineral deposits as well as rich new lands for farming. State Senator Matt Gaines also worked hard for Texas. He proposed granting tax exemptions to libraries, schools, and churches. Concerned with the protection of the unfortunate, he sought to have the state assume responsibiltiy for its mentally ill. Gaines and the other Negro legislators battled long and hard but without success against the laws that segegated Negro student from whites in Texas schools.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 19:21:58 +0000
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