Early African American History in Colorado

Early History - Buffalo Soldiers

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Background Knowledge

10th Cavalry soldiers in uniform at Fort Washakie, Wyoming. More than 180,000 African Americans fought for the Union Army in the Civil War. Of them, more than 33,000 died. War’s end left the future of the Army’s African Americans in doubt.

Ninth U.S. Cavalry at Fort Garland, Colorado

Sources vary on the origin of the name “Buffalo Soldiers.” Cheyennes may have first used the term in 1867—or in 1877. Or perhaps Comanche warriors coined it in 1871. Or Apaches in 1880. But soon, “Buffalo Soldiers” became the generic term for all African American soldiers in the West. Sources do agree that the term derived from the soldiers' tight, curly hair, which resembled the coat of a buffalo—and from their fierce fighting abilities.

In July 1866, Congress passed legislation establishing two cavalry and four infantry regiments whose enlisted men were African Americans. Most of the new recruits had served in all-Black units in the war. The mounted regiments—the 9th and 10th Cavalries—soon took the nickname of the “Buffalo Soldiers.”

Private William Cobbs. Cobbs served as a private with the U.S. Army 24th Infantry, Company F, who were mostly stationed in Fort Bayard, New Mexico during Cobbs’ years of enlistment. Known as one of the Buffalo Soldier regiments, the 24th was led by Colonel Zenas R. Bliss (1835-1900), and primarily went on scouting expeditions to help keep the peace in the southwest after the American Indian Wars. Cobbs stayed with the 24th from 1891 until he was discharged in 1896. During the Pullman Strike of 1894, the 24th was one the regiments sent to Trinidad, Colorado to help subdue striking railroad workers. This brief stay in Trinidad would have given Cobbs the chance to have his portrait taken by the Aultman Studio.

Between 1866 and the end of conflicts in 1891, more than 10,000 Black men served their country in this “peacetime” army, becoming the nation’s first Black federal employees. The Army relied on these cavalries in its campaigns against Mexican revolutionaries, American Indians, outlaws, comancheros, and rustlers.

At the same time, the Buffalo Soldiers explored and mapped vast areas of the Southwest and strung hundreds of miles of telegraph lines. They built and repaired frontier outposts, around which towns and cities sprang to life. The Buffalo Soldiers drew some of the worst assignments the Army had to offer, all the while facing fierce prejudice. Still, they grew into some of the most distinguished fighting units of all.

Buffalo Soldiers served in Colorado at Fort Lyon, Fort Lewis, and Fort Garland. Troopers from the 10th Cavalry skirmished with Cheyennes and took part in a rescue party sent to relieve scouts at the Battle of Beecher Island in 1868. Soldiers from the 9th Cavalry served at Fort Garland from 1875 until September 1879. They took the field to keep prospectors from trespassing on Ute lands in the San Juan Mountains, monitored treaty negotiations between the U.S. and Uncompahgre Utes at the Los Pinos Agency, maintained and improved the fort. They supplemented their salaries by working as hospital cooks, orderlies, stable watchmen, quartermasters' assistants, teamsters, wagoners, and drillmasters.

A patrol of seventy Buffalo Soldiers under Captain Francis S. Dodge reinforced white troopers besieged by Ute warriors at the Battle of Milk Creek in September 1869. One of them, Sergeant Henry Johnson, earned a Medal of Honor for risking his own life to fill wounded soldiers’ canteens.