Buffalo soldiers

My favorite stop on the trip was Fort Davis, the old cavalry-infantry base on the western edge of the unincorporated town of the same name that grew up beside it. The old fort, parts of which are being slowly rebuilt by the National Park Service, was staffed by a few uniformed re-enactors when we visited on Wednesday. It was the post-Civil War base of operations, from about 1867 to 1891, of the former slaves and Union veterans of the black 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 24th and 25th Infantry regiments. In 1992 they won a statue by Eddie Dixon of Lubbock at Fort Leavenworth, KS, where the 10th was organized in 1866. During their stay at Fort Davis, their separate companies were scattered all over West Texas, north and south and all along the border. There’s hardly a spot out there where the Buffalo Soldiers didn’t scout or fight or build at one time or another. So far, despite its unfortunate reliance on cliches, this seems to be the best non-fiction book about their work, including their littleknown participation at San Juan Hill in Cuba with Teddy Roosevelt. This is the site of a Houston museum dedicated to them.