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The Buffalo Soldier Story Nearly sixteen months after the end of the Civil War, Section 3 of an Act of Congress entitled "An Act to increase and fix the Military Peace Establishment of the United States" authorized the formation of two regiments of cavalry composed of "colored" men. The act was approved on 28 July 1866. On 21 September 1866, the 9th Cavalry Regiment was activated at Greenville, Louisiana, and the 10th Cavalry Regiment was activated at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and eventually the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry regiments The Ninth Cavalry The Ninth Cavalry was recruited in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Louisville, Kentucky, in the fall of 1866. The commander of the regiment was Colonel Edward Hatch, who had served as a Major General during the Civil War. The Ninth was sent to Texas in 1867 where it battled Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne war parties. After quelling unrest on the plains of Texas, the regiment was ordered to New Mexico in 1875 and, for the next six years, participated in relentless campaigns against resourceful Apache warriors such as Nana, Loco, and Geronimo. In 1891 the regiment was sent to the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota to act in conjunction with other military units to subdue natives engaged in the Ghost Dance religion. This action resulted in the massacre of a number Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee by elements of the Seventh Cavalry. The Ninth played no part in the attack. This was the final engagement in the Indian Wars (Leckie 1967). The Tenth Cavalry The Tenth Cavalry established its regimental headquarters at Fort Riley, Kansas, in 1867 and was assigned the difficult task of providing protection for the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. The regiment's commander, Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson, had compiled an enviable reputation during the Civil War by leading a dramatic raid deep into enemy territory. Grierson brought that same determination and sense of duty to his assignment with the Buffalo Soldiers. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, the Tenth was almost constantly in the field, campaigning against some of the finest light cavalry in the world--the Plains Indians. Troops participated in some of the most notable battles and skirmishes with Native Americans in the history of the Indian Wars. Two companies of the Tenth fought against a nearly overwhelming force of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors at Beaver Creek in the northwest corner of Kansas in 1868. Twelve years later, at Tinaja de los Palmos near the Rio Grande River in Texas, Colonel Grierson and a small detachment of ten men from the Tenth Cavalry beat off an attack by over 100 Apaches under the leadership of the noted chief Victorio. Like their counterparts in the Ninth Cavalry, the Tenth also later campaigned against Geronimo, Mangus Colorados, and other Apache warriors. When the Spanish-American War began in 1898, the Tenth Cavalry took a leading role in the invasion of Cuba and were the first troops to reach the summit of San Juan Hill. Needless to say, most of the credit for this victory has gone to Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Later, the regiment was ordered to remain in Cuba for occupation duty (Leckie 1967; Brady 1971; Shubert 1997). 24th/25th Infantry Initially, four black infantry regiments were created by the Army Reorganization Act of 1866. Later these four units were consolidated into two units, the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry regiments. While the foot soldiers have not attracted the same amount of attention as the more glorified and romantic cavalry, the black infantry assigned to duty on the frontier carried out the same mission with similar results. Black troops of the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantries were involved in guarding railroad survey and construction crews, building forts, and protecting lines of communication and transportation (Fowler 1971).