Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Davis, Texas, 1867–1885

Before the Buffalo Soldiers

On October 23, 1854, General Persifor F. Smith ordered Fort Davis established on a site he had chosen, naming it for Jefferson Davis — U.S. secretary of war from March 7, 1853, to March 4, 1857, and earlier a Democratic representative and senator from Mississippi, before he became president of the Confederacy. Companies of the Eighth U.S. Infantry garrisoned it from 1854 until April 1861.

When the Civil War broke out in spring 1861, federal troops left. Confederates held the post for a little over a year, while it served as a key supply depot for Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley's New Mexico Campaign. Union forces retook it in August 1862 but did not occupy it, and it stood empty from September 1862 until July 1867.

Fort Davis National Historic Site, Fort Davis, Texas: officers' quarters along the parade ground. NPS photo.

The Ninth Cavalry, 1867–1875

The first Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Davis were troopers of the Ninth U.S. Cavalry. On July 1, 1867, Troops C, F, H and I, under Lieutenant Colonel Wesley Merritt, formally reoccupied the post. They had a big job: helping build a new post while facing armed conflict with the Apache and Comanche. Their main duty was to protect travellers and the mail on the San Antonio–El Paso Road, posting small detachments at stage stations and sending others out on patrol.

Colonel Edward Hatch replaced Merritt in 1869 and, during a short stay, ordered three expeditions against the Mescalero Apaches in the Guadalupe Mountains, all involving Ninth Cavalry troopers. In 1871 William Shafter led Ninth Cavalry troopers into an unscouted part of the southern Staked Plains, showing that troops could survive in country almost without surface water. By the time the regiment moved to New Mexico in September 1875, it had spent eight years at Fort Davis and other Texas posts.

The infantry

• Forty-first Infantry. Companies B and E arrived in spring 1868 and spent 18 months on garrison duty, scouting and patrolling with the Ninth Cavalry. When the infantry regiments were cut and consolidated in November 1869, they became part of the new Twenty-fourth Infantry.
• Twenty-fourth Infantry. Stationed at the fort from 1869 to 1872 and again in 1880, its men did the daily chores and fatigue details, and rendered invaluable service repairing military telegraph lines, scouting, guarding water holes, and escorting government wagon trains, survey parties, freight wagons and mail coaches.
• Twenty-fifth Infantry. Also formed in the 1869 consolidation, it sent Companies A and G to Fort Davis in July 1870, and its companies served there until spring 1880, accomplishing a great deal:
• • Company E, under Captain David Schooley, built new roads through Wild Rose Pass and Musquiz Canyon.
  • In December 1876 a large force marched to Presidio del Norte (today's Presidio), Texas, to protect American citizens from raiders and bandits from Mexico; many stayed more than two months, until peace returned.
  • Company I, under Second Lieutenant George Andrews, built 91.5 miles of telegraph line west from Fort Davis to Eagle Springs — a vital link that Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson of the Tenth Cavalry used in the campaign against the Apache leader Victorio in 1879–1880.

The Tenth Cavalry and the Victorio campaign

Troop H of the Tenth Cavalry arrived in 1875, and for the next 10 years units of the Tenth were stationed at Fort Davis, which became the regiment's headquarters in 1882. Like the other Buffalo Soldier regiments, the Tenth was to protect mail and travel routes, control the movements of American Indians, and learn the terrain.

Its major campaign came in 1879–1880, when Victorio led his followers on raids in West Texas. Learning that he was in Mexico, Grierson tried to stop him from coming back into Texas and New Mexico, where he could find more supporters. Six troops of the Tenth Cavalry and Company H of the Twenty-fourth Infantry patrolled from the Van Horn Mountains west to the Quitman Mountains and north to the Sierra Diablo and Delaware Mountains. Fights at Tinaja de las Palmas and Rattlesnake Springs forced Victorio back into Mexico, where Mexican troops killed him in October 1880.

After the Buffalo Soldiers

From 1867 to 1885 the Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Davis compiled a notable record, then moved on to other posts on the western frontier. The Army decommissioned Fort Davis, one of the largest and most prominent frontier military posts in the Southwest, in June 1891. It is now Fort Davis National Historic Site, part of the National Park Service.

Sources

• National Park Service, Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, "Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Davis." https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/buffalo-soldiers-at-fort-davis.htm
• Fort Davis National Historic Site: https://www.nps.gov/foda/