Clinton Cox

Excerpt:

"The lodges and the campfires and the cavalrymen's long marches were mostly memories after Pine Ridge.

"More than anyone could have imagined, the raw young recruits who rode into the Great Plains that first summer and fall of 1867, 'dreaming of the red man and the bison,' had truly ridden into the Time of the Changing Seasons.

"It was the time of Crazy Horse and Geronimo, of Custer and Mackenzie, and of buffalo herds that numbered in the millions and shook the earth with the thunder of their charges. It was a time when legends of cavalrymen and cowboys and warriors were created, and history was changed forever.

"But as much as anything else, for almost thirty years in that vast expanse of land that still echoes with their passing, it was the Time of the Buffalo Soldier.

"The Buffalo Soldiers spent more time fighting in the West than any other cavalry regiments in the United States Army, and their courage and sacrifices helped create the United States that we now know.

"When they first rode out of the forts in 1867, all of the Great Plains except Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska were still territories. By the time the Buffalo Soldiers were transferred to Cuba in 1898 to fight in the Spanish-American War, they had helped lay the groundwork for the creation of eight more states: Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Utah, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona.

"On July 28, 1992, on the 126th anniversary of the day Congress authorized creation of the Buffalo Soldier regiments, the Buffalo Soldier Monument was unveiled at Fort Leavenworth.

"General Colin A. Powell, the black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking black officer in the history of the United States, dedicated the monument.

"'Look at him,' Powell declared. 'Soldier of the nation. Eagles on his buttons, crossed sabres on his canteen, a rifle in his hand, a pistol on his hip. Courageous, iron will.

"'He was every bit the soldier that his white brother was. He showed that the theory of inequality must be wrong. He could not be denied his right. It might take time; it did take time. But he knew that in the end he could not be denied.'

"In 1888, in Colonel Benjamin Grierson's farewell address to the men he had commanded in the 10th Cavalry, he predicted that the Buffalo Soldiers' service to their country 'cannot fail--sooner or later--to meet with due recognition and reward.'

"It is far too late for the troopers to share in the 'due recognition and reward' that have finally come their way.

"But there is still time for others to learn the story of those brave young men who left the forts so long ago, on their long ride into history."