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The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877 The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877 Paul H. Carlson Copyright © by Paul H. Carlson Manufactured in the United States of America All rights reserved First edition The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, . - . Binding materials have been chosen for durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publicaton Data Carlson, Paul Howard The buffalo soldier tragedy of / Paul H. Carlson.— st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. - - - (alk. paper) . Comanche Indians—Wars. Cavalry, th. . United States. Army. . Nolan, Nicholas, d. . . Frontier and pioneer life—Llano Estacado . Texas—History— – . I. Title . '. ' —dc For Eric Strong and again with appreciation for Ellen Contents List of Illustrations, List of Maps, Preface, . Land of Sunshine and Space, . Bison Hunters and Rath City in , . Comanches and Settlers in , . Buffalo Soldiers and the Army in , . Onto the High Yarner, . The Thirsting Time, . Down off the High Yarner, . Back from the Dead, Dramatis Personae, Notes, Bibliography, Index, Illustrations Early wolf-hunting party, Silver Falls, Crosbyton, Road between Post and Lubbock, Llano Estacado, empty landscape, American bison or plains buffalo, Dead bison from a “stand,” Mooar brothers with hide from rare white buffalo, Hide yards at Dodge City, Hides stacked at Charles Rath’s firm, Dodge City, Comanche camp along Cache Creek, Comanche village of Chief Mowway, Quanah, a Kwahada Comanche leader, Cavalrymen of Troop A, Tenth Cavalry, Nicholas M. Nolan, Concho Avenue, San Angelo, , Surgeon Joseph Henry Thomas King, Fort Concho in the s, West lake of Double Lakes, Nigger Hill, Nigger Hill from southwest, Silver Lake, Men who retraced the route of Troop A, Maps Llano Estacado, Dunes, Draws, and Lakes, Bison Hunter Sites, Reservations and Military Posts, Route of the Lost Troop Expedition, Preface In a general way many of us are acquainted with Captain Nicholas M. Nolan’s “lost troop expedition,” even if we are not familiar with its painful details. The raw brutality of the tragedy will not allow us to forget its basic outline, for here were nearly forty African American troopers—buffalo soldiers—who with their twenty-two bison-hunting companions survived by drinking their urine and the urine of their horses, by sucking on the moist internal organs of their dead mounts, and by their own grim, voiceless determination to struggle forward through the heat and dust of the desertlike Texas High Plains. “The Staked Plains Horror” people called it at the time. Four men died, many deserted, one went mad, leadership failed, and the whole company broke up. So, if we are acquainted with the failed expedition, why a book? There are several reasons: the oft-cited articles on the black troop tragedy in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly are more than sixty years old. The articles, moreover, represent little more than edited versions of the white officers’ official reports. The best of the popular articles dates to thirty years ago. One of the most thoughtful books on the black regulars, also published more than thirty years ago, treats the expedition in just six pages, and a more recent one covers it in even less detail. Another book, one that contains a brief chapter on the expedition, dates to nearly a half cent