Daisy Douglas in Union soldier uniform. Courtesy of Sarah Collins Honenberger.
There is an ongoing debate as to how the term Buffalo Solider first came to be. The generally accepted story is that the Native Americans, who considered the buffalo a sacred animal, recognized the African American 10th Cavalry troops they were fighting as brave and noble warriors. Their strength, dark skin and curly black hair brought to mind the buffalo, hence the term Buffalo Soldiers. It is likely the African American troops accepted the name because they understood it to be a compliment.
Long before Buffalo Soldiers fought in the Indian Wars, there were African Americans fighting for their country. The United States Colored Troops (USCT) branch of the U.S. Army was founded in 1863 to create regiments made up of black enlisted men who were commanded generally by white officers. Their courage and struggle for equal status during the Civil War was depicted in the 1989 film, Glory.
The film centers around the story of Captain Robert Shaw, who was injured at the Battle of Antietam. Believed dead, he is discovered by a black grave digger and sent to a hospital where he recovers and is returned to duty. Shaw is promoted to colonel and put in command of the newly forming 54th Regiment, the first all-black regiment in the U.S. Army.
The courage of black soldiers is further tested when the Confederacy issues an order that all black soldiers found in Union uniform will be summarily executed, as will their white officers. Due to this order, the opportunity was given to all black soldiers in the 54th to take an honorable discharge, but none did. The regiment gains glory when Colonel Shaw volunteers his regiment to secure a foothold in Charleston Harbor. The task is to assault Morris Island and capture the heretofore impenetrable Fort Wagner. The 54th leads the charge, proving for all time the bravery of African American troops.
Portrait of Union soldier by waterfall is concept of Cathay Williams (1868), by Garry Palm. Courtesy of Garry Palm. www.garrypalm.com.
By the time the Civil War ended, it is estimated that 178,000 African American men had donned the uniform of the Union Army and served as soldiers. There were at least 5,723 black soldiers from Virginia who mustered into the U.S. Army. One of those was a man from Westmoreland County, Virginia named Walter Tate.
Walter Tate was born in Zacata in 1854. In 1879, he journeyed to Fort Concho at what is now San Angelo, Texas, where he joined Company M of the 10th Cavalry Regiment. Tate fought with valor for five years and was wounded in 1884. He then returned home to Westmoreland County where he farmed and raised a family. His descendants number nearly 400. Tate’s grandson Samuel has worked to uncover the history of his grandfather’s service as a Buffalo Soldier.
Two other Westmorelanders served as Buffalo Soldiers. Very little is known about James Arthur Dean, who came from Westmoreland County and lived there until the time he enlisted in the Union Army. He served with the 10th Regiment at the same time as Walter Tate and fellow Westmorelander Richard Johnson, but it is believed they never knew each other. The 10th Regi-ment moved to Fort Scott, Kansas, in April 1862, and performed duty there until June 4. Some companies went on expedition into Indian Territory with the 2nd Ohio Cavalry from June 13 to August 15. Their fighting ranged from Locust Grove in the Cherokee Nation, to Missouri and the expedition over Boston Mountains to Van Buren, Arkansas. Then the 10th Cavalry moved to Springfield, Missouri, where they skirmished with the infamous William Clarke Quantrill at Paola, Kansas, on August 21, 1863. It is interesting to note that when the defeated Southern Army disbanded, Quantrill stayed behind and formed his own band of guerrillas known as Quantrill’s Raiders. Among them was teenager Cole Younger, as well as Frank James, the brother of Jesse James.
At the end of the war, James Arthur Deane made his home in Ambler, Pennsylvania. Also at the end of the Civil War, a man from Westmoreland County named Richard Johnson enlisted in the 10th Calvary. He served from 1873 to 1883. From 1874 through 1875, Johnson fought in the Kio-wa, Comanche and Cheyenne campaigns all through Texas, the Indian Territory and in Kansas. During the time between 1876 and 1877, he fought in the Northern Cheyenne and Sioux campaigns. He was stationed at Fort Sill, Indian Territory. Then Johnson served his country at Fort Stockton in Kansas and several other forts in Texas territory. In 1877, he returned to Westmoreland County to live out his life.
Tribute road marker to Walter Tate. Courtesy of Bob Cerullo.
On Zacata Road in Westmoreland County, there is a Virginia highway marker honoring Private Walter Tate just outside of Montross. It is titled: “Private Tate Buffalo Soldier.” That marker was put there as a result of the tireless efforts of a fascinating woman named Daisy Howard Douglas, who worked with Tate’s grandson Samuel Tate to get the markerinstalled. Daisy Douglas is an educator, author, storyteller, and an incredibly interesting person to talk to and listen to as she tells the tales of the Buffalo Soldiers of Westmoreland County. Daisy Douglas and her husband of 54 years, James Wilson Crabbe-Douglas, a native of Westmoreland County, now live in Westmoreland County at Sandy Point.
In 1998, Daisy Douglas founded the Westmoreland Weavers of the Word Storytellers Guild. She serves as its director and performs at schools, churches, museums and libraries telling the stories of the African American experience. She has authored numerous books and has received over 200 humanitarian awards. Daisy Douglas has studied the history of Buffalo Soldiers in general and those of Westmoreland County in particular. She has an interest in a unique Buffalo Soldier who went by the name of William Cathay. Born in Independence, Missouri, on September 1842, the child of a free man and a slave woman, Cathay worked as a house slave on the Johnson Plantation just outside of Jefferson City, Missouri.
At the start of the Civil War, Union forces marched in and occupied Jefferson City. The Union Army declared captured slaves “contraband.” Known as contrabands, they were put to work as laundresses, cooks and nurses serving the Union Army. Cathay was just seventeen years of age when taken into service in the 8th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel Walter Plummer Benton. It is likely that Cathay helped the wounded soldiers of the 8th Indiana at the Battle of Pea Ridge. Cathay had learned nursing skills first hand and is believed to have worked as a nurse and medical assistant in various places, including the field hospital.
Despite the former slave’s courage of caring for the sick and wounded, as a “contraband,” Cathay existed on inferior rations and wore secondhand clothing and received little if any medical care. Added to the burden was the arduous 500-mile trek as federal soldiers kept moving south and deeper into the wilderness of Arkansas. Suddenly and without any warning, Cathay was ordered to attend cooking school at Little Rock, Arkansas. Cathay served more than two years with the 8th Indiana, then was assigned to serve as cook for General Sheridan and his staff at the headquarters of the Army of the Shenandoah. During the battle of Cedar Creek, Cathay barely escaped being captured by Rebel forces when the surprise attack sent Union forces running for their lives. This probably would have been the first time Cathay had encountered black troops. There were ample opportunities for Cathay to desert the Union Army, but Cathay never did. Some historians believe Cathay was learning to like being part of the army of liberation for African Americans.
Portrait of Cathay Williams (1866) by Garry Palm. Courtesy of Garry Palm. www.garrypalm.com
On November 15, 1866, William Cathay enlisted in the Union Army at St. Louis, Missouri. Tall and strong, William Cathay was mustered in along with other able-bodied blacks who were eager to be a part of ending slavery, but William Cathay had a deep dark secret. William Cathay was actually a former slave woman whose real name was Cathay Williams. It is believed that she was able to conceal her real gender from everyone but two people — her cousin and her friend, both of whom were soldiers in the 38th, the same unit in which she served as a cook. Cathay marched and kept up with the best of her fellow soldiers. Marching and various illnesses finally caught up with her and she was hospitalized. It was then a surgeon discovered that William Cathay was Cathay Williams. Possibly quite shocked, her commanding officer, Captain Charles E. Clarke, gave her an honorable discharge on October 14, 1868. Cathay eventually returned to Trinidad, Colorado, where she ran a business. Although she applied for a military pension, it was denied, despite her having serious medical problems. It is not known exactly when she died, but it is believed to be in 1892. She would have been 49 or 50 years of age. In 2016, a bronze bust of Cathay Williams was erected outside the Richard Allen Cultural Center in Leavenworth, Kansas.
The story of Cathay Williams is a significant one, as are the stories of countless numbers of Buffalo Soldiers, including the Buffalo Soldiers of Westmoreland County, who despite wretched treatment as slaves and even as free blacks, believed in their country and fought to make it free for people of all colors, races and creeds. Perhaps Edward Cunningham said it best in his poem, The Buffalo Soldiers:
Bravely and surely and swiftly you ride, out of the mists of our past. Soldiers of color, of courage and pride, into the sunlight at last… Fierce in your loyalty, true in your trust. Strangers to glory and fame. Comrades of hardship and desert and dust, Buffalo Soldiers by name… Buffalo soldiers, black Buffalo Soldiers, riding to destiny’s call. Buffalo Soldiers, brave Buffalo Soldiers, ready to sacrifice all… Buffalo Soldiers, America’s Soldiers, raising your banners of gold. Honor and praise to the Buffalo Soldiers, long will your legend be told!
Buffalo Soldiers like Walter Tate, Richard Johnson and James Arthur Dean refused to accept the hopeless future that was their destiny. These courageous people seized the opportunity to become Buffalo Soldiers and proved beyond any question of a doubt their equality, bravery and love of country. Well done, Buffalo Soldiers!