Buffalo Soldiers Did the Heavy Lifting But Teddy Roosevelt Got the Glory

This Landmark book for young adults and a Classic Comic Book both fired my boyhood hero worship of Theodore Roosevelt.  The cover illustration turned out to be inaccurate.  Roosevelt was wearing his blue field shirt not his khaki officer's tunic and completed the charge on foot after he lost his horse.  But it did show one Black trooper in the lower right of the picture--more credit than Buffalo Soldiers usually got.

When I was a kid, Theodore Roosevelt was my hero.  I know, incredibly dorky.  But Teddy was a fat, bookish kid with glasses, sort of like me, who grew up to have an exciting life.  For a couple of years or so in my pre-teens I took to pinning the brim of my cowboy hat to the crown on one side with a U.S. Army insignia swiped from my Dad’s World War II uniform. I led an entirely imaginary “Junior Rough Riders” outfit in elaborate games of defending Cheyenne from foreign menace. I assure you that I could not get any of the other kids in the neighborhood to join me in this oddball fantasy.

In school, much to the confusion and irritation of my teachers, I insisted on dating all of my papers 1905, the first year of Roosevelt’s second term as President.  Much of Roosevelt’s appeal to me was his famous Charge on San Juan Hill.  In later years I discovered that while T.R. did, indeed, perform ably and bravely that day and that his Rough Riders fought well, it was not the whole story. 

On July 1, 1898 the heaviest land combat of the Spanish American War took place in the Battle for San Juan Heights during the American drive to take the city of Santiago, Cuba.

With the outbreak of the War Roosevelt, a hyperkinetic New York politician who was serving ably as Assistant Secretary of the Navy—a post in which he had played a key role in building the Great White Fleet which made the U.S. Navy among the most modern in the world—yearned for military action on the ground. 

 

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                             Col. Theodore Roosevelt 1st Volunteer Cavalry after his brevet from Lt. Col.

He was not encouraged by President William McKinley in his first attempt to volunteer to raise a cavalry regiment for the conflict.  He convinced his close friend Col. Leonard Wood, one of the most respected officers in the Regular Army and a medical doctor serving as an advisor to the President, to offer to lead a volunteer unit with Roosevelt as his second in command and in charge of recruitment.  McKinley, needing to raise a large army quickly, reluctantly agreed. 

Roosevelt famously recruited a unit that mixed cowboys who he was familiar with from his days as a South Dakota rancher, Harvard pals, and polo playing New York socialites.  

Legendary Arizona lawman Bucky O'Neill was captain of a troop of Rough Riders raised in the West and including cowboys and veteran Indian fighters.

Among the Volunteers were a legendary western lawman, Bucky O’Niell, Captain of a troop raised in Arizona and at least one of the criminals he had once locked up serving under an assumed name.  Like O’Niell, a former militia officer, many men were veterans of the Indian wars and provided leadership as junior officers and non-commissioned officers that was rare in Volunteer units.  There were also swells like Hamilton Fish, grandson of the New York Governor and Senator of the same name. 

Roosevelt used his considerable influence, and some of his own wealth, to make sure that the men were armed with the same modern Krag-Jorgensen carbines used by the regular cavalry and generally had the most up-to-date equipment and the finest horse stock available.  The unit was trained to the highest standards and the men, mostly expert horsemen, were soon considered the equal of regular troops. 

  

300-pound Regular Army Major General William Shafter was the commander of V Corps in the drive to capture Santiago.  He was an indifferent to incompetent senior officer.

Designated the First Volunteer Cavalry (1st U.S.V.C), the unit arrived by train with their horses, mules, and baggage at Tampa, Florida for disembarkation on May 29.  They found a tangle of confusion and a shortage of ships.  After days of dithering while troops fell ill with heat stroke and tropical infections, Major General William Shafter, a 300 lb. veteran regular army officer who turned out to be an indifferent bordering on incompetent commander of the V Corps for the campaign against Santiago, under pressure from Washington to move quickly ordered the Volunteers to board available ships without their horses, mules, and most of their equipment. 

There was only room for eight of twelve companies.  With yellow fever and malaria already rampant a fourth of the men mustered and trained were unavailable by the time the ships landed in east of Santiago on June 21 and 22 the men were also demoralized by the loss of their horses and equipment. 

Once on shore they became part of the cavalry division commanded by Major General of Volunteers Joseph Wheeler, a storied Confederate cavalry commander and longtime Democratic Representative from Alabama.  McKinley had accepted Wheeler’s offer to serve and placed him in high command in the hopes that common wartime service would heal lingering sectional divisions.  And in fact, that was one of the results.  Blue uniformed Federal troops were cheered as they moved through the South to disembarkation points instead of stoned as some Yankees had feared. 

Wheeler’s division also included the 9th and 10th Cavalry Regiments, Buffalo Soldier Black troops and tough as nails veteran Indian fighters from Ft. Leavenworth.   Along with the Rough Riders and other regular army cavalry units, they had arrived without horses and baggage. 

 

An Unreconstructed former Confederate, Major General of Volunteers Joseph Wheeler (left) was in command of the cavalry in the Santiago campaign.  Seen here with Lenard Wood who was brevetted to Brigadier General of the 2nd Brigade, and Col. Roosevelt of the Rough Riders.

Wheeler was only a barely reconstructed Rebel.  He hated Yankees and disdained the Colored troops under his command.  But he was an aggressive officer.  Two after days of landing Shafer dispatched Wheeler on a dismounted cavalry reconnaissance of enemy lines in support of Cuban irregulars to find where the enemy might be dug in.  He was under orders to hold the bulk of his troops to cover continuing landing operations.  Instead, Wheeler, acting on his own authority moved his men aggressively forward with the Rough Riders and 10th cavalry in the lead and provoked a pitched battle with the Spanish rearguard at Las Guasimas. 

The troops were weakened by heat and disease and issued four days of rations and what ammunition they could carry.  They had no baggage, logistical support, and had only two small field guns.  Only officers were mounted.  None of the men were trained as infantry or accustomed to long marches, especially in the stifling heat.  For two hours the Spanish infantry, which enjoyed artillery support, mauled and stymied the American advance until the Spanish commander Major General Antero Rubín called for an orderly retreat to more defensible lines. 

During the battle a confused and excited Wheeler was heard rallying his troops with exhortations to “Get those damned Yankees!”  War correspondents covering the battle reported a glorious victory.  On the ground it was recognized as the near disaster it was. 

The Spanish fell back on a well defended line of trenches and block houses including commanding positions on two hills of the San Juan Heights.  After waiting for the rest of V Corps to land, Shafter ordered a general offensive against the Santiago defensive line on July 1.  Wheeler fell ill with malaria and was replaced by his subordinate Brigadier General Samuel S. Sumner and Wood was brevetted to Brigadier to take command of Sumner’s 2nd Brigade.  Roosevelt in turn was brevetted full Colonel in command of the Rough Riders. 

Shafter had three divisions.  He ordered the infantry of the 1st and 2nd Divisions, which included two other Black regiments, the 23rd and 24th Infantry (Colored), to the north to take the fortified stronghold at El Caney.  This was to take no more than two hours then the divisions were expected to move up to support an attack by the dismounted cavalry on the heights. 

But the 2nd Division under General Henry W. Lawton was held off by stiff Spanish resistance at El Caney for more than twelve hours.  Brigades of the 1st Division came under withering fire when they emerged from a tree line at the base of the heights.  The commander of the 3rd Brigade was mortally wounded the second he stepped from the tree line and two more officers assuming command were quickly wounded and had to be evacuated.  The whole division was pinned down under intense fire in what became known as Hell’s Pocket while they waited for Lawton to come up. 

The cavalry on the right of the line came up and also took heavy fire.  With his men pinned in shallow trenches Capt. O’Niell of the Rough Riders exposed himself to enemy fire to calm his troops and was shot through the throat shortly after assuring a worried subordinate that “a Spanish bullet hasn’t been made that can kill me.” 

Distressed, Roosevelt determined that their position was untenable and he must either withdraw or attack.  He took a vague order to support the pinned down infantry on his left as an excuse to attack.  Ahead of him was the smaller of two hills commanding the heights, dubbed Kettle Hill because a cauldron for boiling sugar cane was found near the base.  Roosevelt formed his regiment under fire and moved out.  He was the only officer mounted because he feared he might succumb to an asthma attack in the heat trying to climb the hill. 

 

 Tough veteran Buffalo Soldier cavalrymen in Cuba.

Seeing the Rough Riders moving unilaterally, other units of Woods’ 2nd Brigade, including elements of the 10th and the white Volunteers of the 3rd Cavalry joined in the assault at the urging of 1st Lt. Jules G. Ord of the 10th.  Further left the Black troops of the 23rd and 24th Infantry from the 2nd Division began moving without orders when they observed the advance... 

Men started dropping of heat prostration on the climb.  Others were riddled by heavy fire.  Roosevelt lost his horse and sustained a light wound on the wrist but pressed forward.  The dismounted cavalry, units now thoroughly mixed, pressed the frontal attack with some of the 10th joining the Black infantry regiments on the left slope. 

After sustaining heavy casualties, the troops, Roosevelt near the van, took the summit sending the defenders to the protection of the fortifications and block house atop San Juan Hill itself.  The first colors on the summit were the 3rd and the 10th Cavalry with the Rough Rider banner soon following.  In fact, troops of all units plus elements of the Black infantry took Kettle Hill, although Roosevelt and the Rough Riders would receive almost all of the credit in press accounts.  

Charge of the 24th and 25th Colored Infantry, in the Battle of San Juan Hill. 1899 lithograph by Chicago printers Kurz and Allison

Meanwhile, the men on top of Kettle hill were taking heavy fire from San Juan.  General Wheeler, rising from his sick bed at the sound of battle, arrived on the scene to take operational command since Shafter was ill at his headquarters well behind the lines. He ordered the whole 1st Division under the command of Brigadier General Jacob Ford Kent forward and then re-took personal command of the cavalry. 

Kent’s Colored Infantry and elements of the 10th Cavalry were already advancing up the slope.  Other units closed in support.  Meanwhile the Cavalry at the top of Kettle Hill began an advance down the “saddle” between it and San Juan Hill and up the second.  Young Ord was killed breasting the summit of the Hill his Black troops on his heels.  The troops pressed on, taking the shell pocked block house in furious hand to hand combat. 

Roosevelt led a last charge of the cavalry up to the top of the hill, sweeping it of Spanish and uniting with the exhausted black troops.  

Shortly after the battle, Roosevelt posed with his Rough Riders atop San Juan Hill.  The Buffalo Soldiers who had fought with them were notably not included.

Meanwhile other units of the cavalry’s 1st Brigade secured a smaller knoll on the Spanish right flank.  The heights had been cleared, but fearing a counterattack, Wheeler ordered the exhausted men to throw up breastworks facing the city of Santiago, a mile or so in the distance. 

Roosevelt’s men did repulse one weak counterattack.  But back at his headquarters in the rear Shafter feared a general counterattack and ordered a retreat to the original positions in the trenches as the bottoms of the hills.  Unable to convince his superior to countermand the order, Wheeler on the scene simply ignored it and continued fortifying his position over night. 

Lawton’s Division, badly roughed up at El Caney, finally arrived around noon on July 2.  The position was now secure, and artillery was brought up to the heights to threaten the city and a squadron of Spanish cruisers in the harbor.  The cruisers were forced to flee the guns and ran into a waiting superior American Navy taskforce which destroyed them. 

After a siege by combined American and Cuban nationalist forces, the Spanish surrendered Santiago on July 17.  That completed major land operations in Cuba. 

Troops who survived the shot, shell, and heat stroke of the Battle for San Juan Heights were ravaged by yellow fever and malaria.  General Shafter petitioned Washington for a rapid withdrawal of V Corps calling it an “army of convalescents.”  Concerned that the President would ignore the bumbling Shafter, a group of senior officers prevailed upon the politically well-connected Roosevelt to send a similar appeal on their behalf. 

American evacuation began on August 7.  Troops of the 9th Infantry (Colored) were left behind as an occupation force under the theory that their race and Southern origin would protect them from illness.  It didn’t.  By the time they, too, finally went home almost a tenth of their number came down with yellow fever. 

Roosevelt returned aa a national hero, the Rough Riders were celebrated as folk heroes.  On the strength of his celebrity Roosevelt won the spot as McKinley’s running mate in 1900 and ascended to the Presidency upon his assassination. 

The Buffalo Soldiers, cavalry and infantry alike, who had fought so well received virtually no notice.  Even their White officers, including the heroic Lt. Ord, the son of an active duty General, were denied decorations.  Roosevelt got his Medal of Honor, arguably well deserved.  But so did Schafer who was ineffective as a commander and never came under hostile fire. 

And, oh yes, the U.S. won the war, obtained an empire, and was recognized as a first-rate world power for the first time.

 

It Was the Real Last Battle of the Indian Wars— Bear Valley

A white officer inspects his Black 10th Cavalry Buffalo Soldiers in Arizona, 1918. 

Most history books will tell you that the last “battle” of the American Indian Wars was at Wounded Knee on December 28, 1890 when troopers of the 7th Cavalry opened fire on captured “renegade” Lakota.  It was more of a massacre than a battle in which more than 150 men, women, and children were killed in the snow and some troopers died in their own crossfire.  It was certainly the bloodiest of late Indian war battles.  But not the last.  The Drexel Mission Fight occurred a day later between fleeing Lakota and elements of the 7th and 9th Cavalry. 

Those may have been the biggest engagements, but over nearly the next 30 years there were skirmishes between the Army and small groups of Native Americans across the West.  The final battle was fought on January 9, 1918 at Bear Valley near the Arizona border with Mexico. 

Yaqui troops in Sonora in 1916.  During the Mexican Revolution Yaquis fought with various factions in hopes of re-establishing autonomy on their traditional lands.  Progressive President Francisco Madero promised the tribe a homeland before he was killed.  Waring generals all betrayed them and the tribe fought all who tried to attack them.  

The episode was actually a spillover from a long war within a war by the Yaqui people of Sonora for an independent homeland in Mexico.  That war had been going on for decades and was enveloped by the larger Mexican Revolution.  Many Yaquis routinely crossed the porous border into the United States to work on the cotton farms of southern Arizona where they were prized workers noted for their diligence and endurance under brutal heat.  The Yaqui pooled the money they earned and bought firearms—mostly Winchester 30.30s or imported German Mausers—and ammunition to take back into Mexico to continue the fight. 

Late in 1917 the military governor of Sonora, General Plutarco Elías Calles, informally requested help from the United States government to quash the cross-border arms trade.  At the same time local ranchers were complaining that Yaqui bands trespassed on their lands and sometimes slaughtered stray cattle for food, or simply for their hides to make quick, crude sandals for crossing the rugged desert terrain. 

Most of the U.S. Army, of course, was in or on its way to France.  But not the Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry.  After seeing how British cavalry was cut to ribbons by machine gun fire early in the Great War, the Army had decided not to deploy cavalry in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).  Despite the fact that the AEF was commanded by a former Buffalo Soldier Cavalry officer, General John J. “Blackjack” Pershing, the tough and storied American Cavalry was stuck in remote western posts guarding against a vanishing threat of Indian uprising.  It was a bitter pill for both the White officers and Black troopers. 

None the less, when The Nogales, Arizona subdistrict commander, Colonel J.C. Friers of the 35th Infantry ordered his men and the 10th to take up a string of positions along the border to try to interdict the arms smugglers, the cavalrymen dutifully followed orders.  At the far end of the line of bivouacs was a position at Atascosa Canyon, a natural border crossing within Bear Valley.  It was wild and remote country, considered a no-man’s land where local ranchers and their families took precautions when traversing.  Frequent reports of slaughtered cattle in the area indicated relatively heavy usage by the Yaqui. 

Captain Fredrick H.L. "Blondy" Ryder was in command at the last skirmish.

Early in January 1918 Captain Frederick H.L. “Blondy” Ryder and 30 men of Troop E took up the Bear Valley position.  They camped by an abandoned rancho on a high ridge.  A rock formation provided a sweeping panorama of the surrounding, flat desert land.  Ryder posted signalmen with high powered binoculars on the summit to keep watch. 

On January 8 a local cattleman rode into camp and reported that a neighbor had found a fresh beef kill, only parts of its hide stripped for sandals.  The Yaqui were in the immediate area and on the move.  First Lieutenant William Scott and a detail reinforced the observation post.  About mid-day on the 9th Scott used hand signals to show that the Indians were in sight and moving less than a quarter of a mile away.  By the time troopers in camp saddled up they had vanished but Scott used hand signals to show the direction of their movements. 

When the Troopers thought they were near their objective, they dismounted and advanced in a skirmish line through a rugged draw.  Capt. Ryder decided that they had lost contact and decided to return to the horses down a different route.  He soon stumbled on a bunch of abandoned packs.  He knew he must be right on top of the Yaqui.  He reformed his skirmish line and the troops advanced again.  They soon came under rifle fire.  

Colonel Harold B. Wharfield, a historian of the 10th Cavalry, wrote after interviewing both Army and Yaquis participants in the fight: 

…the fighting developed into an old kind of Indian engagement with both sides using all the natural cover of boulders and brush to full advantage. The Yaquis kept falling back, dodging from boulder to boulder and firing rapidly. They offered only a fleeting target, seemingly just a disappearing shadow. The officer saw one of them running for another cover, then stumbled and exposed himself. A corporal alongside of the captain had a good chance for an open shot. At the report of the Springfield, a flash of fire enveloped the Indian’s body for an instant, but he kept on to the rock. 

The troops slowly advanced and firing was hot and heavy for about half an hour, although casualties were very light because both sides were fighting under good cover.  Finally, the troopers overwhelmed a small rear guard covering the retreat of the rest of the band successfully into Mexico. 

Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry guard Yaqui prisoners just after the fight at Bear Valley.

There were 10 captives.  Ryder later wrote: 

… It was a courageous stand by a brave group of Indians; and the Cavalrymen treated them with the respect due to fighting men. Especially astonishing was the discovery that one of the Yaquis was an eleven-year old boy. The youngster had fought bravely alongside his elders, firing a rifle that was almost as long as he was tall. ...Though time has perhaps dimmed some details, the fact that this was my first experience under fire—and it was a hot one even though they were poor marksmen—most of the action was indelibly imprinted on my mind. After the Yaquis were captured we lined them up with their hands above their heads and searched them. One kept his hands around his middle. Fearing that he might have a knife to use on some trooper, I grabbed his hands and yanked them up. His stomach practically fell out. This was the man who had been hit by my corporal's shot. He was wearing two belts of ammunition around his waist and more over each shoulder. The bullet had hit one of the cartridges in his belt, causing it to be exploded, making the flash of fire I saw. Then the bullet entered one side and came out the other, laying his stomach open. He was the chief of the group. 

Ryder’s men treated the chief’s wounds as well as they were able.  The Captain sent a messenger to try to obtain an automobile to use as an ambulance to transport the gravely wounded man to a hospital.  When none was found the Chief and others were mounted on spare horses for the return to base at Nogales.  The Chief stoically endured the agonizing 20-mile trip and even the uninjured captives suffered because not being as Ryder said “horse Indians” they could barely stay on and suffered bloody chaffing on bare legs or through thin cotton trousers. 

Under questioning the Yaqui told their captors that they had only fired on them because they thought they were Mexican and that they would have surrendered immediately if they had known that their pursuers were American. 

The Yaqui captives were held for weeks at Nogales while the Army tried to decide what the hell to do with them.  They adapted well.  In fact, with three meals a day of the same rations as the troopers, warm tents, and blankets they were probably more comfortable than any had been for years.  They adapted well to camp life and were soon doing clean up duty and other chores around the base with little or no supervision.  They were exceptionally clean and orderly and one observer marveled.  

At the corral nearly any droppings were allowed to hit the ground. During the day the Indians would stand around watching the horses. Whenever a tail was lifted, out they rushed with their scoop shovels and caught it before the manure could contaminate the ground. It certainly helped in the decline of the fly population. 

The troopers and the Indians reportedly became very friendly and admired each other.  All of the survivors—the Chief had died from his wounds—including the 11 year old volunteered to enlist in the Army. 

But it was not to be so.  Orders came down from Washington and the Yaqui were transported in chains to Tucson for trial in Federal Court where they were charged with “wrongfully, unlawfully, and feloniously exporting to Mexico certain arms and ammunition, to wit: 300 rifle cartridges and about 9 rifles without first procuring an export license issued by the War Trade Board of the United States,” the Yaquis plead guilty and the men were sentenced by Judge William Henry Sawtelle to only thirty days in jail.  Charges against the boy were dismissed. 

The Yaquis were happy with the outcome.  They were afraid they would be deported to Mexico where they would surely have been executed.  Upon release, they vanished from history.  Some undoubtedly melted back across the border.  Perhaps they even renewed their cross-border activities.  Others may have stayed in the growing community of Yaqui exiles in Southern Arizona. 

Captive women and children in Mexico during the long Yaqui wars in Sonora.

If this were a last hurrah for the Cavalry, it was not for the Yaqui.  Their fight in Sonora continued until 1928 when the Mexican Army finally crushed the last holdouts in an offensive that employed heavy artillery, machine guns, armored cars, and aircraft.