Buffalo Soldiers!

Buffalo Soldiers. Indians. Now there's a dramatic duo to get a Scottie's imagination going! That's what the Indians called the black troopers of the 9th Cavalry and 38th Infantry regiments who served in New Mexico after the Civil War. Dad says they were nicknamed that because their dense, curly black hair reminded the Indians of buffalo fur, and the name was one of respect, since buffalo were prized by all Indians.

I fancy myself something of a buffalo soldier— at least, I know something about being black, about being a minority among canine breeds, and about being courageous in battle. And talk of Indian Wars gets my attention faster than anything! So when dad suggested we head to southern New Mexico to Cooke's Peak in search of the ruins of old Fort Cummings and nearby "Massacre Canyon" where as many as 400 emigrants, soldiers, and civilians were killed, I was ready to take off in a heart beat!

I'm fast approaching my twelfth birthday, and I guess that makes me an "old dog." But dad says "old" is an attitude, and while I've got plenty of attitude, it's not about aging. I'm Gus— "Captain G" in buffalo soldier terms— and I've got an adventure to share with all lovers of the Old West.

Our adventure started when we loaded up our GrandPersons and took off for a long weekend to Deming, NM., a southern "snow bird" town on the border of Old Mexico some 240 miles south of Albuquerque. We deposited our folks at the home of a family friend in Deming, and we took off to explore history, and maybe make some of our own!

Mom read about old Fort Cummings in New Mexico Magazine so we did some research and the more we learned the more this ramblin' Scottie wanted to see the place for himself. The fort was established in 1863 at the mouth of Cooke's Canyon near a well-known watering hole and a Butterfield Overland Mail Station. Its purpose was to protect mail carriers, emigrant trains, and freighters from bands of Apache Indians. In its day Fort Cummings covered a football field long and a football field wide, surrounded by an adobe wall twelve feet high. Troops stationed there had to deal with tarantulas, scorpions, and rattlesnakes— and those were the good guys! One historian who visited Fort Cummings wrote, "Life was hell inside the walls of Fort Cummings, but it was worse outside the walls."

Today there is only a hint of the fort still standing. You have to torture your vehicle to get to it these days, over goat-path roads, carefully negotiating the high points to keep from dragging your oil pan and exhaust system off in the deep crater-like ruts! Finding the ruins of old Fort Cummings is not for the faint-hearted.

The Bureau of Land Management in Las Cruces, NM, gave us directions. After about an hour at 0 - 5 mph and white knuckles all the way dad knew why the BLM Ranger chuckled on the phone when he heard we were driving a van, not a four-wheel drive! While dad sweated bullets at every scrape and groan of the van Willie and I were hanging out the window quivering with excitement!

There we were, off NM Hwy 26 heading into the wilderness between Deming and Hatch toward Cooke's Peak, the GSM cavalry unit struggling to reach Fort Cummings. It was great! I don't know about dad, but for us, it doesn't get any better than that! Finally, with a sigh of relief just like weary and scared travelers 125 years ago, we arrived at the site of the old fort.

As we walked around the few remaining adobe walls my Scottie intuition sensed the drama of the place travelers dubbed "the gauntlet of death." Dad says in 1867 the stagecoach road west from Fort Cummings was littered with sun-bleached skeletons lying within sight of passengers. The spectre so frightened travelers that their protests forced a risky detail to be sent from the fort to gather up the bones and bury them in the post cemetery.

I say it was risky because troops could not venture more than a mile from the fort without danger of attack from Apaches. Troops from the fort escorted wagon trains through the four-mile "Massacre Canyon" until they reached open country where the California-bound travelers could at least see hostile Indians and take defensive action.

And the Indians were hostile! Dad says on several occasions Apaches became so bold they breached the wall of Fort Cummings and drove off livestock almost under the eyes of the guard in the fort's observation tower.

Toughest of all the Apaches and the scourge of every buffalo soldier at Fort Cummings was Chief Victorio. From 1879 - 1881 he and his band of renegade Chiricahuas took on the best the U.S. Army could throw at them, and ran the army ragged, embarrassing white and black soldiers alike. And much of the action took place around Fort Cummings in southern New Mexico since the wily Victorio's strategy was to hit-and-run, fleeing across the border into the safety of the mountains of northern Mexico where U.S. troops could not follow.

Dad says the Apaches were the original guerilla fighters, melting into the terrain, relying on stealth and surprise and the brave heart of those fighting for their homes and family.

By contrast, the black infantrymen of the 38th were mostly ex-slaves recruited out of Georgia after the Civil War. To the buffalo soldiers the high desert of southern New Mexico was unfamiliar, harsh, and forbidding. And Apache warriors like Victorio made it deadly!

General Hatch, who was the commander in charge of all the New Mexico Territory, tried everything to capture, subdue, and control the renegade Apaches. At one point he had every soldier in New Mexico on patrol, as well as borrowed troops from both Arizona and Texas deployed to capture the elusive Victorio!

The troops wore out their rations, their horses, their boots, and themselves, but except for brief skirmishes and a few casualties on both sides, the army's aggressive offensive to overtake and punish the Indians was not effective.

Dad says the buffalo soldiers never did get Victorio. Having chased him and his people into Mexico, and having blocked his escape routes back into New Mexico, it was the Mexican army that killed him in a surprise attack on his sanctuary in the Candalaria Mountains.

But like a bad dream, the army's nightmare didn't end with Victorio's death. One of Victorio's followers named Nana continued the resistance of the fallen leader. Even though Nana was more than 70 years old, partially crippled, and almost blind, he was a bitter and fierce foe of the U.S. Army.

Dad says the more the soldiers harrassed the Apaches the meaner the Indians became. They attacked anything that moved whether civilian or soldier. And they didn't just kill you when they caught you; they dismembered your body and burned you! Civilians in the Territory were afraid; the U.S. Army was embarrassed over their inability to win a decisive peace; and the Native Americans were demonized and persecuted relentlessly.

Dad told us about one of the many expeditions from Fort Cummings to fight Indians. It was a month-long scout led by Capt. Alexander Moore into the Hatchet and Florida mountains east of the fort. The buffalo soldier infantrymen covered over 400 miles on foot and nearly perished for lack of water. They surprised a band of Apaches near Ojo Alamo and killed three Indians, destroyed the camp, confiscated Indian stores of food and animals, blankets and skins. Capt. Moore reported his march "successful." He returned to the fort with a large supply of Indian food stored for the coming winter, eleven Indian animals, and three Indian children.

I've been thinking a lot about the whole Indian Wars business since Dad told us that story. Seeing those three children prisoners dragged into the fort bothers me. It strikes me there is a strange and twisted irony to the fact that in New Mexico's Indian Wars in the late 19th century the instrument of punishment against the Indians was black men who themselves were ex-slaves with their own history of ruthless oppression. How ironic that those brutalized by inhumanities became instruments for official `ethnic cleansing' of Indians!

As I looked at the walls and sensed the spirit of old Fort Cummings I felt a double sadness for that place and time which perhaps only a sensitive Scottie can feel. I admire the buffalo soldiers who were judged by their white contemporaries, both civilian and military, to be conscientious, courteous, and a credit to their uniform. They acquitted themselves well, even in the face of racial prejudice and personal histories of exploitation.

But I admire the Native Americans, too. I know something about fierce loyalty to one's people, about feeling possessive over one's territory. I'd get mean, too, if big dogs suddenly showed up at my home taking over everything and telling me to leave. Dad says Victorio told the Army he and his people were poor, that they did not want to fight the soldiers, that they simply wanted to be left alone.

Dad says in the end we didn't defeat the Indians in battle. We broke their connection to the Land and took away their soul.

I'm bothered by that. I wish I could have known the buffalo soldiers. I would have liked them. Even more, I wish I could have known those Indian children captured and brought back to old Fort Cummings.

For this diehard Scottie playing soldiers and Indians will never be the same. `Cause, you see, I think they're both my kind of people!

©2000 Tartan Scottie. Reprinted from Great Scots Magazine, Vol 5 No 2 (Mar/Apr) 2000. All rights reserved.