Climbing Up to Glory (19 page)

The vast majority of black men who enlisted in the U.S. Army went to the West and Southwest to serve in the many military campaigns against Native Americans. Black men were attracted to the army for many reasons. Regimental chaplains usually taught the soldiers, who displayed a keen desire for education, to read and write. The military also provided one of the few semblances of equality for blacks, since the prosperity of the post-Civil War years did not otherwise extend to them. It also represented a steady job in an overabundant labor market. The package deal for a recruit included food, clothing, shelter, and salary, with an annual increase of one dollar per month and a reenlistment bonus at the end of five years. While black regiments had more applicants than positions available, white regiments had difficulty in finding and retaining volunteers. Moreover, as noted earlier, black volunteers viewed military service as an elevation in status and an opportunity to improve themselves.
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In fact, lithographs of black soldiers in action often hung in the homes of blacks as “symbols of hope for a better day.” Indeed, historian Rayford Logan captured the feelings of most blacks toward soldiers from their own community when he said, “We Negroes had little, at the turn of the century, to help sustain our faith in ourselves except the pride that we took in the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry, the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry.”
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Black soldiers participating in the military campaigns in the West and Southwest against Native Americans numbered 12,500, about 20 percent of the total of U.S. soldiers deployed in these areas.
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Yet, until recently, very little was known about these men. Throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, Hollywood produced one movie after another on soldiers who fought Native Americans in the post-Civil War period without devoting much attention to the role of black soldiers. For better or worse, black soldiers played an integral role in winning the West for America. Although black soldiers were involved in their share of Native American firefights between the late 1860s and World War I, much of their duty in the West revolved around the mundane and the unglamorous. They built telegraph lines, escorted stagecoaches and government supply trains, protected supply lines, and chased bandits and hooligans.
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These black soldiers came to be called “Buffalo Soldiers,” a name given to them by Native Americans. Why Native Americans gave them this name is unclear. Perhaps it was due to their tenacity in battle,
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since buffaloes were regarded as tough and nearly impossible to subdue. It also may have been the similarity between the curly black hair of blacks and that of the buffalo or the dark brown skin of both.
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Whatever the reason, black soldiers, appreciating the comparison to the stoic animals considered sacred by the Native Americans, adopted the name. The Tenth Cavalry even added the image of a buffalo to their unit insignia.
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The Ninth and Tenth Cavalry and the Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Infantry served throughout the West and Southwest against Native Americans for twenty-eight years. More than two hundred battles and skirmishes were fought by these regiments during that period. The Buffalo Soldiers won fourteen Congressional Medals of Honor, nine Certificates of Merit, and twenty-nine Orders of Honorable Mention between 1870 and 1890.
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Sergeant Emanuel Stance, a native of Charleston, barely five feet tall, became the first black to earn a Medal of Honor in the Native American wars in May 1870.
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In spite of the military accomplishments of the Buffalo Soldiers, they were regularly subjected to white racism and racial discrimination by U.S. Army officers. Not only were they forced to live and work in separate quarters, but they also had to endure inferior quarters, inferior food, inferior clothing, and even inferior leadership and training. An inspector at Fort Clark in Texas in 1872 wrote of the conditions that black soldiers there were being forced to endure: “The quarters are wretchedly [constructed]. All except two companies of cavalry are in huts.” He added that the officers' quarters were also inadequate, “the guard house is cramped: the regimental Adjutant's office is in a tent. There is no place for divine service or instruction.” The situation was even worse for those units on the move, as in the case of a black infantry regiment serving on the Mexican border in Texas, which had not slept under a roof for several years. It was customary for commanders at military installations to force black units traveling on assignments throughout the West to sleep outside the fort's walls if segregated facilities were not available inside.
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Their obvious vulnerability to Native American attacks while they slept apparently did not concern most army officials.

The Buffalo Soldiers not only had to contend with the racial discrimination of army officials but also with civilian hostility toward them in the towns and territories to which they were assigned. Notwithstanding the fact that they were protecting the settlements, black soldiers could not depend on equal justice from white sheriffs. Local police sometimes targeted black soldiers suspected of some violation and subjected them to unrestrained abuse. Adam Paine, a black Seminole scout and Medal of Honor winner, for example, in January 1877 was shot from behind and killed by a Texas sheriff.
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Despite racism and racial discrimination, the Buffalo Soldiers amassed an impressive record of service. Their desertion rate was the lowest in the frontier army although their posts were often in the most godforsaken places. In the post-Civil War era, more than one-third of white enlisted men went AWOL each year. The white Seventh Cavalry in 1876, for example, had seventy-two deserters, the Third had 170, and the Fifth had 224, but the black Ninth only had six deserters and the Tenth eighteen.
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Moreover, although alcoholism was often a problem among white soldiers, black soldiers escaped chronic alcoholism, “the scourge of the West.”
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Many factors contributed to the superior morale and performance of the black regiments. As had been the case with black Civil War troops, the Buffalo Soldiers regarded themselves as representatives of an entire race whose performance would determine its future treatment both in and outside the military. Many were determined not to confirm whites' negative perceptions of them as shifty, lazy, cowardly, undisciplined, and prone to alcoholism. Furthermore, given the fact that a black deserter would stand out anywhere he went in the predominantly white Western territories, his color would limit the likelihood of desertion.
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And, certainly, a black soldier roaming alone would be vulnerable to a white population that was racist and had no love for blacks.

The fact that the Buffalo Soldiers helped subjugate Native Americans while their own people were being oppressed in American society is a tragic irony. It is all but certain that some of the Buffalo Soldiers were aware of this contradiction and concerned about it. In order to decipher the magnitude of their concern, however, more in-depth studies of Buffalo Soldiers are necessary. At this time, the literature seems to suggest that most black soldiers agreed with the U.S. government's genocidal policies toward Native Americans, for they carried out their orders.
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To many blacks, fighting Native Americans was simply a job—one that they were determined to do to the best of their ability.

African Americans did all they could to carve out a place in American society and to build an economic foundation. Contrary to the claims of many Southern whites, freedmen and women worked at whatever jobs they could find to provide for themselves and their families. Believing that property ownership represented economic independence, many blacks struggled tenaciously to acquire land. To improve their economic situation, they formed labor unions, engaged in strikes, and migrated to points North and West;
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some even emigrated to Africa. That they failed to accomplish their objective in large measure is not due to a lack of effort on their part. They simply could not overcome the huge obstacles placed in the way of a “Working Class of People.”

In most instances, the wedding of slaves would be simple, particularly when field hands were involved. On plantations where there were overseers or strict masters, the ceremony would be held before or after work or at noon in the row of slave cabins at the home of the bride. All would walk in, the bride and bridegroom in the center, with their attendants close beside them. Very solemnly someone would lay a broomstick across the middle of the floor. Arm in arm the two would step across, and that was all there was to it. Ella Booth remembered, “When my mammy and daddy got married, dey jest ‘jumped over de broom'—den dey wuz married.”
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When an interviewer in the 1930s asked Rena Clark how slaves were married, she responded, “Dey just jumped over de broom stick and some of dem didn't have dat much ceremony.”
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Henry Lewis McGaffey noted, “I seed Marse marry his slaves an' all I seed wus he wud hold a straw broom out an' make dem jump over it frontward an' den backward, an' sed dey was married.”
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Similarly, Cynthia Erwing recalled, “Ol' Marster would make them jump over a broom stick, and then they would be married.”
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Weddings of house slaves were sometimes more elaborate than those of field hands. Although house slaves also customarily jumped over the broom, a much larger number of them were married by either black or white preachers. James Bolton remembered, “Effen the slaves gittin' mahied was house servants sometimes they mahied on the back porch or in the back yahd at the big 'ouse.” However, with respect to “plantation niggers,” Bolton said, “whut was fiel' hands, mahied in their own cabins. The bride an' groom jes' wo' plain cloes, kyazen ['cause] they diden' have no mo!”
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Squire Irvin also recalled field slave couples getting married in “them pretty colored clothes,” and house slave couples dressing more elegantly for their ceremony, with the brides being “given lilly white dresses to wear.”
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Various accounts of weddings of house slaves told by Northern white travelers and former slaves demonstrate the detailed nature of these ceremonies. Fredrika Bremer was invited to attend the weddings of two couples of house slaves owned by a white professor. She described both brides as being fashionably dressed in white, with beautiful bouquets. The preacher married both couples, and dancing followed. Bremer was impressed by the attire of the black women at the weddings, who were “dressed and decked out in gauze and flowers, altogether like our ladies.” She also found the dinner table to be so splendidly covered with flowers, fine cakes, and an abundance of meats that it seemed almost to bend under the weight.
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Henry Lewis vividly recounted his wedding several years later: “I had a nice hat and a nice suit of black close,” and his bride was dressed in white. His father, a shoemaker, made him a pair of new shoes. He and his bride were married by a white preacher. There were some whites in attendance, and “some of ‘em give us presents and some give us money.”
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Phoebe Henderson and her bridegroom had “de weddin' dere in de house.” They were married by a black Baptist preacher. Phoebe wore a white cotton dress. As wedding gifts, her mistress gave her a pan of flour and her master gave the couple a house of their own.
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The wedding of Tempie Durham was no doubt one of the most elaborate involving a slave couple. Tempie and her bridegroom were married on the front porch of the big house. Her master killed a shoat for the event, and her mistress had the cook prepare a large wedding cake, “all iced up white as snow wid a bride an' groom standin in de middle holdin' hands. De table was set out in de yard under the trees, an' you ain't never seed de like of eats.” With delight, Tempie recalled that she “had on a white dress, white shoes, an' long white gloves dat come to my elbows, an' Mis' Betsy done made me a weddin' veil out of a white net window curtain.” They were married by the black preacher from the plantation church. The newlyweds spent a one-day honeymoon in a cabin that Tempie's mistress had decorated.
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That slaveowners would sometimes exhibit favoritism toward their house slaves is not surprising. A disproportionate number of these slaves were mulattoes, many of whom were related by blood to their owners. As such, they often were emancipated in larger numbers than their brothers and sisters of a darker hue, and sometimes their white fathers would leave them property in their wills. Bestowing better treatment on house slaves, as was the case with respect to wedding ceremonies, could also have the advantage of dividing the slave population, thereby making it easier to control.

Most slaves esteemed their marriages even if the unions were not recognized by the state. For example, Jennie Hill, a freedwoman from Missouri, declared: “I was proud of my marriage, performed by the ‘educated nigger' and I sure got mad when anybody said anything about us not being married.”
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The vast majority of husbands and wives were loyal to each other and demonstrated a fierce attachment to family. Millie Ann Smith's father belonged to a different master in Mississippi than did his wife and three children. When his family's master moved them to Texas, Smith remembered, “Pappy run off and come to Texas and begged master into buying him so he could be with his wife and chil‘ren.”
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When some fathers were sold away from their wives and children, the experience was so painful that it was almost unbearable. When Hannah Chapman's father was sold away from them, she recalled, “My pa sho' did hate ter leave us. He would often slip back ter us' cottage at nite.” His affectionate children would crawl onto his lap. But he paid a heavy price for it. “When his Mars missed him he would beat him all de way home,” Chapman maintained. “Us could track him de nex' day by de blood stains.”
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Because of their devotion to family, some escaped slaves who were able to live as free individuals put themselves back in bondage. For instance, Wash Ingram's father escaped from a plantation in Richmond and secured work in a gold mine. Freedom was sweet as long as his family remained in the vicinity. However, his wife died. When he heard of his three sons' master's plan to sell them to a planter in Texas, he became distraught. Ingram overtook them before they reached Texas and put himself back in bondage alongside his sons under their new master, Jim Ingram. Wash's father simply could not stand the thought of being separated from his children.
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Not all slave husbands and wives were faithful. Some took advantage of the lax rules governing marital relations. Former slaves tell of semi-legendary “travellin' men,” “married” to several women, each on a different plantation. Israel Massie remembers adventurous Tom, who died “befo' he oughter.” It seems that “Tom woulda been in a mess of trouble, ef he'd lived. But he died. An' dere come to mourn over his grave four women, Jenny, Sarah, Nancy, and Patience, all four of 'em his wives an' cryin' over dat one man. Do you know, chile, dem women never fought, fuss, or quarrel over who was de true wife of dat man? Guess dat was because he was daid, but dey walk way fum de grave together jus like dey was sisters. Yes, Sir.”
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Once blacks acquired freedom, they were able to affirm and solidify their family connections. Former slaves in contraband camps moved eagerly to legalize marriage bonds. In fact, as early as September 1861, the demand to legalize their marriages was so great among black contrabands at Fortress Monroe that the Reverend Lewis G. Lockwood felt compelled to perform mass marriages for hundreds of blacks.
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When the Freedmen's Bureau and state governments made it possible to register and formalize slave marriages, blacks would still continue to hold mass marriage ceremonies. General Howard, the general superintendent of the Freedmen's Bureau, boasted to Whitelaw Reid, a Northern correspondent, that weddings among blacks at Beaufort, South Carolina, occurred on a frequent basis. After spending some time in Beaufort, Reid reached the conclusion that the superintendent had not made an idle boast, and he acknowledged that “scarcely a Sunday passes without a marriage.”
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An army chaplain, A. B. Randall, attached to a regiment of black soldiers in Arkansas, reported that he spent much of his time conducting marriage ceremonies among blacks in the area. Randall wrote, “Weddings, just now, are very popular, and abundant among the Colored People. I have married, during the month, at this post, twenty-five couples; mostly, those, who have families, and have been living together for years.”
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J. R. Johnson, a Freedmen's Bureau superintendent of marriages working among blacks in northern Virginia, recorded similar activity. In a one-month period, he gave out fifteen marriage certificates but seemed disappointed in his work: “Nearly three weeks of sickness prevented me from accomplishing more.” Once he recovered, however, he reported, “Yesterday, 31st of May, we gave seventy-nine certificates in Freedmen's Village.”
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Some of the black couples married on the spur of the moment. Elizabeth Botume, for example, reported from Beaufort that on “one evening four couples came to the schoolhouse to meet ‘the parson' who was to perform the marriage ceremony for them.” They came straight from the field, “in their working-clothes,” she noted.
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Hattie Austin remembered little or no planning going into her and James Austin's wedding. According to her, “Jim was wukkin' in' come in from d' turpentine wuks. I was cookin' ‘n' cleanin‘, ‘n' d' preacher come t' d' house, ‘n' us jis' stan up ‘n' git marry. Us didn't tek no time t' dress.”
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When Frank Ziegler and his future bride decided to “get hitched,” they started out to find a preacher. When they found one, they were married right there in the middle of the road.
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Similarly, Anna Lee's future husband picked her up on a horse, “and away he went to the preachers and we were married.”
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Orris Harris recalled, “Sam just got de papers en we went to de parson en got married, en dat wus all.”
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Despite the simple weddings of some blacks, most spent time preparing for the ceremony. Whether they were married at someone's house or in a church, a minister usually performed the service. Much attention was devoted to the clothes worn by the bride and bridegroom. After the wedding, a huge feast would take place, along with music and dancing, that might continue for days and nights. The wedding of Austin Grant and his fiancée is fairly typical. Grant wore a black suit with a nice shirt and a good pair of boots, and his bride wore a pretty white dress. They were married at her house at about seven o'clock in the evening. Shortly thereafter, the eating and dancing commenced. Grant asserted, “Yes 'm, they had a dance. Danced about half the night at her house.... Eat? My God, we had everything to eat. Barbecued a calf and a hog too! All kinds of cakes and pies. The men had whiskey to drink and the women drank coffee.”
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Apparently, some blacks did not grasp when it was time to stop celebrating. For example, when Charlie Sandles and his bride returned home from their wedding, nearly every black person in the vicinity was waiting for them at their house. They had an abundance of food and whiskey and were already eating, drinking, and dancing. Sandles recalled, “Boy oh boy, did we have a time. It lasted us about a month. I've done plum wore out before it was over.”
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Perhaps one of the most elaborate ceremonies held by freedmen was that of Harriet Jones and her bridegroom, who were married under a big elm tree at the house of Jones's former owner. The wedding party included nicely dressed flower girls. As for Jones's attire, “I has on one of my mistis dresses wid a long tram, hit is a white dress an I wear a red sash an' a big bow in de back, den I has on red stockings an a pair of bran new shoes, an a big wide brim hat.” The dinner table was laden with barbecued pork, roast sweet potatoes, dumplings, pies, and cakes. Once the large crowd had finished eating, they were ready to dance all night.
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Regardless of whether the ceremonies of blacks were simple or elaborate, most were proud of their newly official status. Elizabeth Botume, for example, reported the case of Smart and Mary Washington, who had lived together for over forty years. They were among the first persons to come forward to be married. According to Botume, “They were very happy when they walked away together side by side, for the first time endowed with the honorable title of husband and wife.”
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One freedwoman was so excited about marrying a soldier that “when the minister asked [the groom] if he would have this woman to be his wife, she hastily exclaimed, ‘Oh! Yes, massa, I'll be his wife.' And when the irrevocable words were said, the huge veil disappeared with wondrous rapidity before the ardor of the kISS.”
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Marie Aurelia Green boasted, “Dey got my marriage license dere in de chu'ch. You find my name in de big book dere, and at de white house in Washington, D.C.”
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Many of the former slaves who renewed their vows and those who married for the first time remained together for years. Among these were Israel Jefferson of Virginia, who was married for about thirty-five years;
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Elbert Head of Georgia, for over forty years until his wife's death;
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and Cato Carter of Alabama, for forty-seven years until his wife's death. The Carters had thirteen children.
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Moreover, several marriages lasted well over fifty years. For example, Carey Davenport was married for more than sixty years;
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Sarah Felder, for about fifty-nine years;
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Henrietta Gooch, for fifty-seven years;
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and Wesley Burrell, for fifty-three years until the death of his wife.
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Numerous children were usually born to these unions.

While many blacks remained married for years, others were married numerous times. Some of these unions were also of short duration and painful. Elsie Ross remembered, “I married a low, no 'count nigger and I don't want to talk about him. I dunno why I evah picked him. I wuz crazy at de time, I guess, and thought dat I wuz in love.” She lived with him for about one year, but when he beat her, Elsie “left him on de spot.” She never returned to live with him, nor did she marry another man.
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Similarly, Manda Boggan “uped an' married de sorriest nigger in de whole county.” Once he died, she made the mistake of marrying “another nigger who turnt out ter be as sorry as de fust one.”
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Betty Bormer separated from her first husband after five years. She waited twelve years to remarry but then had even worse luck than the first time, for she and her husband separated after only two years. However, persistency paid off. Betty married a third time, and this marriage lasted forty-one years.
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In reference to her first husband, Annie Coley remarked, “Dat wus the meanest niggah dat ever lived. He would slip up behin' me when I was wukin' in the fiel' an beat me.” Annie left him and took her three children to live with her brother. She remained single for a long time but then made the mistake of marrying Charlie Ashmore, “a mean niggah too.” After twelve years, Ashmore left her and went to Georgia. However, for Annie, as for Betty Bormer, the third time was the charm. Annie eventually settled into a lasting union with Harry Coley.
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Sadly, Malindy Smith was even less fortunate than either Bormer or Coley. With much bitterness on the question of marriage, she informed her interviewer, “I's been married four times an separated from all four my husbands. De Devil owed me a debt an paid it off in sorry men. They was so mean to me I couldn't stay with 'em.”
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AN UNIDENTIFIED BLACK COUPLE DURING RECONSTRUCTION.

Courtesy of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History

Although the vast majority of marital problems occurred because some couples were not compatible, other problems developed due to the failure of some husbands and wives to grasp the real nature of marriage in the early years of freedom. For example, a young couple in Beaufort, South Carolina, went to Chaplain Woodworth, who married them. The groom paid his dollar and got his certificate. However, only a day or two later, the groom returned, apparently disappointed. He demanded that the chaplain take back the certificate and give back his dollar, “ ‘cause he didn't like that woman nohow.” When the chaplain told him that he could not back out and must stick to his bargain, the man was dumbfounded. In another case, Woodworth married Mingo and Rachel. It was not long before a concerned Mingo returned to his office and informed the chaplain that “I want either a paper to make her come and lib wid me, or to have her pit in jail, or I wants a pass to marry another wife.” When the chaplain asked which he would prefer, Mingo replied, “Well, you might as well give me the pass, I reckon.” An exasperated Mingo was told that he must go to the Freedmen's Bureau to get the affair settled.
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Also, when Mary Gladdy's grandfather got mad at his wife, he “picked up his feather bed and toted it all the way from Macon to Lochapoka!” He then told everyone that “he was done with grandma and was going to live with [his son] Adam.” After only a few weeks, he returned home, “still toting his feather bed.”
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Although most freedmen rushed to renew their marital vows, some instead used the situation to rid themselves of unwanted spouses. The parents of Mollie Dawson of Tennessee, for example, separated soon after emancipation, and both married other partners.
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George Weathersby recalled, “After de surrender my pa and ma never tried to live together no mo.”
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“De day when freedom rung out, our pappy went one way, and our mammy went another way,”
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Mattie Williams remembered. When Primus Magee's father found out that couples who had been married as slaves had to get a license for the marriage to be considered legal after emancipation, he refused to remarry the woman he had taken in slavery. Furthermore, according to Magee, “a heap ob ‘em quit dat way. I reckon they felt free sho' nuf, as dey wuz freed from slavery an' from marriage.”
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Some couples were so determined to separate that not even pregnancy or the possibility of a nasty custody battle could prevent them from doing so. Despite the fact that Rose Williams was pregnant, she left Rufus, her husband, immediately after freedom. When she was asked if she ever remarried, Rose replied, “Never! No sar! One ‘sperience am 'nough fo' dis nigger.” Apparently, Rose quickly ended the relationship with Rufus because her master had forced her into it and she had always resented it. The emotional toll of the forced marriage remained with Rose for more than fifty years. She said, “Dere am one thing Massa Hawking does to me what I can't shunt from my mind.”
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In another example, Madison Day and Maria Richard had lived together as husband and wife for seven years and had three children together. However, upon emancipation, they refused to legalize their marriage. Both each claimed the children and an unpleasant custody battle ensued, in which the Freedmen's Bureau heard and rendered a decision. Custody was granted to Madison Day, the father.
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