BUFFALO SOLDIERS

BUFFALO SOLDIERS For a generation following the Civil War, two regiments of black cavalry of the U. S. Army, the Ninth and the Tenth, served meritoriously on the western frontier. Concentrated at one time or another in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and the Dakotas, these troops were called "buffalo soldiers" by the American Indians. The traditional account is that the Indians saw a similarity between the hair of the black soldier and that of the buffalo. The term was not used in a derogatory manner since the buffalo was considered to be a sacred animal by the Indians. Accordingly, the black troopers willingly accepted this designation, even to the point of adopting the buffalo as a portion of their regimental insignia.