They first hit the history books in June 1867, when they were on hand to help dig General George A. Custer out of a jam. The 38th regiment had arrived at Fort Wallace, Kansas, to pick up supplies, when about 300 Cheyennes attacked the fort. While the battle pitched on, black soldiers bravely broke out of the line, rushing forward, and firing madly on the Indians.
Another incident that year in which the buffalo soldiers distinguished themselves took place in Texas. Most of the black soldiers there were former slaves from Louisiana and Mississippi. While stationed at Fort Lancaster, an abandoned post near the Pecos River, Company K was being harassed at night by Lipan and Kickapoo Indians. Though inexperienced, the buffalo soldiers fought them off. The Indians withdrew carrying their dead behind them.
On September 17, 1868, Major George A. Forsyth and 50 men found themselves face-to-face with hundreds of Cheyenne and Sioux Indians led by the Cheyenne war chief Roman Nose. The soldiers were bombarded with bullets and arrows. All their horses were killed. The soldiers withdraw across the Arikaree River in eastern Colorado and took refuge on a small island in midstream.
The siege continued for five days. The Indians periodically charged the island, inflicting and taking large casualties. Under cover of darkness, Forsyth sent two of his scouts, Jack Stillwell and Hank Trueau, back to Fort Wallace in Kansas to bring reinforcements.
On September 27, Colonel Louis Carpenter, arrived with Company H, 10th Cavalry. This contingent was made up entirely of black troops, known as Carpenter's Brunettes. The Indians tagged them with the name buffalo soldiers. The Indians were mostly gone by the time they arrived, but the soldiers badly needed the medical help that the troops brought with them. The fight later became known as the Battle of Beecher Island, named after one of the army lieutenants who fought there.
The Victorio War took place in 1879-80 in New Mexico. Buffalo soldiers honored themselves in this skirmish in which the army tried to take Apache chief Victorio into custody. The Bureau of Indian Affairs tried to make him go to the San Carlos reservation, but after two escapes they allowed him and his band to stay on a reservation in New Mexico. When whites arrived to arrest Victorio for murder, he fled the reservation with 60 followers, soon multiplying to 300. On September 4, 1879, his band killed five troopers, wounded three others, and rode off with 46 horses. He then ambushed the army at the canyon of the Los Animas River, killing 8 buffalo soldiers. He and his band fled across the border into Mexico.
