In 1775 when open hostilities broke
out between England and her troublesome American colonies, an outside observer
might have been forgiven for predicting an early and easy victory for the
world’s most powerful Empire with an army and navy of commanding numbers and
fighting experience. And that is just what many enslaved African Americans
believed; even before Lord Dunmore’s proclamation suggesting eventual freedom
for men of color joining his invading forces and other loyalists, large numbers
of slaves had taken to following the British soldiers believing that their best
chance of freedom was in an English victory. In the end, even though as many as
6,000 fought alongside patriotic American militiamen and sailors at sea, nearly
twice that number served the English cause. An iconic example was an escaped New
Jersey slave who is remembered as “Colonel” Tye who earned the unofficial title
(among others) for the exemplary leadership and tactical skills which made him
famous wherever he showed up with his “Ethiopian Brigade” at battle sites of
his own choosing.
Likewise, African Americans fought
in the War of 1812, recruited enthusiastically by a southern gentleman named
Andrew Jackson. They fought valiantly at New Orleans and as seaborne marines
and sailors in the Great Lakes battles. In both wars their deaths often came as
a result of disease and poorly treated wounds, and the freedom promised as a
reward was often challenged by former owners or a pyrrhic victory when they
found themselves unemployable.
From the Revolution to the present
day, African Americans have fought in every American war or conflict, often
under substandard leadership and in the face of reluctant support from senior
commanders and government officials. If there was a moment in time when
military history should have recognized just how misplaced those earlier
prejudices had been, it was on the battlefields of the American Civil War, from
Fort Pillow, to Petersburg to the agony of Ft. Wagner and the bravery of those
men of the 54th Massachusetts and the white officers who believed in
them, trained them and died with them. In fact it shouldn’t be forgotten that
any time a white officer serving with black soldiers was taken prisoner by the
Confederates, he was often summarily shot and disposed of without honor.
Some of those black Civil War
soldiers in blue uniforms with yellow stripes (Cavalry) were released from
service in the west and stayed there. For some years I worked in the field of
western art, promoting artists, managing galleries and visiting art shows. I
learned that the really good artists who knew history and did solid research
almost always depicted black cowboys mixed among the others in almost every
trail scene. That’s where many a southern veteran finally found the kind of
freedom so many yearned for and few realized and I wish I had space to tell
more of their stories.
Born as a slave in Tennessee and
freed after the war, Mary Fields made her way west in 1884, settling down –
more or less – in Cascade, Montana. At more than six feet in height and
weighing in at 200 pounds, she did everything from chopping wood to hauling
building stones, until she found her real dream job driving a stage coach and
carrying the U.S. Mail pulled by her mule, Moses. Regardless of blizzard or
flood, she always got through, and if anyone tried to interfere she was never
without her 10 gauge shot gun and a pair of six-shooters. “Stagecoach Mary”
prided herself on never backing down, and was said to have knocked out more men
than anyone in Montana. She smoked the world’s worst-smelling cigars and
bellied up to the bar with the best of the men. At age 72, she knocked out one
guy who refused to pay a bill with a single blow! Mary’s love for bad whiskey
probably led to her liver failure in 1914.
“Stagecoach Mary”
Fields could be found working for the Nuns of St. Peter’s Mission one day, and
fighting her way through an outlaw ambush the next. Six feet tall and tough as
nails she was a legend in the unsettled west.
Another ex-slave named Bass Reeves,
born in Arkansas, moved to Oklahoma where he became one of the most storied
Deputy U.S. Marshals in the history of that service. In 32 years of service he
arrested over 3,000 felons, having to shoot “only” 14 he said, to save his own
life. Learning that one of his own sons had murdered his wife, and though
deeply saddened, he insisted on affecting the arrest himself. Although
conversant with several Indian languages, he was never able to read without
help, the warrants he had to deliver. A bronze monument of Marshal Bass Reeves
stands in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Among his biographers are several who believe he
was the inspiration for the “Lone Ranger”.
During the Korean War for the first time,
there was no racial separation, the U.S. Air Force taking the lead thanks to
the example of General Benjamin O. Davis and his Tuskegee Airmen .
U.S. Defense Dept. Photo
For parallel reading, see the
following Al Cooper columns: Tuskegee Airmen
– 2/15/2012
Storming Ft. Wagner-A Legacy of Honor –
4/3/2013
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