The Troop

Colonel Ethan Pendleton Admires His Men

Y’allogy is 1836 percent pure bred, open range guide to the people, places, and past of the great Lone Star. We speak Texan here. Y’alloy is free of charge, but I’d be much obliged if you’d consider riding for the brand as a paid subscriber. (Annual subscribers of $50 receive, upon request, a special gift: an autographed copy of my literary western, Blood Touching Blood.)

“Buffalo Soldiers.” The 10th Cavalry charge at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Photographer unknown. Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society.

They were a wonder, these majestic and gallant men in their yellow-striped, dustcovered blues. –Derrick G. Jeter

As part of the research for my literary novel Blood Touching Blood, I read a number of book on black U.S. cavalry troopers, known as Buffalo Soldiers—so called by native Americans, as one cavalry officer’s wife put it in a letter to a friend in June 1873, because the “wooly heads [of black cavalrymen] are so much like the matted cushion that is between the horns of the buffalo.” The term has become an enduring moniker to refer to those African-American men who, primarily, served during the American Indians Wars of the ninetieth century (though there is evidence some viewed the sobriquet as offensive and insulting). I had hoped to write an article on the Buffalo Soldiers and publish it this February, during Black History Month. But time got away from me with other writing assignments for Y’allogy and outside outlets, so that article will have to wait for another day. Not wanting to let the opportunity to honor these men completely slip by, however, I’ve decided to published a favorite paragraph from Blood Touching Blood in which the protagonist, Colonel Ethan Pendleton, admires the black troopers under his command while on the march. I hope y’all’ll enjoy it.

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The Colonel led twenty-eight men, three scouts, and six packmules away from Van Horn’s Wells. They rode in a column of two. Lieutenant Dancy rode beside Colonel Pendleton, shadowed by Doctor Andersen. The guidon and Corporal Chevalier with his bugle followed behind, along with Sergeant Major O’Connell and Sergeant Tarleton and the troop each in his order. The Tonkawas and Captain MacKenzie scouted forward and rear. They rode in silence. The only sound on the wind were hoofclops and creaking leather and clanking equipage mingled with the pop of the guidon. Wordless they rode. Colonel Pendleton turned in the saddle and gazed at his men, their dark faces glistening in the sun, hats fashioned on nappy heads as each man fancied. Some wore army issue, brims rolled front and back. Others wore store bought felt, brims folded cowboy style. Some wore them on the back of their heads, others cocked to one side—right or left—sitting askew rakish and carefree. Wildrags of blue and red and yellow trailed from each neck. They were a wonder, these majestic and gallant men in their yellow-striped, dustcovered blues. In the Colonel’s eye George Custer with all his dash and daring was less than foppish next to his troopers. He admired and respected each one to a man. A bond of brotherhood born of blood. Each black face shone with dignity and courage and love—and to lose one was to lose the world entire.

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Derrick G. Jeter, Blood Touching Blood (McKinney: Y’allogyPress, 2024), 130.

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Visit the National Buffalo Soldiers Museum website to learn more about their history.

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