What about these Buffalo Soldiers’ statues?
My buddy, Boomer, who lives with a Nork bullseye on him since he’s a retired Air Force master sergeant on Guam, eases his constant worries by sending out daily cartoons, one of which really got me pondering. It’s an image of a mounted U.S. cavalryman, on proud display at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, one of many you can find around the western parts of this country, so really not unusual. What is different about this bronze tribute, however, is that this statue honors those black cavalrymen who served out west in the four black regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Moreover, it is one of many such shrines to these brave black soldiers who played an integral part in reducing the hostile Indian threat so that settlers could move west and tame the wild frontier. The erection of so many of such tributary statues was all part of the drive in recent years to recognize Black contributions to the creation of this nation.
Above is another equestrian tribute, this one at Fort Bliss in El Paso, to those brave soldiers whose role in militarily dominating Brown Native Americans until those hostiles could be rounded up and herded onto reservations was pivotal. Can you see where I’m going here? Black Americans slaughtered thousands and helped starve even thousands more Brown Native Americans until those Brown Native Americans lost the will to fight and agreed to be subjugated by the White Americans in Washington D.C.
The question begging to be asked then is, “When is an Antifa unit with its swarming mob of culturally hypersensitive camp-followers going to attempt to topple one of these monuments, erected by White Americans to honor better-armed and equipped Black Americans on superior mounts, for running roughshod over a minority of Brown Americans?” Talk about racism and cultural oppression: Of the thousands of Native Americans killed in the Southwest and on the Great Plains when the Buffalo Soldiers were deployed there, how many were killed by the black units? Don’t you just imagine those Black American soldiers killed thousands more Brown Native Americans than the KKK ever killed blacks?
So…where’s the outrage?
Crossposted at American Thinker
Category: Politics
Don’t give the braindead basterds any ideas, Poetrooper.
My thoughts exactly – this is just a “challenge issued”, will be a “challenge accepted” all too soon.
The answer is found in another question; where do the buffalo soldiers rank against the second wave immigrants from Asia in the victim Olympics?
If they rank “higher” then they are protected from scrutiny, if “lower” then they are literally “**zis” of some low form.
Well. Since you asked. I’ll step up.
The image of some spoiled, snot nosed brats (all white) dressed up as clowns attacking any of the Buffalo Soldier statues not only offends but angers me. I will gladly volunteer to help protect any of them.
Thugs, every one of them. They have chosen to be criminals. They refuse to act civilly. They demand extermination like the vermin they are.
Yawn…..
Joe if you didn’t spend all night working behind the truck stop dumpster, you would not be yawning at quarter to ten in the morning.
Joe’s hypocrisy proves Poe’s point. Again.
Thanks, Whitey, my thought exactly. Of course, Mailclerk’s comment has merit as well.
So THAT’S all you can say when you’re not blowing winos behind bus stops, eh Joe?
If we as a society decide we don’t want those statues up I suppose we as a society have the right to remove them.
If some small group of dipshits wants to make that choice for us, they should get their collective asses beaten and then they should be arrested.
Beyond that I don’t much give a shit about statues…
Alluding to Doc Holliday in Tombstone, “It appears their hypocrisy knows no bounds.”
Evahbuddy kno dey was jus a pawnification of da white debbils!
Leave dem statutories of strong black men be way dey be.
Given the unreliability of Trapdoors with folded-head copper cases, I’m not all that sure they were ‘better-armed’. Small quibbling point – the 9th and 10th Cav were mounted, the 38th, 39th, 40th, and 41st (which were reorganized into the 24th and 25th) were Infantry regiments.
True, but the Trapdoor’s effective range was significantly longer than that of a Winchester, an advantage on open ground. As I understand it, the Apaches were quite fond of captured/stolen Trapdoors for that very reason. The extraction problem was certainly a bitch, though. But that was a problem with the ammo, not the weapon itself.
I read somewhere that almost every Trapdoor recovered at Little Big Horn had marks around the chamber where troopers had been frantically trying to pry the remains of the cases out of the chambers…. sadly, this was an issue discovered during the Trapdoor’s introduction in 1873 and LBH was three years later. One of the reasons I laugh when folks talk about MILSPEC stuff being better… military procurement isn’t, and never has been, ‘all that’.
I’ve read the same thing, and as far as I know, it’s true. But again, it wasn’t the rifle itself. Trapdoors extract just fine if the case is made properly (theirs weren’t), and the rate of fire from a well-trained user was pretty good for the time (slightly better than a British Martini-Henry, even). And for all its fast ROF, Winchester repeaters loaded slow one empty, not unlike the French Lebel of the next generation. There were also surprisingly few Winchesters at LBH.
But you’re right about it being a bad time to have to clear a busted case out of your chamber when there’s lots of people trying within fifty yards who want you dead. High rate of fire would have come in very handy at that point, and whatever the cause, a nonfunctional weapon is useless. Whether it would have made up for Custer’s dumbass tactical decisions is a good question.
The Trapdoor still gets some undeserved hate, and the Winchester ’66 and ’73 weren’t the world-beating superguns they are often made out to be. There are multiple examples of US troops with Trapdoors defeating Indians with Winchesters, provided their ammo wasn’t the low-bid shit and the fight took place where the Trapdoor’s longer effective range negated the repeater’s advantage. There’s also plenty of evidence of warriors from multiple tribes who preferred a Trapdoor even when repeaters were easily available to them.
I was one of those lucky G.I.’s whose newly-issued M-16’s jammed in the middle of a couple of firefights in Vietnam. I can assure you the pucker factor goes waaayyyy up when you suddenly realize you only have your knife and you’re in a badass gunfight.
For a while I carried an M-79 grenade launcher along with my rifle until I got a .45 sidearm.
I’m guessing that you were suddenly having a very personal conversation with God at that moment, Poe.
My Uncle considered himself fortunate to keep his M14 for the duration of his time over there. He talked to me a little bit about it when I was a kid, and though I knew better than to ask him if he’d killed anybody, he did say these words: “The M14 works, and .308 works.”
One good thing about a Trapdoor or Rolling block in .45 Govt (.45-70 to the rest a ya) – damn thing may not load ultra fast but with good ammo, you can reach out and touch someone a hell of a long way out if you can master the trajectory – and an ounce of lead at almost any velocity will screw up almost anyone’s day.
I spend a fair amount of time competing (most weekend) with 19th century firearms.
The trapdoor extracts well with almost anything, until it becomes hot, from repeated firing, and wherein it becomes dirty, form repeated firing black powder cartridges.
You have to see BP crud to beleave how messy it is, and how it finds its way everywhere in the firearm. It also tends to harden into something like asphalt.
All of that makes extraction a bit challenging. The extractor can rip right thorough thin copper case rims, especially when PVT Snuffy wants to extract that case right bleeping now.
You can single-load a 73 or 66 fairly quickly:
Lever the action open. Grab the next round. Use the round to push the shell carrier down. Place the round into the chamber. Close the action and fire.
Alternately:
Leave action closed. Grab next round and place in magazine. Cycle action and fire.
Either one can be done in under two seconds by a practiced shooter if the reload round is readily available (loose in a belt loop for example). Almost anyone can get it done in five from a belt loop.
There is a strong possibility that the rounds used at Little Bighorn may have been over-spec relative to the guns, thus prone to extraction problems in the first place. Also, if the rifle chambers were rusty and or pitted, say from shooting black powder rounds without adequate cleaning, almost anything fired would stick in short order.
The bottleneck cases used in the Winchesters were much less prone to problems, as they greatly reduced blowback into the chambers, by sealing tightly upon firing.
Wasn’t there a battle during the Fort Phil Kearny debacle where the grunts used Springfields to keep the Sioux and allies at distance? I think it was called the Wagon Box fight?
Most folks don’t hear about the above, but Custer’s as arrogant (read dumbass) buddy, Fetterman managed to get himself and a bunch of good troopers killed during that “campaign” for lack of a better word as well.
I guess where Im going in the weapons department is that well maintained weapons are a must and in the hands of well trained soldiers; butts will be kicked.
In the leadership area; dumbasses get good soldiers killed.
Ahhh gotta love Wikipedia (sorta…)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon_Box_Fight
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetterman_Fight
Terry C. Johnston wrote a pretty good series of historical novels about the Fort Phil Kearny campaign. The first one, “Sioux Dawn,” ends the day after Fetterman’s Massacre. The Wagon Box Fight also features prominently in the series. Most of the history is pretty good as far as I can tell, with the narrative character Seamus Donegan being the only fictional one. It’s a good read, highly recommended. IIRC, two men of the 2nd Cavalry under Fetterman’s command, both Civil War vets, were recognized by the Sioux for their courage, Sergeant James Baker and Bugler Private Adolf Metzger. Baker singlehandedly held a forward position, taking several bullets and arrows to the torso and arms, and still killed two warriors in hand-to-hand combat before succumbing. Metzger, a German immigrant from Balingen, Wurttemberg. was by Sioux accounts the last white man alive. He is said to have attempted to organize the other remaining troopers into a last-ditch defense after Fetterman–seeing how screwed they were–took his own life (asshole), and in his own last stand used his bugle as an improvised bludgeon after his sidearm ran dry. Baker suffered some mutilation, but apparently less than the rest, as his remains were more recognizable. His heart was apparently cut out, possibly by Crazy Horse, then a young up-and-coming Oglala warrior who is said to have landed the final blow on Baker. Metzger’s body was left unviolated and covered in a buffalo hide blanket. This special treatment was likely ordered by Man Afraid Of His Horses, the Oglala commander (and a badass, despite his pussy-sounding name). Fetterman, who was recognized from previous parleys with the fort’s officers and known to be an asshole, was hacked to pieces postmortem. The other US personnel were similarly mutilated. The whole thing happened because Fetterman followed a decoy over Lodge Trail Ridge, out of range of the fort’s artillery, against explicit orders. He wanted to upstage his boss. Instead, he got himself and 80 other men killed. Indian casualties are hard to ascertain, but mostly estimated as less than 60. Adolf Metzger’s crumpled bugle was found at the battle… Read more »
TOW,
Thanks for the info! 🙂 I am a sucker for a cavalry story. I had also heard about the Bugler but thought that was a legend.
well, the Government load is documented as being able to shoot into a 6′ circle at 2500 yards away, and then there is the old Billy Dixon story of him shooting an Kiowa off a running horse at a measured mile… (disclaimer: the Billy Dixon shot has since been proven impossible – not due to needing a lucky shot but because there IS no mile-long visibility in any direction from Adobe Walls where the shot allegedly occurred.)
true dat
C’mon, antifa. Come after the Buffalo Soldier statue on Huachuca. We’re very proud of “Emmet”. you’ll get your asses handed to you by a very diverse group. Your call.
Agree on your article, Poetrooper. Was wondering about that myself.
Who/What/When/Where/Why is Antifa’s next agenda?
And wondering if any of them have looked deeply into their own families’ history (remember the story abouy Pelosi’s Father dedication of a Confederate monument in Baltimore?)
Seems folks and not only Antifa only focus on certain portions of American History to fit their agenda and forget “The Rest of the Story”. (I miss Paul Harvey).
There’s an interesting backstory to the Ft Bliss statue. It’s called “The Errand of Corporal Ross” and was derived from a painting by El Paso artist Bob Snead who happens to be Black. Snead based it on an actual event:
During a 9th Cavalry campaign in the Guadalupe mountains against the Mescalero Apache, Corporal John Ross was dispatched to the rear to bring up supply wagons which had fallen behind. While trying to return alone to his main unit, he was apparently attacked by but managed to kill three members of the Mescalero band.
I’m pointing this out because to destroy the Ross statue would be to eliminate a cultural artifact, and roughly equivalent to Nazis burning books, or the destruction of Palmyra by ISIS. One of the reasons we create an historical record is to learn from it, and let it serve as a reminder.
“One of the reasons we create an historical record is to learn from it, and let it serve as a reminder.”
Bingo.
Being the ignorant blue-eyed idealist hear; why the fuck would anyone want to tear down those statues??!!!
Those guys were Cavalry. Hands off antifa mutherfukkers and sjw sparkleponies.
Gentlemen, those individuals, who tear down the statues, we have been made aware of, are nothing but two year olds, who you cannot talk too, in an adult, mature manner. Have any of you ever talked a crying, pouting two year old? Without a doubt, they are spoiled, pseudo-intellectuals who don’t know the difference between shit or shine-ola. Lets see if I have it right, the former nominee for Vice President’s son is reported to be ANTIFA, right.
I am amazed how infrequently I see or read of Buffalo Soldiers although they served for years throughout the west in four regiments. Either they did not do much or the writers just saw the blue uniform and called them soldiers, the soldiers who just saved their bacon!
One might just assume or conclude that the cavalry was cavalry and the color of the horse or the rider did not matter that much when the job was getting done.
Maybe not but just maybe so. And this in the 30 years after the civil war.
Nothing will happen to those statues, because the riders portrayed are “other than white.” In the other circumstance, you would already have cause for concern.
Black Americans can not be racist. I refer you to the 2014 Movie “Dear White People”
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