(BUFFALO SOLDIERS) KING J H T The Experience of Troop A 10th

Sale 2377 - Lot 431

Price Realized: $ 7,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000

(BUFFALO SOLDIERS). KING, J. H. T. The Experience of Troop A 10th Cavalry on the "Staked Plains," Texas. 5 pages, small 8vo, original self-wrappers; vertical crease where folded, probably for mailing; otherwise a fine copy. Fort Davis, Texas, 1877

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first and only edition. of the utmost rarity. The horrifying account of a group of Buffalo Soldiers and buffalo hunters that became lost on the Texas Plains in mid-summer of 1877, and were without water for ninety-six hours. Four men died.
"On the evening of August 4th 1877, two non-commissioned officers and one private belonging to Company A, 10th Cavalry came into Fort Concho, Texas, reporting that Captain Nolan and Lieutenant Cooper with twenty-six soldiers, while in pursuit of marauding Indians, had wandered among the sand-hills on the Staked Plains; that no water could be found, and that when last seen the whole command was exhausted and dying of thirst." (From the account.) This is apparently the only piece of "primary" material from the Buffalo Soldiers, printed at one of their Forts in Texas or Oklahoma, that we could identify. While there are ample U.S. Government documents that discuss the Indian Wars and the 10th Cavalry, this is first hand material, printed on the field press at Fort Davis. An entire book was written on this event, Carlson's The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877 (Texas A & M University, 2003); see also a chapter on this in The Black Military Experience in the American West (New York: Liveright, 1971). WorldCat locates only the institutional copy of this report at Yale; no record, at auction or in dealer catalogues (Eberstadt, Decker, et al) of any copies.