Ceremony honors Buffalo Soldiers who perished in Texas heat

MORTON, Texas - At the end of the day, not all war stories are filled with guns, glory or winners.

Such was the case for 40 men with the 10th Cavalry, who rode off in pursuit of Comanches on July 26, 1877.

Not a bullet was fired in the four-day march, which began near modern-day Tahoka. But, in the end, four men were dead - victims of a disastrous military mission remembered as the Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877, or the Lost Troop Expedition.

On a recent Saturday, a Texas Historical Marker was dedicated at Morton Memorial Cemetery, next to the burial site of four Buffalo Soldiers who died during the expedition. About 40 people attended the ceremony.

The Cochran County Historical Commission applied for the state marker and four military headstones for the men who died. Members of the Morton black community helped pay for the granite markers honoring the four men.

"This was a community effort," said Dorothy Barker, chairwoman of the Cochran County Historical Commission.

Black troops were used by the military following the Civil War to provide security in the Western frontier. These troops were often in contact with American Indians, who later called the men "Buffalo Soldiers."

One of the duties performed by many Buffalo Soldiers was to patrol and search for defiant tribes who either attacked settlers or refused to live on reservations. That was the mission of the men from Company A, 10th Cavalry.

The group's misguided journey took them through what today are Cochran, Lynn, Hockley, Terry and Lubbock counties. The men went as far as New Mexico before turning back and eventually returning to their camp near present-day Tahoka.

Several days into the ordeal, the men began wandering away from each other in search of water. Four days after setting out, about 15 of the Buffalo Soldiers made it back to their camp.

The men had gone 86 hours without water under the West Texas summer sun. Those who survived told stories of how they drank the blood and urine from their horses to survive.

Others never made it back; John H. Bonds, John T. Gordon, John Isaacs and Isaac Derwin died.

"Everyone in the expedition suffered badly and these four men died," said Paul Carlson, a history professor at Texas Tech University and author of "The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877."

Remembering the dead
*  John H. Bonds, 24: A day laborer from Virginia who enlisted in the Army in Washington, D.C., in early 1877. 
*  John T. Gordon, 28: Joined the Army in Baltimore, MD in December 1876.
*  John Isaacs, 25: A waiter from Baltimore who joined the Army in January 1877. 
*  Isaac Derwin, 25: A laborer from South Carolina who joined the Army in Tennessee in November 1876.