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Child of the Fighting Tenth: On the Frontier with the Buffalo Soldiers

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I was given this book by someone who thought it would really interest me. It was a few days after I recieved the book that I had a chance to start reading it. Once I opened the cover, I found it very difficult to put this wonderful story down. When the author is describing her life as a "Child of the Fighting Tenth", the accounts are so descriptive that the reader can actually visualize what life was like for her. Even when I was not reading this book, my mind would wander across the open prairie as if it were today as it was 120 years ago. Even my dreams were of little Forrestine's amazing adventures with her family. This is by far the most captivating book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. If you enjoy reading about history and the west, you would love this story of life "On the Frontier with the Buffalo Soldiers". Written by Forrestine C. Hooker, daughter of Captain Charles Cooper, and edited by Steve Wilson, I highly recommend this book. Once you open the cover, you won't want to close the book until you have read every last word.

A unique perspective, informative, and insightful! Child of the Fighting Tenth: On the Frontier with the Buffalo Soldiers reflects the way of life of the African American soldier and their white officers in the 1870s and '80s. The experiences as revealed through the eyes of a young girl, an officer's daughter, take the reader beyond the historical surface of the period into the sweat and determination of these soldiers' lives. This story reveals a time when struggle was common, when tragedy on the open plains was expected. The conflict between the soldiers and the Indians was evolving towards the culture changing end for these indigenous peoples and the reign of supremacy for the "white man."



This conflict is softened and personalized as a young lady, Forrestine Cooper, relates the adventures of living at this pinnacle of historical change in the "civilization" of our country. Forrestine's father was the officer in charge of a troop of Buffalo Soldiers, and many of the book's events were experienced and documented by him.



As an elementary student in Oklahoma Public Schools in the fifties, I was enthralled with the adventures of a child named Cricket, often read to us by our second or third grade teacher. The character of Cricket was based on Forrestine's remembrances of her life stationed in many of the frontier outposts built for the soldiers protecting settlers moving west. I especially remembered an account of an older lady who climbed Mt. Scott, a feat that I thought would be difficult for anyone. It was a pleasure to read about the real encounter with this mountain and the drama surrounding the actual events of this perilous climb.



However, as an adult and a history/reading teacher in the Lawton Public Schools, I feel that this book should be in all school libraries in Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona. Its rich, well-documented information is a treasure for anyone interested in the history of the Southwest. Its level of appeal spans from the elementary classroom to the college level. I have a friend, Randy Garabey, who uses it to teach a history class at the University of Oklahoma. I loaned him my copy to read, and he was thoroughly impressed with how the events paralleled other research and publications-thus verifying its authenticity.



The actual notes of Forrestine Cooper Hooker about her life with the Tenth Cavalry are carefully edited by historian Steve Wilson. His attention to detail results in a true record of this era. However, this book is highlighted with humor and candor, which makes it a great historical read!

Realizing that a writer/editor (Wilson) can only use what is in the original text, this book was a pleasure for a novel-reader like me. What Forrestine Hooker failed to tell in her story cannot be invented by her editor and provides wonderful mystery to go with wonderful historic fact. I had a delicious time speculating on why Hooker failed to give her reader answers to questions she surely knew would arise.
Details of life at that time and place are invaluable and well presented by Wilson. Attitudes, perceptions and values have changed with distance from physical danger. Hooker reminds us that her world was not as safe, easy and secure as ours seems to be.
The book is an interesting excursion into our southwest history.

Having been the Colonel's daughter and the General's daughter-in-law I was the daughter of the Regiment. I loved this book! There was so much military detail! There was even the mention of the color of the lining in the cape of the officer, and for all you militaty brats you know the color is determened by the branch of service. Having been not only an Army brat and an Army wife , I related to the special bonds forged in service. This book speaks to all military wives and children! A must read for all Army brats or those who wish they had been!

(...)Child of the Fighting Tenth is a welcome addition to a body of literature, much of it produced between the l890s and the l930s, based on the memoirs/journals/letters of soldiers (mostly officers), military wives, and occasionally children, who knew regular army service on the frontier between the end of the Civil War and l900. Some of these titles are available in university reprint editions.

(...)The bulk of Hooker's observations deal with the domestic, or what Wilson calls the "behind-the-scenes" side of military life. There is a wealth of interesting and often amusing information: soldiers (called "strikers") who earned extra pay by working as household servants, army housing-both comfortable and primitive, packing box furniture, a sometimes limited menu because the canning industry was in its infancy, parties and outings with family and friends. There are also tales about some well-known frontier personalities such as Tom Custer, Colonels Benjamin Grierson, Wesley Merritt and William Shafter, Generals Nelson Miles and George Crook, Quanah Parker and the Apache leaders Geronimo and Mangus. What a wonderful cast! Hooker also offers a good deal about junior regimental officers, especially the dashing and gallant (Medal of Honor recipient) Powhatan Clarke, on who Hooker cast an admiring teen-age eye.

It is unfortunate that Hooker did not write more about enlisted soldiers, black and white. She could be a keen observer as when she noted that blacks posted in Texas were a "double aggravation" to some white civilians. She clearly had warm memories of some of the men in her father's commands, but she also wrote this: "George Clark, a faithful old Negro soldier of A Troop, had followed father every step of the way, like a faithful, dying dog." One has to ponder if her father saw blacks soldiers in the same light. Hooker is silent on this, although she notes that in early l870 her father requested assignment to a "white" cavalry regiment.

The publisher's decision to direct this book at young readers must have established strict editorial boundaries for Wilson. His introduction is informative, but too brief and his recommendations for additional reading are a bit pedestrian. A map showing all of the Cooper family postings would be most helpful, although Wilson offers a comprehensive list of historic sites to visit. The photo illustrations are first rate and the captions are detailed. I just wish there were more of both (I like captions to be extensions, not brief supplements, to a text). In short, Hooker's memoirs deserve a fully edited and annotated presentation.

To come clean, I did not have to buy my copy of this book, but I gladly would have. Hooker's voice is now part of the Old Army on the frontier "mix", and this is a very good thing.

Tom Phillips

PS According to a detailed count made by historian Frank Schubert, a fellow who has written more about black regulars than anyone else, the 9th Cavalry did more fighting than the "Fighting Tenth": between 1866 and 1897 elements of the 9th participated in eighty-one engagements; the score for the 10th is sixty-six.

For the frontier reenactor or living historian, this is fantastic. The book is the memoires of Forrestine "Birdie" Cooper Forrester as she and her family followed their father, an officer with the 10th Cav... one of the Buffalo Soldier units.