Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Robinson

Henry Vinton Plummer, the chaplain on the plaque, was born enslaved near Bowie, Maryland, in 1844, escaped in 1862 and enlisted in the Union Navy in 1864. President Arthur made him chaplain of the Ninth Cavalry in 1884, when he was the Army's only Black officer. At Fort Robinson he held temperance meetings and, under a pen name, ran a newspaper urging Black troopers to stand up to abuse in Crawford. In 1894 a court-martial resting on a hostile sergeant's testimony convicted him of drunkenness and ended his career. In February 2005 the Army made his discharge honorable.

What the plaque says

Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Robinson Black soldiers of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry regiments (called "buffalo soldiers" by the Plains Indians) garrisoned Fort Robinson for eighteen years and played an important role in northwestern Nebraska's history. Organized in 1866, the regiments first served in the Southwest. In 1885 the Ninth Cavalry arrived at Fort Robinson, which was regimental headquarters from 1887 to 1898. The black troopers helped build the new post during the fort's 1887 expansion and were the first cavalrymen sent to the Pine Ridge Reservation during the Ghost Dance troubles of 1890. Lt. John Alexander, the second African American graduate of West Point, and Henry Plummer, the first black chaplain in the regular army, served here. So did ten buffalo soldier Medal of Honor men. In 1902 the men of the "Fighting Tenth" Cavalry, veterans of the Battle of San Juan Hill, made their headquarters here. Four years later the Tenth helped capture Ute Indians who had fled their Utah reservation, the last military action against Indians on the northern Plains. In 1907 the regiment left for duty in the Philippines. Nebraska State Historical Society Foundation Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Robinson State Park — 0.3 mi
  The army post beside the Red Cloud Agency where Crazy Horse was bayoneted in 1877 and Morning Star's Northern Cheyenne broke out into the January cold of 1879.
• Toadstool Geologic Park — 14 mi
  A pocket of badlands in the Oglala National Grassland where sandstone caps balance on clay stems, ancient tracks cross the rock, and a trail leads on to a 10,000-year-old bison bone bed.
• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument — 21 mi
  A fossil quarry on the Niobrara that also keeps the gifts Red Cloud and other Lakota and Cheyenne visitors gave the ranching family who were their friends for thirty-five years.

More markers nearby

• Officers' Row, 1909 — steps away
• 1887 Barracks Row — 0.3 mi
• Flagstaff, 1890 — 0.3 mi
• Adobe Officers' Quarters — 0.3 mi