Lt. William McBryar, Buffalo Soldier Medal of Honor

William McBryar was born in Elizabethtown, North Carolina, in 1861. Serving in the Tenth Cavalry's Company K, he was cited for coolness, bravery and marksmanship while pursuing Apache fighters at Salt River, Arizona Territory, on March 7, 1890, and received the Medal of Honor that May. He later served at El Caney in Cuba and in the Philippines and worked in the federal prison service. In 1934 he earned a degree in agriculture from Tennessee A&I at age 73. An enlistment form gives his age as 42 in 1905, so records disagree on his birth year.

What the plaque says

Lt. William McBryar, Buffalo Soldier Medal of Honor LT William McBryar was born February 14, 1861. He enlisted în the 10th U.S. Cavalry January 3, 1887 and was assigned to the frontier. He received the Medal of Honor in 1890 for coolness, bravery and marksmanship during the Cherry Creek Campaign in Arizona Territory. He saw additional action at El Caney, Cuba, and in the Philippines. In 1934, at the age of 73, he graduated from Tennessee State Agricultural and Industrial College. He died March 8, 1941 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 1.2 mi
  The 1866 school for freed people whose Jubilee Singers paid for Jubilee Hall, a National Historic Landmark, and whose students helped start Nashville's sit-ins.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 2.4 mi
  William Strickland's Greek Revival capitol on Nashville's Capitol Hill, finished in 1859 and built from the bottom up with the labor of enslaved men.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.5 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• National Museum of African American Music — 2.7 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.

More markers nearby

• National Negro High School Basketball Tournament — steps away
• Tennessee State University — steps away
• Hadley Park — 0.4 mi
• Juno Frankie Pierce — 0.4 mi