FROM SLAVE TO BUFFALO SOLDIER – COURAGE WORTH HONORING

Cathay Williams is the only known documented African- American female Buffalo Soldier; a courageous woman who despite the prohibition against women serving in the Army, enlisted as a man under the false name of William Cathay on November 15, 1866.

Little is known of Cathay Williams’ life; however, this is what we do know:

• U.S. Army documents show she was born in Independence, Missouri in 1844 to an enslaved

mother and a free father. She was pressed into service by the U.S. Army during the Civil War at

the young age of seventeen.

• We also know she traveled throughout the West as an army cook and washerwomen under the command of General Phillip Sheridan and the United States Color Troop.

• What we don’t know, but can imagine, are the hardships this teenager endured and the abuse

she bore during the years before her enlistment in the 38th U.S. Army Infantry in 1866.

• In 1868 due to failing health (she contacted smallpox in New Mexico), her sex was revealed and consequently given an honorable discharge.

• She lived in and about Trinidad, Colorado until her death in 1892. Although not proven, it is

believed her burial took place in an unknown grave site in Trinidad, CO.

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