Remembering the 24th: Part of the Community — Patriotic Events
A look at the 24th Infantry’s Involvement in Patriotic Community Events in Missoula from 1902–1905
By late October 1905, the 24th Infantry’s days in Missoula were numbered. For more than three years, the segregated Army unit had been a conspicuous thread of the community fabric when word came down from the US War Department of their pending redeployment to the Philippines.
It was to be the last time a battalion of Buffalo Soldiers would garrison the fort for the rest of its days. By the end of 1905, Fort Missoula had been home to Black soldiers in the US Army — numbering anywhere between 175 to 350 enlisted soldiers at any one time — for nearly half of its existence,¹ a fairly remarkable fact given how little Black history in Missoula is ever talked about.
In October of 1905, though, Missoulian editor Harry O. Collins did consider this local Buffalo Soldier history when he wrote an editorial about the soldier’s imminent departure:
This city will regret to lose the members of the 24th which have been for some time stationed at Fort Missoula. Missoula has had much experience with soldiers, white and colored, and prefers the latter. The 25th Infantry under command of Col. Burt was stationed for some time at Fort Missoula and the good record made by that regiment has been maintained by the Twenty-fourth under command of Maj. Torrey who has preserved admirable discipline without harshness owing in a measure to the pride of the men, ambitious to be known as model soldiers. This they certainly are. Most of the enlisted men are veterans, having seen service in Cuba and the Philippines. They are a clean, orderly lot of men, and being first class soldiers, will naturally become good citizens when their terms of enlistment expire, if they decide to leave the army. We do not know what regiment will take the place of the Twenty-fourth at Fort Missoula, but we do know that they can not by any means be the superior of the present post garrison.
The warm words for the Buffalo Soldiers is noteworthy. The citizens of St Paul-Minneapolis, after all, had gone out of their way in 1902 to prevent the regiment from being assigned to St Paul’s Fort Snelling and is the reason the 24th were in Missoula in the first place.
Like Fort Missoula, Fort Snelling had been home to the 25th Infantry (another segregated unit of the United States Army) in the 1880s. But, upon hearing the War Department had again ordered a regiment of Black soldiers to Snelling in 1902, the Twin Cities community strenuously objected and successfully lobbied the War Department to change its orders and assign the 24th Infantry regiment to Montana instead.
Missoula civic and government officials never openly objected to the decision and there is little to suggest Collins’ views were not broadly indicative of the community’s as a whole. The reason for this difference in attitude is worthy of further exploration. It mirrors the publicly-expressed views of the White residents of Lander, Wyoming when members of the segregated 9th Cavalry were stationed at nearby Fort Washakie in the late 19th Century.
When departing Lander at the outbreak of war with Spain, townspeople came out in droves to wish them well, much like they did in Missoula for the 25th Infantry at around the same time. The local paper expressed their gratitude and sorrow: “We are sorry to see the soldier boys leave the post and hope that the war to which they marched will in some manner be averted and that there will be no need of them encountering any of the dangers of war.”
Military historian Frank Schubert, an expert in Buffalo Soldier history, wrote in a 1971 article that most of the rest of Wyoming had shown either disinterest or noticeably racist views toward the Black soldiers stationed across the state except for Lander. Schubert attributes the difference in Lander’s attitude toward Black soldiers to their close proximity to an Indian reservation, a situation similar to that of Missoula’s.
Lander was a small, virtually all-white settlement with one significant feature differentiating the town from similar communities in the state. It was located adjacent to an Indian reservation, the Shoshoni and Arapahoe reserve on the Wind River. This single difference — the reservation Indians displayed no tendency toward insurrection — appears to have been fundamental in shaping the attitudes of the local whites. They had probably developed, prior to the arrival of the black soldiers, what Professors (Roger) Daniels and (Harry) Kitano call a two-category racial system, in which the reservation Indians were, of course, the lower of the two categories. The townspeople accepted the blacks to maintain that dichotomy. ‘One of the gravest dangers in a three-or-more category system, where one group remains superior, is the realistic fear within that group of a coalition among the disadvantaged.’²
It’s hard to know how accurately that reflected the racial dynamics of Montana and Missoula in particular. The community of Havre, for example, lobbied the War Department not to house the 24th Infantry at nearby Fort Assinniboine just as Minneapolis-St. Paul had. And Fort Assinniboine was only 50 miles from the Belknap Indian Reservation. Conversely, Fort Harrison showed a nearly equal level of appreciation for the 24th Infantry’s 1st battalion at nearby Helena which does not have a neighboring reservation and had the largest residential Black population in the state at the time.
But it is true that of all the forts where Black soldiers were stationed, Missoula was the closest to a reservation and residents likely had more interactions with tribal members than Havre. It’s also true that one of the five known Black men lynched in Montana was a Buffalo Soldier — private William Robinson of the 25th Infantry — at Sun River (near Great Falls) in 1888 where Fort Shaw was located. Like Helena’s Fort Harrison, Sun River was not adjacent to an Indian reservation.
The fondness Collins acknowledged, as we will see in later installments, did not prevent the paper from recklessly reporting whenever any of the men had a run in with the law. In keeping with standard journalistic practice across the country for decades, the paper always went out of its way to let the readers know if one their subjects was Black regardless of its relevancy. Indeed, to the paper, the race of who they were writing about was ALWAYS relevant; and never more so then when reporting on crime.
And the admiration expressed by Collins should also be tempered with the understanding that the men were always seen as a separate class of soldier and citizen. The very structure of a segregated Army unit — along with nearly all social, commercial and residential spatial formations when it came to race — produced this understanding. Even as military soldiers, the racist nature of a segregated Army regiment perpetuated a paternalistic view of Black men. All of the enlisted soldiers in each regiment were Black, after all, and nearly all of their commanding officers dictating their actions were White.
According to an article that ran in the Missoulian in May of 1904, there were only eight commissioned Black officers in the whole of the Army at the time. Of those, five were in “noncombatant” positions of chaplains or paymasters. The only Black officer who came up through West Point at the time was Charles Young who, in 1904, was captain of the Ninth Cavalry — a Buffalo Soldiers regiment. The entirety of the Buffalo Soldier regiments (24th and 25th Infantries and the 9th and 10th Cavalries) had two Black lieutenants in those days in addition to Captain Young — Benjamin Davis (10th Cavalry) and John Green (25th Infantry). No “combatant” commissioned officers for the 24th Infantry were Black at the time.
Part of the rationale behind this structure was the commonly-held notion that Black men could not be military leaders and needed white officers to instill discipline and order. Teddy Roosevelt intimated as much in an accounting of his time with the Rough Riders in Cuba published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1899. Despite the fact that Buffalo Soldiers played an instrumental role in the success of the Battle of San Juan Hill, Roosevelt wrote dismissively that the Black soldiers were “peculiarly dependent on their white officers. Occasionally they produce non-commissioned officers who can take the initiative and accept responsibility precisely like the best class of whites; but this can not be expected normally, nor is it fair to expect it.” While his demeaning account was sharply contested by other soldiers and officers who were there, the perspective was shared among many White military commanders and was a common lens through which the soldiers were seen.³
You get a glimpse of this in Harry O. Collins’ editorial about the 24th Infantry. For while he offered not only praise, but a preference for Black soldiers, he also at least partially attributed that to the quality of the battalion’s White commanding officer, Major Zerah Torrey, who “preserved admirable discipline.” And his curious description of them as “a clean, orderly lot of men,” seems coded with racist inferences of Black people in general.
What’s also interesting about Collins piece is his conclusion that the men “being first class soldiers, will naturally become good citizens when their terms of enlistment expire.” Considering roughly 35% of retired Buffalo Soldiers and their families living in Missoula in 1910 were from the 24th Infantry, that prediction held relevance for the community. The question of how good of citizens they could be when they were shut out of the major employment sectors and would not be welcomed as citizens in White neighborhoods was not considered.
Despite these limitations, the 24th Infantry were a central part of the community, the affairs of whom were reported on regularly in the Missoulian for the three and a half years of their stay. In that way, Missoula residents got to see and interact with a sizeable Black population in ways not widely available to people living in most Western cities at the time. To at least some degree, these experiences likely informed Collins’ glowing praise for the four companies of the third battalion of the 24th Infantry stationed at Fort Missoula.
The soldiers — the bulk of whom came from former states of the Confederacy or border states in the Civil War — were front and center for major patriotic community events from Memorial Day commemorations to 4th of July parades. In 1905, the 24th were also a major draw at the Missoula County Fair performing grand reviews and dress parades as well as putting on mock military exercises at the fairgrounds.
In all of these endeavors, Black soldiers combined performing their official duties as soldiers with direct participation in the most heavily-attended community gatherings of Missoula life. While the violent racism of the Black experience in America underscored the contradiction between the country’s stated ideals and the reality of its racial caste system, these moments of civic engagement likely served to forge, if but fleetingly, a sense of commonality and shared purpose.
Patriotic Celebrations
Memorial Day & 8th Grade Graduation — 1902
The men of Company L were the first from the 24th Infantry to arrive in Missoula when they got off the train on May 22nd, 1902 after three years at Camp Skagway in Alaska. About 70 enlisted soldiers came to relieve a similar number of White soldiers from the 8th Infantry who were ordered to Alaska’s Fort Egbert, about 500 miles northwest of Skagway.
The company, which had only formed in 1899, lost nearly half of its numbers at Skagway by March of 1902⁴. Many of the men’s enlistment terms ended at roughly the same time because so many had started their three-year term together. In April and May, however, the company grew from 45 enlisted men to 73 — over a third of whom were new to the company as well as to Missoula.⁵
Just a week later, the soldiers were busy in town from dawn to dusk participating in Memorial Day services and 8th grade graduation. The morning’s Memorial Day ceremony was held at Missoula Cemetery. The Missoulian reported more than 1,000 people attended making their way by “carriages, special train, bicycles and every conceivable method of conveyance.” Reverend H.C. Rossell delivered an address, school children sang a patriotic song and a member of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R. — a fraternal society of union soldiers from the Civil War) read the ritual ceremony of Decoration day (the original name of Memorial Day).
“A burial salute fired by a squad from the Twenty-fourth infantry, and ‘taps’ by Bugler Housman of the infantry, a veteran of the Cuban war who had been in the memorable charge up San Juan hill concluded the exercises of the G.A.R.,” the paper reported. It’s unclear who “Bugler Housman” was as there is no known member of company L with that surname. It’s a likely misspelling.
In the afternoon, the festivities moved to the Union Opera House. The hall was adorned with flowers and patriotic bunting and the building was packed with people. Again, several different children’s groups sang and recitations from a variety of community members was given.
“The honorary guests of the meeting — Fred Wintrop post, G.A.R., a squad of the Twenty-fourth infantry, U.S.A., and veterans of the Spanish-American, Philippines and China wars — occupied seats at the front of the hall. With them was the crepe-decorated furled flag on stacked arms,” the Missoulian described.
Again, “Taps” was played by “Bugler Housman” who was given a round of applause when introduced as a veteran of the Spanish-American War’s Battle of San Juan Hill.
Later that same evening, Missoula’s Union opera house was again packed for a bustling 8th grade graduation ceremony. It had been the first one held in Missoula for the past four years.
“Every seat was occupied,” the Missoulian reported, “the backs of the seats were utilized, the aisles were full to overflowing, each stove in the rear was utilized for a reserved seat, small boys had their heads thrust through windows and small girls roosted wherever a toe hold was obtainable.”
The graduates gave “scholarly essays” and younger grades also participated by reciting poems, giving special performances and singing songs in what the Missoulian described as a three-hour event. At the culmination of the evening, when the diplomas were being handed out, a quartet of Black soldiers from Company L — named The Magnolia Four — played “Cover them Over” (a military memorial song).
It wasn’t the first time The Magnolia Four played a central role in a widely-attended community event. The quartet were key players in three minstrel show productions in 1901 while stationed at Skagway.⁶ Clearly, this was a different kind of performance. In fact, only one of the original Magnolia Four performers from 1901, William Freeman, was still a part of Company L by the time of the 8th grade graduation ceremony.
The day-long participation in Memorial Day and 8th grade graduation celebrations was a highly-visible introduction to the community as the fort and town began to prepare for three more companies from the 24th Infantry that were coming from the Philippines.
Company L was also scheduled to march in the 4th of July parade in 1902, a little over a month later. Mother nature had other plans, however, as Missoula got hit with a punishing rain storm and organizers of the event had to cancel the parade.
By late August, the fort’s inhabitants tripled in size as companies I, K and M arrived from the Philippines, swelling the total number of soldiers — officers and enlisted men — to 336⁷ which stretched the fort to full capacity. Many of the men had seen action in a different kind of war than that of fighting Spaniards in Cuba in open battlefields. It’s almost certainly the case that part of the War Department’s aim in relieving the regiment from the Philippines was to provide time for the officers and soldiers to rest and recover from the far more mentally taxing form of guerilla warfare they experienced in the jungles of the Philippines.
That fall, the War Department also ordered the 24th Infantry to reduce its troop strength from close to 100 soldiers per company to 63. A total of 95 soldiers from the four companies at Fort Missoula were discharged in October and November.⁸
Memorial Day & the 4th of July 1903
Not many other civic events involving the soldiers was reported on by the Missoulian that year. But in 1903, the 24th Infantry again participated in Missoula’s Memorial Day activities. The day’s events closely mirrored that of 1902.
“The exercises of the day commenced at 9:30, when the members of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Confederate veterans, the Women’s Relief Corps, the Sons of Veterans, and the Soldiers of the Spanish-American War formed in line at the city hall,” the Missoulian reported. “Led by a firing squad from the Twenty-Fourth United States infantry, they marched to the Northern Pacific depot, to music furnished by the Girls Garden City Band.”
From there, a special train made three trips to the cemetery filled with residents who laid flowers on every grave there. The paper made no mention of whether or not both White and Black veterans from the Spanish-American War marched together since there were ample numbers of both in town at the time.
The afternoon event at the Union Opera House followed a similar structure to the prior year. Noticeably absent this year, however, were Spanish-American War veterans of the 24th Infantry seated as special guests as they were in 1902. While it’s likely the case that the number of Spanish-American War veterans in the battalion's roster was far larger than in 1902, their omission is still somewhat surprising given the nature of the ceremony. The featured speaker, attorney Harry Parsons, as described in an earlier piece, had not forgotten the cause of the Civil War and spoke at length on the topic of slavery and the events leading up to the conflict. But Parsons speech fell short of addressing the failures of the post-War era to deliver on its stated promises of equal Black citizenship — something acutely felt by Black Americans at the time.
Whether or not there would be a 4th of July parade was still an open question by mid-June of 1903. In the June 16th issue of the paper, it was reported that no official plans had been made at all “owing to what is possibly a lack of patriotism on the part of municipal officers and the citizens.” The rained out 4th of July in 1902 may have been partially responsible for the poor planning that year.
Nevertheless, by late June, organizers were hard at work putting a program together and by June 25th had secured the attendance of Butte’s Boston and Montana band to play at the court house as well an assortment of floats for the parade.
The 24th Infantry were again asked to participate and even with such short notice, Major Torrey made sure the soldiers were available for the parade. With more than three times the number of men stationed at the fort at the time than in 1902, the soldiers from Fort Missoula took up a much larger portion of the parade than had been seen in Missoula for some time.
“Fort Missoula will be almost deserted during the day, as the officers and soldiers will come to town to swell the parade,” the Missoulian reported on July 1, 1903. “The officers, with 200 soldiers of the Twenty-Fourth infantry will participate in the big march, giving it a military effect not often displayed in the Fourth of July parade of a Montana city.”
On the day, the soldiers led by Major Zerah Torrey marched in the first division just behind the Chief of Police with “his force of regulars in a two-seated wagon, followed by the fire department” and the grand marshal of the parade.
Evidently, the soldiers were met with a less than enthusiastic reception much to the disappointment of the Missoulian as an editorial written the following day recounts:
Missoula is not demonstrative to a degree. This was evidenced by the absence of cheers when the gallant veterans of the 24th US. infantry marched past. They presented a magnificent appearance — officers and men. These men have seen service in Cuba, the Philippines and China. They have helped to place the American flag where it now is and wherever it is will remain. We need chiding for not having been a little more vociferous, so to speak.
Considering the fairly slow organizing, the town didn’t seem to be in an excited patriotic fervor that year. Whether that had anything to do with the soldiers’ race or growing disillusionment with the Spanish-American War evoked by the sight of the military is hard to know. Either way, the parade offered a much different look at Black Americans than the demeaning, caricatured view Missoulians got just a couple of weeks earlier when the nationally touring Barlow Minstrels performed in blackface at the Union opera house on May 14th. For their part, the Missoulian expressed appreciation for the soldiers’ involvement.
“(H)ip hip hurrah for Major Torrey, officers and men under him of the gallant 24th who added so much to our enjoyment and awakened our patriotism anew,” the editorial concluded, “even if we were a trifle undemonstrative.”
Anyone in Missoula on the 4th that day had plenty to choose from for afternoon activities. There were two 2-hour long concerts performed by the Butte & Boston band in the bandstand at the courthouse. And just a little ways from the courthouse, organizers put on athletic contests as well as the chasing of a greased pig on a vacant block between Spruce and Railroad streets. There was also a log rolling contest near East Front Street.
Meanwhile, the men of the 24th marched back to Fort Missoula and held a spirited series of Field Day competitions. Probably a much smaller crowd was on hand at Fort Missoula that afternoon considering both how tepid the response to the soldiers appeared to be and how much further away the Field Day events were from the more centralized locations of the other activities. Nevertheless, spectators would have been given a highly entertaining experience given the schedule of competitive events.
Starting at 1:30 pm, soldiers took part in a variety of contests. There were team and individual rifle competitions — target shooting from 500 and 600 yards while lying prone and 200 yards while standing as well as a “rapid fire” team contest where selected members from each of the four companies shot at a designated target (one for each team) for 30 seconds.
After that, two-man teams ran a piggy back race where one soldier ran 50 yards with another soldier on his back and then switched places and the other ran the 50 yards back to the beginning. Following that was a shoe race which had to have been an amusing sight to behold. A hundred yards from the starting line was a pile of the competitor’s shoes. At the start of the competition, the men ran to the pile to get their shoes and threw away “as far as possible” any shoe that wasn’t their own. The contestant who arrived back at the starting line first with their own shoes properly laced won a fishing rod.
As the afternoon went on, there were track and field competitions — a running broad jump, relay races and a 100-yard dash race. Later was a baseball throwing contest for distance and a cartridge race where contestants quickly gathered five blank cartridges 10-yards apart, loading each one into their rifle and then firing the rounds as quickly as they could.
Company L dominated the day’s events, winning nearly all individual and team competitions.
The Field Day events ended with a baseball game that started at 4:30 pm between the hospital post team and the soldier team. At this point, the soldier team likely had the upper hand as they had been playing baseball that spring and summer against several local teams. The final score, probably to the relief of the post team, was not revealed.
No mention was given about the size of the crowd for the Field Day events but it seems clear that it was a fun day for all who watched or participated.
Annual Encampment of the G.A.R., Memorial Day, the 4th of July and October Field Maneuvers 1904
Spring in Missoula in 1904 was kicked off by the annual “encampment” of the statewide Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) and Women’s Relief Corps (W.R.C.) which chose Missoula that year as the host city.
On April 20th, members of the statewide Union veterans organizations representing posts from Helena, Bozeman, Butte, Livingston, Great Falls, Dillon, Virginia City and other towns across the state gathered in Missoula at the Odd Fellows Hall. Greeting the old soldiers and the women from the W.R.C. was Fort Missoula’s 24th Infantry battalion band who “escorted them to the hall.”
“There were about 100 of the ‘boys’ in line and they marched with a proud step, with heads erect and eyes to the front, keeping time with the skill of the veterans they were and forgetting for the moment that old Father Time was the only enemy which they have to face.”
One wonders what the veterans thought while marching to a band of Black soldiers — did it remind them of the cause of the conflict they fought for?
That evening, in keeping with G.A.R. gatherings, the old soldiers and members of their sister organization, the W.R.C., had a campfire and reminisced about their shared experiences. The following day, the delegations traveled to Fort Missoula and were met by the post’s officers who invited them to observe the day’s maneuvers by the soldiers.
“It was almost as efficacious in awakening enthusiasm as the fife and drum corps of the campfire of the evening previous to the old soldiers and their wives to see the troops go through their various evolutions in soldierly style, consisting of dress parade, guard mount, manuals of arms and other tactics,” the Missoulian reported.
Just a little over a month later, soldiers from the 24th again performed the same duties on Memorial Day in 1904, though the paper barely mentioned them. They marched with veterans, the Women’s Relief Corps, “school children, secret societies and citizens.”
The firing squad was there at Missoula Cemetery again as part of the ceremony. The afternoon’s event was held at the County Courthouse and, unlike the two years before, no mention of the 24th Infantry’s involvement, was mentioned.
In fact, the focus of the talks that afternoon seem singularly focused on both forgetting and White reunion. Scant mention of slavery was offered by the two main speakers and there was not a reported acknowledgement of the Black soldiers either as veterans of the Spanish-American War or as a people whose liberation was achieved through the great conflict. The first speaker, W. H. H. Dickinson, a G.A.R. member, on the other hand, acknowledged both the veterans of the Union and Confederacy “feelingly” and paid a “well deserved tribute” to both.
He said the people of the North had nothing to forget; that the people of the South had everything to forget: the memory of their ruined homes: their fields of cotton and tobacco overrun, their fences and buildings destroyed and burned; their horses and cattle stolen or confiscated; their cause lost. But the people were forgetting them and in forgetting they were making better and truer men and women than before.
Dickinson made no mention of what the cost of forgetting was for the millions of Black Americans subjected to the violence of Jim Crow and racial terrorism.
Following Dickinson’s talk was the main speaker of the day, University of Montana President Oscar Craig, himself a union veteran of the war. Craig also devoted his talk to reconciliation and forgetting.
He said that the sectional songs which were all the rage during the war had died a natural death and none of the airs which were written during the struggle were played today. They died with the other bitterness which the war had generated and their memory is being fast forgotten.
For a day dedicated to memory, both speakers spent a fair amount of time urging and celebrating the act of forgetting. Craig brought up the “cause” of the war but the word “slavery” was nowhere to be found.
“The main question of this great civil conflict was,” Craig said, “ ‘Shall this flag wave over all and over every other flag?’ That question was accepted and settled in the affirmative.”
From June 17th to July 2nd, many of the fort’s soldiers were in Helena competing amongst the other two battalions of the 24th. It was likely because of the two-week competition in Helena that the 4th of July activities in Missoula did not include the same Field Day event at the Fort. But the soldiers were still out in full force for the parade and took up the same position in the first wave of the march as they had in 1903.
“The Twenty-fourth infantry band led all of the musical organizations and, marching to the stirring tunes which were played, four companies of the boys in blue, with three field pieces followed them,” the Missoulian reported.
The fair’s committee agreed to pay each company $10 for participating in the parade, roughly equivalent to $330 in today’s value.
In the Fall of 1904, the battalion was busy performing long maneuvers, practice marches and drills. For two weeks in mid-October, the four companies would leave the fort at 10:30 a.m. — each company taking a different route — and would make a 10-mile trip, returning to the fort at 4:30 p.m. On October 22nd, the Missoulian reported that Company M passed through town the day before on the way back from Bonner; Company L crossed the Clark Fork River on the way to Jocko, Company K went to Lolo and Company I headed out to “the Williams ranch on Miller Creek.”
“All the soldiers were in light marching order and the companies which passed through town on the home trip swung along with a light, springy step which showed that the soldiers were in good trim and their muscles hardened by the work they have been undergoing for the past few weeks.”
The practice marches ended October 21st and the Fort planned daily dress parades every evening “as the good weather lasts.”
“It is one that is always pleasing and, as the Twenty-fourth is one of the crack regiments in the department, a good sized audience will undoubtedly greet the boys every evening.”
Memorial Day, 4th of July, and the Missoula County Fair in their final year at Fort Missoula
By March of 1905, word was going around that the 24th Infantry were soon to be reassigned. The Missoulian reported the War Department was sending them to Alaska, where Company L had been three years earlier, though the officers stated “no information concerning the proposed transfer has been received at the post.” As it ended up, the final order wouldn’t be given until October of 1905 (where instead of Alaska they were ordered back to the Philippine Islands) but the pending change likely loomed large over the course of the year.
Unlike the past two years, the 24th Infantry firing squad did not lead the procession to Missoula Cemetery as part of the morning Memorial Day commemoration in 1905. Instead, “a cordon of police” led the march. In fact, the Black soldiers barely had an official presence at either of the two main venues of Missoula’s ceremony that day — either at the cemetery in the morning or the Court House in the afternoon. The Missoulian made passing reference to this in its May 31st edition.
“Previously, the sounding of the bugle call by a guard of honor from Fort Missoula was the signal for the beginning of the exercises, and from the fort was also sent a firing squad which participated in the exercises at the cemetery and fired the soldiers’ farewell over the graves of the departed comrades. For this service, two soldiers from each of the posts at Fort Missoula had been detailed.”
There was no explanation for why the soldiers played such a diminished role. It certainly wasn’t because a large number were out on special duty. In fact, the soldiers had their own ceremony at Fort Missoula.
“Practically all of the soldiers at Fort Missoula…gathered at an early hour at the post cemetery and paid honor to the memory of the departed comrades who gave up their lives while in the service of their country and who sleep in the national cemetery near the post,” the Missoulian reported.
Private J.K. Washington of Company I gave an address, though what he said was not recounted for it was likely there were no reporters on site at the time. After Washington’s speech, the soldiers decorated the graves at the post cemetery with flowers. According to the paper, many then went to the County Courthouse to watch the main ceremony as spectators.
It seems revealing that at the same time the soldiers were not invited to play a visible role in the day’s events as they had in all previous years, the memory of the war was most explicitly re-cast by the central speaker of the day, Charles Avery.
“What was all this for,” Avery asked rhetorically. “What did it mean? Why such a struggle? Why such an exhibition of heroism, such appalling sacrifices? A reunited country makes the answer. No other is needed. A union stronger and freer than ever before; a civilization higher and nobler; a freedom more enduring; and a flag dearer and more sacred.”
Trying to imagine how those words rang to the Black soldiers attending the event as spectators is a deeply significant exercise. Was the freedom Avery spoke of truly “more enduring” to these men serving in a segregated Army unit less than 10 years after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling upholding segregation in Plessy v Ferguson? Was a reunited country a preferable outcome to the unrealized goals of full citizenship equality embedded in Radical Reconstruction? Were poll taxes, literacy tests, lynching, Jim Crow, and convict leasing a fair trade for a reunited country?
Just two months prior to Avery’s statement that the union was “stronger and freer than ever before,” Thomas Dixon’s deeply racist, pro-Confederate and ahistorical novel, The Clansmen, was published. Ten years later, Dixon’s book was turned into the massive spectacle film Birth of a Nation. The massive popularity of Dixon’s racist film re-ignited a nationwide resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, which had a regional presence in Missoula and Western Montana.
If the 24th Infantry’s role was marginalized during the Memorial Day commemoration of 1905, they were a much larger, and louder, presence at the 4th of July Parade that year. In mid-June, Major Zerah Torrey told the planning committee for the parade that he would try to get the 24th Infantry Regimental Band based in Helena’s Fort Harrison to come. On June 24th, the committee got a full commitment.
“It is now definitely known that the 24th infantry regimental band of Fort Harrison will be present and will head the procession on that occasion. The band consists of 44 pieces and is said to be among the finest of regimental bands in the country,” reported the Missoulian.
The regimental band was wildly popular in the Philippines when they were stationed there. In an article published in The Freeman, a Black newspaper in Indianapolis, 24th Infantry Chaplain Allen Allensworth (the only Black noncommissioned officer of the 24th Infantry) told of their accomplishments.
“The 24th Infantry band has merited, and received more favorable criticism through the press of Manila, where it was on duty, and by the verbal comments of persons of who have heard it, than any other military band on the island. Its fame spread to all the cities of the East, and in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, as in Manila, it was accepted as a standard of excellence,” he wrote.⁹
In the month of October 1904, the 24th Infantry Band was just one of four US military bands to play at the famous “Louisiana Purchase Exposition” (World’s Fair) held in St Louis, MO that year. The 40-plus member band was stationed in Helena because Fort Harrison was the headquarters of the regiment at the time and is where administrative and band members were assigned. When the 25th Infantry was headquartered at Fort Missoula, the regimental band was based out of Missoula.
With the band already in town and staying at the fort, the fun actually kicked off a day earlier when the battalion held their annual Field Day activities which was attended by “a large number of people in the city.” Dominating the individual track and field competitions that day was Corporal Frank Grant of Company L. Grant, a former hostler from Charleston, South Carolina, took first place in the 100-yard dash (finishing at 10.2 seconds), the running high jump, the 220-yard dash (finishing at 23.5 seconds) and the running broad jump. Company L also won the relay race and it’s a fair assumption that Corporal Grant was a member of that team and had a disproportionate impact on the final result. The day’s athletic competition also included a football kicking contest (won by Musician Henry Boger of Company I), a potato race (won by William Smith of Company L) and a team competition of assembling a conical tent (won by Company I).
Earlier in the day, a rifle competition was held between the four companies and the hospital post team. The team event highlighted the skilled accuracy of the soldiers with each team putting in an impressive score.
The ranges were at 200, 300 and 500 yards. There were ten shots of slow fire and ten of rapid fire at each range. The greatest possible points that could have been made would have been 1,200 so it will be seen from the following that the respective companies did good work. I Company won first place (with) 994 points; K Company second, 977 points; Post and Battalion, 945 and M Company 944 points.
Capping off the evening at the Fort was a performance by the 24th Infantry Regimental Band who played, among other pieces, the overture from the French opera “Zampa,” a selection from “Maritana” an opera by Irish composer William Vincent Wallace, and selections from “Lucia,” an Italian opera written by Gaetano Donizetti which was performed by a special sextette of the band.
As early as 5 a.m. the following morning, the sounds of fire crackers could be heard in Missoula.
“Those who were unfortunate enough to be working on night shifts were disturbed from their slumbers by the noise from the pistols and giant crackers and forced into celebration,” the Missoulian reported.
Crowds began to assemble around 8 am that morning in excited anticipation of the parade and spots along Higgins avenue were clogged with people by 9 am.
“But it was a happy throng and until 10 o’clock, when the strains of the magnificent Twenty-Fourth Infantry band signaled the approach of the big parade, people entered into the diversions of youth and occupied themselves in shooting fire crackers and other agreeable pastimes.”
Like previous parades, the procession started with members of the police department followed, interestingly enough, by mailmen. Behind the mailmen was the fire department, the mayor, the 4th planning committee chairman and local dignitaries in carriages. Unlike the parade in 1903, it appears the 24th Infantry Regimental Band was greeted with the loudest response from the crowds.
“The approach of the Twenty-Fourth Infantry band of Fort Harrison was the first signal for outbursts of applause, and as the patriotic airs from the instruments of the big band floated through the air, they were almost drowned by thousands of lusty cheers and patriotic yells from the masses.”
Following the band was Major Torrey commanding the 24th Infantry battalion leading roughly 230 soldiers from companies I, K, L, and M “keeping perfect step to the martial airs.” Torrey’s captains and lieutenants followed on horseback.
The Missoulian reported the entire procession of the parade (including decorated carriages, business floats, comic floats, automobiles and bicycles) was “fully a mile long, requiring fully 35 minutes to pass a given point.” And the 24th Infantry Regimental Band was not the only group of Black musicians in the parade. The Orvis Music Company (a business selling instruments and piano tuning services) enlisted “a quartet of colored musicians who played various instruments, and whose southern melodies captivated everybody.”
The 24th Infantry Regimental Band was a huge hit in Missoula that Summer. Just two days after the big parade, it was announced that the band “has practically been engaged to play here again during the four days of the Western Montana fair.” The fair planning chairman, P.M. Reilly (who was also the chairman of the 4th of July parade) spoke with Major Torrey about having them back. Torrey told them all that would be required is the committee to pay for their expenses while in town and “allow them a reasonable sum for their incidentals.”
The band stayed in town until Monday July, 9th and the Women’s Relief Corps featured them in a back-to-back fundraising open-air concert event held on the fort grounds on July 7th and 8th.
According to the paper, hundreds of Missoula residents came out to the fort for the event on July 7th “in their private carriages and the driveways of the fort were crowded with visitors from the city.” Those who came got a fully official military performance.
“At 6 o’clock a full dress parade was held, and was a magnificent spectacle, all four companies participating,” the paper reported. “The band played for two hours, and their selections were of the highest standard and executed in a most proficient manner.”
The band played a completely different arrangement the following evening at the Fort which included “Marche Romaine” and “Faust” by French composer Charles Francois Gounod, the overture for “Light Cavalry,” an operetta by Franz von Suppé, and excerpts from the musical comedy “The Prince of Pilsen” by German-born composter Gustav Luders. The evening concluded on a patriotic note with the band playing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Another large crowd was on hand for that as well with the Missoulian estimating the attendance at 500 people.
Rumors of the 24th’s reassignment swirled again in late August with another “unconfirmed” report that they were to be going to Alaska, switching places with the 3rd Infantry that had been stationed at forts across the territory. The paper often reported rumors about War Department plans that ended up not panning out. But the second such rumor definitely indicated a change was coming.
Among the last direct community interactions the regiment had with the community was at the Missoula County Fair September 25–29th. The Western Montana fair was celebrating its 10th anniversary in 1905 and the fairgrounds had just been improved with new bleachers expanding the seating capacity by more than 1,500 people.
In past years while the 24th were in Missoula, the fair had primarily been a draw for its horse racing and exhibits. But in 1905, the 24th Infantry added another element of fun for the community by both the 24th Infantry Regimental Band’s return and a full dress parade and, later in the week, a “sham battle” on the fairgrounds pitting companies L and M against companies I and K.
On Tuesday, September 26, the first full day of activity, attendance was noticeably down in the afternoon after heavy rain showers soaked the grounds. The horse racing was postponed for a bit but resumed once the precipitation dwindled to a drizzle. It also didn’t stop the 24th Infantry’s planned dress parade and drills or the regimental band from performing though many feared that would be cancelled on account of the weather. With rain drizzling, the soldiers marched into the field headed by the 24th Infantry Regimental Band.
For fully an hour the troops entertained the crowd with drills and other maneuvers and a delsarte performance with their guns. In their full dress uniforms they presented a most striking appearance and received almost continuous applause. It was one of the great features of the day’s program and Major Torrey and his men received numerous compliments from all sides, and especially in view of the fact that the program was rendered under such unfavorable circumstances.
The band, which consisted of 38 members this time, was a central part of the entertainment that week — not just at the fair but also around town as they made special performances in the evenings. On Wednesday and Friday nights, they played at “the pavilion” which afforded room for dancing and on Thursday, they gave an evening show at the Union Harnois. The evening performances was an opportunity for the band to bring in some money as there was a small fee to attend.
“The band plays daily at the fair grounds and in return for the music furnished there,” the Missoulian wrote, “all of Missoula should attend their concert.”
At the fair, the band performed all day long. If there wasn’t another attraction going on at the time, the paper reported, the members of the beloved band were playing.
Perhaps the most exciting performance the 24th Infantry gave the week of the fair in 1905 was the “sham battle” on the fair grounds that Friday. Unlike the day of the dress parade, Friday’s weather was not rainy and the paper estimated an attendance of 5,000 people. The fair had never held an event like this before and the scene must have been interesting to behold when the companies took the field.
A full and lengthy description of the event was provided by the Missoulian:
Having gone through a number of preliminary tactics which greatly interested the 5,000 persons present, a sham battle was engaged in, companies L and M repairing to the south end of the field, while companies I and (K) took the northerly position.
Starting from the extreme ends of the inclosure, the troops approached in relays, first sending scouts. There could have been nothing more realistic. Sharpshooters began firing first and soon volleys were coming from the various squads with such rapidity and precision that one would imagine that it was one immense cannon. In fact it so impressed people at first as there was scarcely a second’s difference in the time. Blank cartridges were used, but to the observing public the reports would have indicated that it was the real thing.
The respective companies kept creeping upon each other slowly until finally they came in close range in the center of the big field. They then attached their bayonets to their guns and were ready for close action. The entire scene was so realistic that people imagined themselves on the battlefield.
Concluding the skirmish, the troops marched off triumphantly, headed by the band, which played soul-stirring airs, bringing many people back to the time when the boys in blue returned from Santiago.
On the whole, it was probably one of the best treats that a public has ever seen at a western Montana fair and that everybody enjoyed it is almost needless to say.
While there were a few other public interactions before the battalion would leave Missoula for good, the Missoula County Fair in 1905 proved to be the most visible shared community event. At no other time during the battalion’s three year stay were the soldiers more directly involved in civic events while performing their official duties as enlisted men of the United States Army than the were in the Summer and Fall of 1905.
Less than a month later, the Missoulian reported with accuracy that the 24th Infantry Regiment were indeed being ordered away from Montana. Unlike the other two published rumors, this was based on an Associated Press article that reported the soldiers were headed back to the Philippines where most of the regiment had been from 1899–1902.
With word of the order, officers went into full transition mode preparing their muster rolls for handling the necessary changes that go with an overseas deployment — managing soldiers with limited time left in their enlistment, recruiting new soldiers and re-enlisting others.¹⁰
It’s difficult to think of another time in Missoula’s history after 1905 where Black men played a more central role in community affairs. The numerous band concerts, parades and competitions were witnessed by large numbers of Missoula residents. It’s likely that greatly influenced Henry O. Collins’ lavish praise when the news came of their reassignment.
Unlike the 1880s and 1890s (when the 25th Infantry was stationed at Fort Missoula), Army unit deployments were regularly shorter lengths of time. While the town spent 10 years with Black soldiers from the 25th from 1888–1898, they only got a little more than three with the 24th. But Missoula was also much larger and was playing a more established regional role in Western Montana as a whole. It’s likely that more people watched them perform the sham battle in late September 1905 than came out to bid farewell to the 25th Infantry in 1898 memorialized in a famous Missoula photo.
Due to the rushed nature of the 24th’s departure on December 23rd there wasn’t an opportunity for the kind of fanfare that marked the 25th’s march to the train en route to Cuba. In fact, the 7th Infantry, their replacements at the fort, arrived by train at 4 p.m. that day and the soldiers from the 24th boarded their train to San Francisco the same day at 7 p.m. Because of the rushed nature of switch, the soldiers had to march to the Bitter Root track instead of marching through town to catch the train as they did in 1898 and the paper suggested that the town was prepared to come out again in large numbers to say farewell.
“Many had anticipated that the troops would march to and from the fort, and were considerably disappointed when it was learned that the cars were to be run on the Bitter Root tracks.”
The departure of the 24th Infantry marked the end of Buffalo Soldiers in Missoula. Over time, their eventful three years faded quite a bit from memory, and what remained was predominantly that of the 25th Infantry and the huge publicity of the famous Bicycle Corps. But both infantries’ history in Missoula is much greater than that single accomplishment and deserves recollection and acknowledgement.
What impact did these soldiers have on the way Missoulians thought about Black Americans? Did their direct interaction in shared community events work to any degree to alter the endless stream of racist depictions and accounts of them oozing from the paper nearly every day?
They were definitely swimming against the tide. A tangible example of that came from the newspaper announcement of another minstrel show performance in the Missoulian just three days after the 24th Infantry and Buffalo Soldiers in general, left the stage of Missoula history.
“Real blackface minstrelsy has never lost its hold on the affections of theater-goers, and the coming of Haverly’s Mastodon minstrels will be awaited with pleasurable anticipation,” the paper proudly stated. “There are many so-called minstrel shows on the road this season, but only one which faithfully adheres to the minstrel text. That show is Haverly’s Mastodons and in this show no white faces are allowed to mar the study in black; all of the performers being made up in the real ‘kinky wool’ order.”
Yet it certainly does appear that the soldiers time in Missoula did leave an impression as the numbers found in the census suggest. Missoula’s Black population nearly tripled between 1900 and 1910. And while a modest share of that were retired soldiers from the 24th Infantry and their families, the draw of business opportunity for Black saloon keepers and other related service work associated with a significant, stable, if short-lived, Black population in a Western town likely also accounted for the noticeable growth.
Less than five years after the soldiers left town, retired ones from the 24th and 25th were instrumental in starting St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church on the 1400 block of Philips Street in Missoula’s Westside neighborhood.¹¹ The hopes and dreams that church represented to Black people facing violent repression in the South and growing racism in the North is firmly connected to the history described here.
The Black men of the 24th Infantry interacted with the community in other ways than just officially as soldiers in uniform at patriotic and community events. In fact, a more direct engagement took place on the field of sport. Whether that was football, track or, more significantly, baseball, White Missoulians got to interact directly with the soldiers in a more informal, yet still organized, way. Details of that can be found in the next installment of this series.
Footnotes
¹U.S., Returns from Military Posts, 1806–1916, 24th Infantry (May 1902-December 1905) & 25th Infantry (May 1888-April 1898), National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; via ancestry.com
²Frank N. Schubert, “Black Soldiers on the White Frontier: Some Factors Influencing Race Relation,” Phylon, v.32, no. 4 (4th Qtr, 1971), p.414
³Gary Gerstle, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Divided Character of American Nationalism,” The Journal of American History, v.86, no.3, Dec. 1999, p. 1290–1295
⁴Brian Shellum, Buffalo Soldiers in Alaska — Company L, 24th Infantry, University of Nebraska Press — Bison Books, p.175
⁵U.S., Returns from Military Posts, 1806–1916, 24th Infantry, May 1902
⁶Brian Shellum, Buffalo Soldiers in Alaska — Company L, 24th Infantry, University of Nebraska Press — Bison Books, p.148–150
⁷U.S., Returns from Military Posts, 1806–1916, 24th Infantry, August 1902
⁸U.S., Returns from Military Posts, 1806–1916, 24th Infantry, October & November 1902
⁹Peter M. Lefferts, “U.S. Army Black Regimental Bands and the Appointments of Their First Black Bandmasters,” Black Music Research Journal, v.33, no.2, Fall 2013, p.173–174
¹⁰U.S., Returns from Military Posts, 1806–1916, 24th Infantry, November & December 1905
¹¹On the deed transferring one of the lots on the 1400 block of Phillips Street to the 5th District African Methodist Episcopal Church, 3 of the 5 named trustee members were retired Buffalo Soldiers: Chester McNorton, Raleigh Bibbs and Alexander Pillow.
