Buffalo Soldiers

The 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry regiments were "colored" regiments.

White officers, black enlisted and NCO's with a scattering of white NCO's to build a cadre.

Something interesting comes from this time period, where America was most definitely more bigoted than it is today.

It's repeatedly noted that the colored units were more capable and better disciplined than others.

Some of it springs from being handed more duty, thus getting more on-the-job use of the skills set.

Some of it also falls from their leadership, seeing they got more work, also did more training on the skills.

In simple terms, these four regiments knew the job better and thus performed better than (white) units which did little more than sit around post and rarely did anything productive in the field.

Illustrative of the bigotry is the contempt written about many predominantly Irish units by their very own officers.

Speaking of those officers.

There was a glut of them left over from The Civil War.

Many of them had taken massive cuts in grade from their service there, and many nursed grievances and grudges from that war and whom didn't get cut as far down the brevet list as they did.

There were Civil War generals who were serving as senior non-commissioned officers, and a fair portion resented that some of their former peers still held real rank and commands.

Being put in command of a black unit was seen as a punishment posting, so many of the officers felt compelled to excel so that they could be promoted out.  An odd compulsion, considering that one tended to serve an entire career in the same regiment, but solid and undeniable competence was the single ticket out of any regiment if one wished to remain in the Army.

I am not crediting the superior soldering of the colored units entirely to their officer corps.

This same pool of officers fed white regiments too, so the men deserve credit for being able to learn the trade and excel at it.