Henry O. Flipper and Nineteenth Century African Americans at West Point
Henry Ossian Flipper
Following the Civil War, several other Black cadets had been admitted to the U.S. Military Academy. Henry Ossian Flipper, however, became the first African American graduate of West Point. This was no easy feat. Gaining admission to the storied school was one thing. Once there, Flipper faced daunting barriers. He endured personnel insults from white cadets during his years at West Point career. As with those who came before him and failed to graduate for sundry reasons, the Cadet Corps shunned him.
Keeping a record of his trying four years at West Point, shortly after graduation, Flipper shared his experiences in the form of a rare autobiography titled The Colored Cadet at West Point. In 1877, he received his commission as a second lieutenant in the 10th Cavalry. After joining the regiment, he mainly performed routine garrison assignments, but he did not pass all of his time in Texas in garrison.
For instance, Flipper and two of his men rode ninety-eight miles in twenty-two hours to deliver dispatches to Colonel Grierson. Then, after a brief rest, Flipper joined one of two rescue parties sent to relieve an Apache siege at Tinaja de las Palmas where the 10th Cavalry’s commanding colonel, Benjamin Grierson, his son, and eight men, engaged a superior enemy force. When the Buffalo Soldiers arrived, the ensuing clash produced casualties on both sides. Flipper noted: “We buried the soldiers where they fell. I was detailed to read the Episcopal service over them, after which a volley was fired and the buglers sounded taps. This was the first and only time I was under fire.”
After nearly four years of gaining experience in garrison and on campaign, Flipper’s place within the military came to an abrupt halt. Responding to charges leveled against Flipper for alleged embezzlement and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, a court martial followed, which after several weeks of testimony, the court exonerated Flipper on the charge of embezzlement, but found him guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer. With this verdict, Flipper received a dishonorable discharge. Over the years, Flipper attempted to overturn the conviction. Not until late 1976, however, long after he died, did the former lieutenant obtain a retroactive honorable discharge.
John Hanks Alexander
Cognizant of Henry O. Flipper’s admission as a cadet and subsequent graduation from the United States Military Academy, John Hanks Alexander decided to follow the lead of his much-publicized predecessor. Born on January 6, 1864, in Arkansas to formerly enslaved parents, Alexander fulfilled their dreams of pursuing a better life. Alexander attended Oberlin College where he completed two years before taking the competitive examinations for the United States Military Academy. In 1883, he gained admission to West Point. Four years passed. On June 11, 1887, “a tall, stately black women” and “former slave, Frances Alexander” was on hand to witness one of the proudest moments in her life—the graduation of her son John from West Point. Not long afterwards, Alexander began frontier military life.
First, he reported to Fort Niobrara, Nebraska with the 9th Cavalry’s Troop A. Then, from September 30, 1887 to March 14, 1888, he served at Fort Robinson, Nebraska as the post’s junior subaltern. By June 1888, he accompanied his troop and their mounts to another assignment at recently established Fort Duchesne, Utah. He remained in the Trans Mississippi West until orders dispatched the “talented colored officer, to the Professorship of Military Science and Tactics at Wilberforce University, Wilberforce, Ohio,” which constituted a “first of its kind to be made in this country.” On the surface the groundbreaking posting of a Black officer to this pioneering institution of higher education for African Americans could be construed as recognition for his past “efficiency and credit.”
Barely a month after taking up his duties at Wilberforce, on March 26, 1894, Alexander traveled to Springfield, Ohio to attend “a meeting of the Knights Templars.” While awaiting his turn to be shaved at a barbershop, he “complained of a pain in his head. As he rose to take his place in the chair he fell to the floor and was dead before any one could reach him.” The cause of death given was “the rupture of one of the large arteries near the heart.” Black soldiers of Company A, of the Ninth Battalion of Infantry, Ohio National Guard, escorted the lieutenant’s remains to Wilberforce for burial.
Charles Young
Not long before Wilberforce’s up and coming professor of military sciences’ death, one line appeared in Montana paper summarizing: “There are two colored officers in the regular army, Lieutenants J.H. Alexander and Charles Young of the Ninth cavalry, which is composed of colored troops.” With Alexander’s demise, only one Black officer in the combat arms remained—the aforementioned Charles Young.
Young became the third and last Black graduate of West Point in the nineteenth century. The son of a veteran from the U.S. Colored Troops, Young was born on March 12, 1864, in May's Lick, Kentucky. He moved with his parents to the North where he performed well as a diligent student. In 1884, he took the West Point competitive examination. Young passed the difficult test followed by joining his classmates.
During his first years at West Point, he experienced racial isolation. Young enjoyed few occasions to break through the racial wall erected around him by the “silencing” of his fellow cadets. Nevertheless, he persevered. Gradually, he won over at least some of his classmates, who “began to acknowledge and respect his finer traits of character; while a spirit of fair play induced many cadets ... to treat Young with the kindness and consideration long his due.”
After he received his commission in 1889, Young took station at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and eventually went to Fort Duchesne, where he briefly served alongside Alexander. This rare opportunity provided some moments for the two men to share a comradeship that they had been denied them in the white dominated officer corps of the times. Even then, during this fleeting overlap, they seldom performed duties together for any length of time
As Young advanced, he ultimately replaced the deceased Alexander at Wilberforce University as a professor of military science and tactics; temporarily commanded a battalion of the Ohio national guard; assumed the acting superintendency of Sequoia National Park; as well as became a military attaché first in Haiti and later in Liberia. During the 1916 Punitive Expedition into Mexico, he eventually saw his first combat experience. He performed admirably.
While Young made history as a man of action, he also possessed intellectual acumen. A prolific author, Young also played organ, piano, and violin plus wrote music. His many talents made him popular at Wilberforce when assigned there late in his long career. After Young’s death on January 8, 1922, his prestigious contemporary and close friend, W.E.B. DuBois, eulogized: “The life of Charles Young was a triumph of tragedy.” While these many achievements were worthy of note, perhaps Young’s highest honor was as a leader and role model. As one of his classmates wrote: “He loved his men and they loved him.”
Further Reading: Frank N. Schubert, Black Valor: Buffalo Soldiers and the Medal of Honor, 1870-1898 (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998).