For centuries music has played a critical role in every nation’s military forces, and the United States Army was no exception. Ironically, for as important a role as it served, music in the form of military bands was not well funded by the annual Army budget, leaving its operation to each of the commanders for the five artillery regiments, twenty-five infantry regiments, and ten cavalry regiments that covered the country’s needs in the 1870s and 1880s.

Bands were authorized for each regiment and they were usually assigned to the location that housed the regimental headquarters, that is, the place where most of the ten to twelve companies of troops of a regiment were housed. Between 1875 and 1882 Fort Concho served as the Headquarters for the 10th Cavalry Regiment of Buffalo Soldiers, but all twelve companies were not necessarily at Fort Concho, being scattered to other posts, sub-posts, missions, and locations across West Texas. With too few soldiers available to cover vast expanses of the American West, a regiment rarely had all its units together in the same fort at the same time.

Fort Concho’s Colonel Ben Grierson commanded the 10th Cavalry for its first twenty-five years and being a former musician, he took a special interest in his regimental band, providing music and equipment from his own funds. Other discretionary funds including fees on post traders, savings on issued food rations, and officer’s donations helped to cover band expenses.

A regimental band added so much to the usually routine and dreary life at an isolated frontier post. The band played at various ceremonial and official events like the posting and relieving of the guard and the raising and lowering of the flag each day. It saluted troops on their way out of the post for some major scout or campaign and would welcome them back days or weeks later. The regimental band provided music for sad occasions such as the funerals of officers and enlisted men, and it played for various holidays of July 4, Christmas, and other special days. Time-to-time evening concerts on post provided welcomed entertainment for not only the soldiers but also any citizens of neighboring communities.

The bands of the Buffalo Soldier regiments of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and 24th and 25th Infantry played a key role in building community relations. In that unfortunately racially intolerant era of the late 1800s, the bands of Buffalo Soldier regiments garnered the men some respect from their fellow citizens. The Twenty-Fifth Infantry band for example played at the Minnesota State Fair in 1883 and at a Memorial Day Parade in Montana in 1888. These bands played at many more events and public gatherings at dozens of posts and communities west of the Mississippi in the post-Civil War era.