THE FORGOTTEN HEROES

In a follow-up to Undying Glory: The Story of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment (1991), Cox celebrates the essential role played by the 9th and 10th US Cavalry in the Indian Wars. Writing dramatically (and emotionally), he lays irony upon irony: recruits signed up to escape the dangers of post-Civil War civilian life but, made to do menial labor and sent on hundreds of dangerous missions, they received only poor quality mounts and supplies; they were despised by many of the settlers they protected, and by some of their own officers; most poignantly, having just won their own freedom, they were sent to subjugate a free minority. The author doesn't tell the whole story—he's nearly silent on the activities of the two regiments of black infantry created at the same time, as well as on the history of the Buffalo Soldiers after Wounded Knee; but his narrative is rich in carefully reconstructed episodes and acts of heroism. Send readers who want to know more to Reef's wider ranging if less detailed Buffalo Soldiers (p. 727). Index; large bibliography; several dozen b&w illustrations, mostly contemporary photos. (Nonfiction. 11-15)