On the Trail of the Buffalo Soldier II: New and Revised Biographies of African Americans in the U.S. Army, 1866-1917

Since the publication of On the Trail of the Buffalo Soldier in 1995, a wide variety of new material has emerged on the African American men who served in the Army between the Civil War and World War I. On the Trail of the Buffalo Soldier II presents more than 2,000 new and nearly 1,000 revised biographies of black servicemen, giving the researcher not only glimpses of individual lives but also documentation of the variety of African-American experiences within and outside the army. It offers two significant additions: a table containing the names of 61 soldiers who were awarded the Certificate of Merit for valor or bravery, with dates and places of the action recognized, and a revised and updated bibliography. The comprehensive index combines biographical entries in the original (1995) edition and in this Supplement. Additionally it includes cemeteries, Indian tribes, and place names. Cities and towns, counties, forts, and geographic features such as creeks are listed under the current state.

As in the original volume, the entries are arranged in alphabetical order by the soldiers’ last names, with sources cited throughout. They range in length from a brief statement documenting an individual’s sole appearance in written records to several pages of text on a better-documented figure. Also included are an essay on the sources and the kinds of information they contain, a bibliography of sources used, and a list of abbreviations.