Some modern day cavalry soldiers made their way to historic Fort Reno Cemetery on Veterans Day last Friday.
Instead of riding in on horseback, their mode of transportation was motorcycles.

They were there to honor the 15 black soldiers buried in the cemetery by placing American flags beside their gravestones, said Samuel Terry, founder of the Oklahoma chapter of the National Association of Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club.

The small flags were held aloft by a stiff south wind blowing across the prairie. Terry and 14 other members of the Lawton-based motorcycle club — many of whom are stationed with the Army at Fort Still — spent the afternoon at the cemetery, listening to stories of some of the people buried there.

The place hasn’t changed much since the first cavalry soldiers rode in on horseback to help secure settlers across the broad plains, said Omar Reid.

Reid, as a volunteer for the state Historical Society, often re-enacts the life of the buffalo soldier at Fort Reno events.

Reid usually portrays buffalo soldier Edward Lee, buried at the cemetery on a fall day in 1903. Fifteen black Army soldiers and infantrymen rest in peace in plots across the small cemetery.

Their graves are interspersed with the rest of the men, women and children, both white and Indian, and two black civilian women who died while the fort was a frontier outpost.

The buffalo soldiers were called by the nickname given to them by the American Indian who considered the buffalo a brave and powerful adversary.

They were former slaves, freemen and Civil War soldiers who enlisted in the West with the 10th U.S. Cavalry, 9th U.S. Cavalry and the 25th, 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st infantry regiments. They escorted settlers, cattle herds and railroad crews through the territory. Buffalo soldiers rode with Theodore Roosevelt during the battle of San Juan Hill. Eighteen earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for outstanding performance under enemy fire.

At Fort Reno, buffalo soldiers served with four different companies of the 9th and 10th Cavalry and three companies of the 25th Infantry.

Only two authentic stories, that of black soldiers Clark Young and Charles D. Jones, can be related, according to fort historians, because of a dearth of records.

Serving with Company M of the 10th Cavalry, Young was killed in action at the battle of Sand Hills between the Army and the Cheyenne, in April 1875.

Jones, Company F of the 25th Infantry, died July 15, 1905. Fort records relate Jones went on a drunken tear on leave in El Reno, shooting his six-shooter in the air. As police tried to subdue him, Jones allegedly pointed the gun at the officer, who then shot him.

In the 9th Cavalry were Samuel Kemp, with Company F, died Nov. 24, 1881, cause of death unknown; John Williams, with Company G, died Nov. 27, 1882, cause of death unknown; William Harris, Company F, died Sept. 15, 1883, cause of death unknown; James Lee, Company F, died Dec. 16, 1883, cause of death unknown.

Also, James Coleman and Saul Shipley, both with Company F, who died June 6, 1884, from drowning in the Canadian River after heavy rains.

The rest were in the 25th Infantry, all dying in the century following. They were Alexander King, Company H, died Aug. 16, 1903, unknown cause; Edward Lee, Company H, died Oct. 21, 1903, unknown cause; Frank Aldrich, Company F, died Feb. 19, 1905, unknown cause; Jessie H. Brown, Company E, died March 18, 1905, unknown cause; William Pitts, Company F, died April 25, 1905, unknown cause; Sanford Murkison, Company C, died Dec. 18, 1906, unknown cause.
And two black women, Maggie Hawkins and Katharine Holmes, are also buried at the post cemetery. Hawkins died Feb. 8, 1897, and Holmes died on Sept. 29, 1890.

Jessica Wells, volunteer coordinator, said research on Holmes’ life shows she made the run of 1889 on horseback, but died in childbirth because of a hip injury she received while making the run.