DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker at San Pedro Springs has to say — and friend, this one deserves your full attention. Now, San Antonio has always been a military town. Before the Civil War, after it, and long beyond — this city has had soldiers in its soil.
But there's a chapter of that story that doesn't get told nearly enough, and it starts in the spring of 1867, just two miles north of the San Antonio Arsenal. Let's back up a beat. That Arsenal — twenty acres of federal muscle, established in 1859 — was the largest federal military presence in the entire region before the Civil War.
It was the Arsenal that kept the western forts stocked and supplied. Ft. Davis, Ft.
Quitman, Ft. Stockton — those outposts on the edge of the known world were fed by what moved out of San Antonio. And when the 9th Cavalry came to Texas, that same Arsenal would sustain them too.
The 9th Cavalry Regiment. The Buffalo Soldiers. By April 14, 1867, the entire regiment had arrived at San Pedro Springs.
Every last company. They assembled, organized, and pitched a tented camp that spread across several acres — a canvas city, a San Antonio newspaper called it, pressing right up against the settlers nearby. You can almost hear the ropes snapping taut and the cook fires crackling in a lush landscape, spring green and alive.
And what did observers say about the men themselves? The newspaper reported them as — and I'm giving you the direct words here — superior to white soldiers in discipline, fidelity, neatness, and sobriety, and equal in bravery. That's not Duane talking.
That's the record talking. Those men trained there, prepared there, and then they rode west into one of the hardest postings the frontier had to offer. They served valiantly.
They earned numerous medals of honor and other commendations. The kind of record that gets written in sacrifice and held together by will. As the military desegregated and the decades turned, the 9th Cavalry kept evolving — into modern armored operations, into airborne operations — and those modern traditions trace their heritage right back to the post-Civil War training that happened near this very spot.
And the thread didn't stop there. That continuum of military occupation and residence — stretching forward through time — led to the establishment of Fort Sam Houston and the Army Air Corps right here in San Antonio. A canvas city in the spring of 1867.
Buffalo Soldiers at San Pedro Springs. They trained here, they rode out from here, they earned their honors out on the western frontier — and the military San Antonio became? It stands, in part, on what they built.
What the marker says
During the pre- and post-civil war years, San Antonio played a major role in the expansion of Texas and military stations in the southwest. Less well known are the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry Regiment who passed through San Antonio and trained at San Pedro Springs in the spring of 1867. Prior to the Civil War, the 20-acre San Antonio Arsenal, established in 1859, was the largest federal military presence in the region. It was the San Antonio Arsenal that supplied the forts to the west and would continue to sustain the 9th Cavalry in its Texas deployments to Ft. Davis, Ft. Quitman, Ft. Stockton and elsewhere. The San Pedro Springs encampment was established two miles north of the San Antonio Arsenal site in a lush landscape. By April 14, 1867, the entire regiment arrived, assembled and organized by company into a tented camp covering several acres and encroaching on the settlers nearby. Described by the newspaper as a "canvas city," Buffalo Soldiers were reported as "superior to white soldiers in discipline, fidelity, neatness, sobriety, and equal in bravery." The 1867 San Pedro Springs encampment of the 9th Cavalry provided a site for training and preparation of a key component of the military. The men served valiantly on the western frontier and were awarded numerous medals of honor and other commendations. As the military desegregated, the 9th Cavalry continued to evolve into modern armored and airborne operations, which trace their heritage to the post-civil war training near here, part of the African American role in San Antonio's cultural history. The continuum of military occupation and residence led to the establishment of Fort Sam Houston and the Army Air Corps in San Antonio, a city rich in military history.