Relationships between officers and soldiers

[Jalford]

Did the soldiers at Fort Davis have good working relationships with their off-site military commanders? Did this help open up doors and build bridges and understanding between different races?

Thanks!

Mr. AlFord's Classroom
Seminole Middle
Plantation, FL

[Fort_Davis_Expert]

"Working relationship" is the key here. There was some, but very little, social contact between officers and enlisted soldiers--black or white. There was a very wide gap of class and rank between officers and soldiers in the frontier army.

[Ranger_Keith]

This is a good question, and answering it gets somewhat complex.

To start, though, it should be pointed out that the officers at Fort Davis were not “off-site” – they lived on the post as well. As on almost all Western Army posts of that period, Fort Davis was built around a broad open “parade ground. Along one side of the parade ground was a row of dwellings called “officers’ row”, where the officers and their families lived. Directly opposite across the parade ground was the “company street”, where the enlisted men’s barracks were located.

The physical separation of the officers and enlisted men at Fort Davis was mirrored in their social separation. The Army strongly discouraged informal social interaction between officers and enlisted men. This was true throughout the Army, no matter what color the troopers happened to be. It was regarded as a vital part of maintaining respect and good discipline that soldiers and their officers not “hang out” together or become personal friends.

The officers at Fort Davis did work closely with their troopers day to day, though, in all their official duties. And whenever they marched into the field, they rode, ate, slept and fought pretty much side-by-side.

Many of the officers who led black troopers at Fort Davis expressed very high regard for the soldierly qualities of their men, and commented on the pride, dedication to service, and reliability that most of their men displayed. Many of these officers, too, became quite devoted to the soldiers they led in the black regiments.

One of the best examples of this was the Commander of the 10th Cavalry, Col. Ben Grierson. Col. Grierson, who was the post commander at Fort Davis in the early years of the 1880s, organized the 10th Cavalry in 1867 and commanded the regiment for about three decades. Grierson was devoted to his men on a number of levels. As a staunch Republican and a close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln, Grierson was committed philosophically to promoting the rights of black Americans. He was very protective of the men in his regiment against criticism, and he enthusiastically praised them for their endurance and tenacity as campaigners and Indian fighters. No one was a greater champion of the black troopers than Col. Greirson, and his attitude set the example for the other white officers in his command.