Originally published in 1967, William H. Leckie's "The Buffalo Soldiers" was the first book of its kind to recognize the importance of African American units in the conquest of the West. Decades later, with sales of more than 75,000 copies, "The Buffalo Soldiers" has become a classic. Now, in a newly revised edition, the authors have expanded the original research to explore more deeply the lives of buffalo soldiers in the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry Regiments.

Written in accessible prose that includes a synthesis of recent scholarship, this edition delves further into the life of an African American soldier in the nineteenth century. It also explores the experiences of soldiers' families at frontier posts. In a new epilogue, the authors summarize developments in the lives of buffalo soldiers after the Indian Wars and discuss contemporary efforts to memorialize them in film, art, and architecture.

First published in 1889, H. H. McConnell's "Five Years a Cavalryman" remains one of the best accounts of what it was like to be an ordinary cavalryman on the post-Civil War frontier. Posted for five years (1866-1871) with the Sixth U.S. Cavalry at Fort Belknap and Fort Richardson, in West Texas, McConnell gives the unglorified inside story on his fellow enlisted men and the officers, reporting candidly on their heavy drinking, their general disorganization, their boredom, and their thievery.

Regarding the Texas Rangers, he admits that they might be tolerable Indian fighters, but in frontier towns, where they would engage in "shooting scrapes and rows" with its citizens and soldiers, they were more a threat to peace than keepers of the same. His tolerant attitude toward Native Americans is evident in his coverage of the arrest and trial of Satanta, Big Tree, and other Kiowas at Fort Sill, in which he grants that General William Sherman's concurrent visit to the post negatively affected their trial.

In the foreword to this edition, William H. Leckie summarizes McConnell's frontier career and discusses his attitude toward the Tenth Calvary "buffalo soldiers," the Texas Rangers, and officers such as Colonel Ranald MacKenzie.

H. H. McConnell settled in Jacksboro, Texas (where Fort Richardson is located), and became a prominent citizen after his service in the U.S. cavalry. William H. Leckie, who wrote the Foreword, is the author of "The Buffalo Soldiers, " also published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

"Unlikely Warriors" is the story of Benjamin Henry Grierson, Civil War hero and postwar commander of the Tenth Cavalry "Buffalo Soldiers," and his family on the western frontier. In 1863, Colonel Grierson led a cavalry brigade of 1,700 men on a daring raid through Mississippi, which helped Ulysses S. Grant launch his successful campaign against Vicksburg. In the army reorganization of 1866, Grierson accepted an appointment as colonel of the Tenth Cavalry, a command of white officers and black enlisted men. In this biography, William and Shirley Leckie explore three generations of Grierson's family, and for this edition they include a new preface on recent interest in the Buffalo Soldiers.