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Students always want to know what everything is, what it weighed, and whether it itched. (It
itched.) Our troop portrays the 10th Cavalry in the late 1870s and the 1880s, when the regiment
was serving in Texas and Arizona. Much of our kit is made by specialty makers who reproduce
Army equipment for living historians, some of it is sewn by Maria, and a few pieces are
originals that we keep at home and bring out only for a table display behind glass.
The Uniform
| Sack coat | A plain, dark blue wool coat, loose-fitting, with five brass buttons down the front. This was the everyday working coat, the one worn in the field. In a Texas summer it was miserable, and soldiers took it off whenever their officers allowed. Rank was shown by yellow chevrons on the sleeves, yellow being the color of the cavalry. |
| Trousers | Sky-blue wool kersey, with an extra layer sewn into the seat and the inside of the legs for men who spent their days in the saddle. Sergeants wore a one-inch yellow stripe down the outside seam of each leg, and corporals a half-inch stripe. Privates had none. Elbert wears the stripe. He earned it the first time, too. |
| Campaign hat | A broad-brimmed felt hat for shade and rain. In 1883 the Army changed from black to a light brown color called drab, which didn't soak up the sun as badly. Most troopers creased and shaped theirs to suit themselves. |
| Shirt, boots and belt | A pullover wool shirt, tall leather boots for riding, and a cartridge belt with loops to hold the carbine's ammunition. Add a canteen, a haversack for rations, a tin cup, and a blanket roll, and you have what a trooper carried on the march. |
The Arms
| Springfield carbine | The Model 1873 Springfield carbine, a short, single-shot .45-caliber rifle. It was called a "trapdoor" because you flipped open a hinged block on top to load each cartridge by hand. A trooper carried it on a sling hooked to his shoulder belt, so he wouldn't drop it from the saddle. |
| Colt revolver | The Colt Single Action Army, also adopted in 1873, a six-shot .45-caliber revolver carried in a holster on the belt. It is the same model of revolver everybody knows from Western movies. |
| Saber | The cavalry saber was still issued, but by the 1880s it was usually left behind at the fort when troopers went on campaign. It rattled, and the enemy could hear it coming. |
About our firearms: Our carbines and revolvers are reproductions. We never use live
ammunition. At parades and encampments we may fire blanks, only at a safe distance from the
public, and only under the direction of our firearms safety officer, Jeffrey Bartley. In school
programs the firearms stay on the table, and students may look but not touch.
The McClellan Saddle
The Army adopted this saddle in 1859. It was designed by George B. McClellan, who later became a
Union general, and it stayed in service, with changes, until the Army gave up its horses in the
1940s. It is a wooden frame covered in rawhide and leather, with an open slot right down the
middle so that no weight presses on the horse's spine. It is light, simple and tough, and it was
built to keep a horse sound on long marches. It was not built to be comfortable for the rider,
and every member of our troop who has ridden in one will tell you so. Stephen Mouzon, our saddler
sergeant, gives the saddle talk at our programs and lets students sit in one on a sawhorse.
The Laundress
Maria writes:
For most of the 1800s, the Army allowed each company a few laundresses, usually up to four. They
were the only women the Army officially recognized on a post. They were given rations, quarters
(the row of laundresses' cabins was often called "Suds Row"), and the right to charge the
soldiers so much a month for washing. Many were married to soldiers in the company. Some were
widows, and some were former slaves. They washed, mended, cooked, nursed the sick, delivered
babies, and kept going through the same heat and cold and danger as their men. In 1878 Congress
stopped the Army from taking on any new laundresses, though those already serving were allowed to
stay. So my laundress belongs to the 1870s, and she does not care for the new arrangement one bit.
My kit: a long-sleeved cotton work dress in a dark calico print, which I sewed by hand and
machine from a pattern of the period; a full apron; a sunbonnet; a wooden washtub, a washboard, a
bar of lye soap, and two flatirons that I heat on the camp fire at encampments. The students try
lifting a wet wool blanket out of the tub. They are always surprised. I tell them to go home and
thank whoever does their laundry.
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Booking Calendar, Fall 1999
| Date | Event | Status |
| Saturday, October 2 | Heritage festival, Kansas City, Kansas (horses) | Booked |
| Friday, October 8 | Elementary school, two fifth-grade classes | Booked |
| Thursday, October 14 | School program | Open |
| Saturday, October 23 | Weekend encampment | Open |
| Thursday, October 28 | Middle school assembly | Booked |
| Saturday, November 6 | Public library program | Booked |
| Thursday, November 11 | Veterans Day parade (horses) | Booked |
| Thursday, November 18 | School program | Open |
| Saturday, December 4 | Holiday parade | Booked |
| February 2000 | Black History Month | Filling fast. A few Mondays and Fridays left. |
How to book us. Write to us at the address below with the date, the place, the number and
ages of your audience, and whether you have room outdoors for the horses. We like two weeks'
notice, and four if you want the horses. School programs in the Kansas City area are free; we
gladly accept donations toward hay, wool and saddle leather. For festivals and other events we ask
a modest fee to cover travel and the horse trailer. Weekday programs depend on how many of us can
get off work, so the more notice the better.
Troop Home · Who Were the Buffalo Soldiers?
[email protected]
Calendar last updated September 22, 1999
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