Cathy Williams: From Slave to Buffalo Soldier
The prize-winning author of The Confederacy's Fighting Chaplain here tells the remarkable tale of Pvt. William Cathay of Company A, 38th U.S. Infantry, who in fact was a big-boned, 5' 7" black woman named Cathy Williams. Tracing Williams through often-spotty records from her birth as a slave near Independence, MO, to her final days as a businesswoman in Trinidad, CO, Tucker extends the narrative to include broad perspectives, sweeping from a West African background to the expanse of the post-Civil War West. He focuses on Williams's service from 1866 to 1868 with the famed Buffalo Soldiers as they patrolled the historic 900-mile Santa Fe Trail. Tucker casts Williams as an inspirational champion against the odds in a feminine Horatio Alger story, brimming with testaments to personal initiative, desire to succeed, strength, and resiliency. He also touts the Buffalo Soldiers' roles as guardians of the frontier on the vanguard of Western development. A unique story of gender and race, time and place, Tucker's work is a recommended read that reaches across categories, from American, African American, and military history to Western and women's history. Thomas J. Davis, Arizona State Univ., TempeCopyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.