predecessors had been killed and carried both throughout the remainder of the battle. Sergeant Barker's heroism led to the award of the newly authorized Medal of Honor, a recognition extended to many individuals who either protected their own colors or captured those of an enemy unit.

The accurate rifle fire of the Civil War changed infantry tactics. Based on the hard lessons of battle, the Army adopted a new system of open-order tactics after the war. Instead of advancing in rigid linear formations, soldiers now equipped with the new breech-loading rifles spent more time in small groups. Given the higher volume of fire, the Army achieved a more efficient use of manpower through skirmishing and attacking in rushes. That trend would continue in the SpanishAmerican War, which saw the introduction of high velocity, low trajectory clip-loading rifles, and accelerate throughout the twentieth century as technology further increased the lethality of the battlefield. These advances in firepower, however, made it impossible to carry flags into combat, thus leading to the abolition of the rank of color sergeant.

At the same time, the utility of the old linear tactics as a tool for instilling the fundamentals of unit discipline did not diminish. Like colors and color guards, drill and formations have remained a key part of Army tradition and training after disappearing from combat. Flags and guidons continue to play an important role in the creation of unit identity, cohesion, and esprit de corps, with battle streamers replacing the old inscriptions. Their continued presence at the center of a formation symbolically represents their former position in the heat of battle. The retention of a color guard with fixed bayonets commemorates the earlier functional role of protecting the colors against capture.

The Army values traditions and relies heavily on the NCO corps to preserve them. Drill and ceremony, including parades, reviews, retreat, and military funerals, add pageantry to military life, but also symbolize for each soldier the shared values, courage, and selfdiscipline essential to any successful military organization. The high honor given to a unit's senior enlisted member as custodian of its flag or guidon and membership in the color guard reflect that continuity in a very personal way.

The NCOs were stern, the troops anxious; only the horses seemed calm. No quick onceover before the daily retreat parade, this was the last inspection before going out on a war patrol that might last a month or more, depending on how soon the Indians were found and whether they chose to talk or fight. The Apaches had been on the attack again, raiding settlements from across the Mexican border. Here at Fort Union, in the New Mexico Territory, the sergeants and corporals respected the Apache as a tough enemy who could find and take advantage of any weakness, any detail overlooked in garrison. Spit shine and polish would count for little in the coming months, but the tools of campaigning would. Experienced eyes ran over carbines, uniforms, boots, bridles, saddles, and cartridge belts and looked in every knapsack and saddlebag.

During the hours of preparation for the

reconnaissance, as it was officially termed, the varied experiences of the men became obvious. The newer men were loudest, their excited talk filled with bravado. To them it was all high adventure and daring exploits. The veteran cavalrymen, some with Civil War experience, quietly continued their cleaning and packing for the campaign. They knew that the boasts of green troopers would provide no protection from Indian arrows and bullets. The NCOs used the inspection to quash as many youthful misconceptions as possible. "Why do you carry so much coffee? Are you going to offer the Apaches a cup? ... Where are your extra socks? And where's the bar of soap? No, you're not taking any baths for a while-you soap your feet so you don't get blisters . . . and cut them fingernails and toenails more bullets and salt . . . make sure your cantle and pommel rolls are balanced . . . when's the last time you cleaned this revolver?"

pack

Following the Civil War and a decade of Reconstruction duty in the South, a sharply reduced Army returned to its old task: enforcing treaties and trying to prevent fighting between Indians and settlers on the frontier. The postwar Army was broken up into small detachments and used both cavalry and infantry extensively to cover vast distances in pursuit of elusive adversaries. Following demobilization, the Army would remain for the next thirty years at slightly under 25,000 troops, most assigned to twenty-five infantry and ten cavalry regiments. One positive result of the Civil War was the enlistment of black soldiers in the Regular Army for the first time since the Revolution. Though mostly officered

by whites, the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry were black units with a full complement of black NCOs.

The Army garrisoned 255 posts in 1869, administered through three major territorial departments: Atlantic, Pacific, and Missouri. Campaigns against the Indians were coordinated by the Department of the Missouri, headquartered at Jefferson Barracks near St. Louis. Although they sent soldiers into 943 engagements with the Indians in a thirty-year period, many of the Army's senior leaders remained largely unconcerned. with the operations they directed. Interested in largescale campaigns like those waged by Napoleon, Grant,

Lee, and Jackson, they found few lessons of value in the Plains campaigns. The junior officers, NCOs, and troopers coping with the daily reality of the frontier, on the other hand, had a different viewpoint. They cared less about Napoleon and Lee than about Geronimo and Red Cloud. Learning in the saddle, they became experts in dealing with some of the world's greatest irregular fighters, and in the process wrote a new chapter in the history of one of the Army's most important combat arms the Cavalry.

The image of cavalrymen as soldiers in resplendent uniforms, charging across a plain on magnificent horses, with sabers drawn and guidons billowing in the wind has more reality in European than American history. America's experience with mounted troops has placed much greater importance on the abilities and initiative of the noncommissioned officer to ensure that the men put in their "forty miles a day on beans and hay," chasing an elusive enemy over barren desert territories.

The use of mounted troops dates back to the Revolutionary War. Dense forests, stone fences to divide fields, and limited roads restricted European-style mounted charges. On the other hand, after being defeated in 1776 at the battle of Long Island by an undetected British flanking movement, George Washington recognized the value of reliable scouts mounted on horseback. The following winter Congress added four cavalry regiments to the Continental Army.

Those regiments (really mounted infantry) were originally called light dragoons, a choice of terms that established the precedent for the use of troopers throughout the U.S. Army's history. Basically, Washington's cavalrymen performed reconnaissance missions. Their battles usually involved skirmishing, often dismounted, rather than charges. Like the colonial rangers, the light dragoons tended to spend most of their time in small patrols where NCOs played important leadership roles. Even in Nathanael Greene's campaign in the Carolinas in 1781, where the terrain lent itself more to Europeanstyle charges, the lives of the men serving under William Washington or "Light Horse Harry" Lee were filled with routine rather than glamour.

The pattern of service in the mounted arm in the decades that followed, like that of the infantry and artillery, built upon Revolutionary precedents. In the small Army the nation maintained to police its interior border and to man a handful of coast defense forts, relatively few of the expensive horsemen were necessary, and European-style heavy cavalry was hardly needed at all. Those troopers that did exist spent most of their time caring for their horses and costly equipment, and nearly all of the rest conducting patrols. NCOs supervised the former and provided much of the essential leadership for the latter function. Even when they

became involved in combat, the horsemen tended to be employed as mobile infantry who dismounted to fight. Only on rare occasions-such as Resaca de la Palma during the Mexican War or Brandy Station in the Civil War-did American cavalry conduct true mounted charges. On the other hand, the massive mobilization for the latter conflict brought more troopers into the Army than ever before, and great cavalrymen emerged among the leaders on both sides of the fighting (for example, James E. B. "Jeb" Stuart, George Armstrong Custer, and Philip H. Sheridan).

When the Army returned to the Great Plains and the deserts of the Southwest in late 1865, it kept a larger proportion of horsemen than at any time in its history. The vast distances and small total strength of the service mandated a larger share of responsibility for the troopers. Scouting, escorting the workers constructing the transcontinental railroads and telegraph lines, and enforcing treaties with various tribes were easier when mounted. Although charismatic officers like George Armstrong Custer frequently dominated the newspaper headlines, the quiet professionalism of long-term NCOs held units together during years of isolation at each of the dozens of forts established during a thirty-year period.

An example of a “hitching-post" garrison was Fort Union in the Territory of New Mexico. In the late 1870s responsibility for protection of that region fell to elements of the 9th Cavalry, a black regiment, and the 15th Infantry. Several companies occupied Fort Union, from which patrols set forth to prevent or punish Indian attacks on settlers and infringement on treaties by unscrupulous whites. A typical patrol would last up to several weeks, with infantry joining in as escorts for a wagon train carrying reserve supplies, hardtack and salt pork for the men, and grain for the animals. As each day came to a close, a camp was established and sergeants and corporals organized the nighttime guard. Troopers cared for their horses and equipment before themselves, a crucial duty often enforced by the NCOs.

If the patrol met hostile Indians, the troops could expect frontier combat against a fierce and resourceful enemy. For the men of the 9th Cavalry in New Mexico Territory, the most formidable adversary was Victorio, an Apache who had never studied the campaigns of Napoleon or Frederick the Great. His relatively small band relied heavily on the element of surprise. Plains Indian warfare centered around the raid, intended to accomplish a specific purpose with a minimum of loss to the tribe. Taking maximum advantage of their intimate familiarity with the terrain, and ignoring the boundary between the United States and Mexico, the Apaches often seemed to materialize out of nowhere, inflict considerable damage during a brief firefight, and