The Cavalry Came to Campo- The Buffalo Soldiers

The Cavalry Came to Campo - The Buffalo Soldiers

For such a small community, Campo has a remarkable history. Part of that history includes occupation by the U.S. Cavalry; first by the all-white 11^th Cavalry, and later by the all-black 10^th and 28^th Cavalry Regiments, known as the Buffalo Soldiers.

Right after the end of the Civil War, the U.S. Army was greatly depleted in numbers. The surviving soldiers were tired of war. The ranks had to be built up again to control the Indians on the Great Plains who were fighting for their land that was rapidly being taken by white land-hungry pioneers. The need for more men in the army was partly filled by foreign immigrants, but in addition, four regiments of all black enlisted men were formed mainly from black soldiers who had fought on the Union side in the late war. They were also recruited from the ranks of specially chosen newly freed male slaves. The security of a paying job was a great incentive to these men. Four regiments of these recruits were formed; two infantry and two cavalry. The cavalry units were the 9^th and 10^th Regiments.

It was decided that all the enlisted men in these units would be black, but all officers would be white, with the exception of the chaplain who would be black. George Armstrong Custer was offered the command of the 10^th Cavalry, but he declined, saying he didn’t want to command ‘brunettes’. They turned to Col. Benjamin H. Grierson to organize a regiment of 1092 carefully selected colored men, and this he did and stayed on to command the 10^th Regiment for over 20 years.

In 1867 the 10^th Cavalry Regiment was sent west where they protected the railroad line being constructed across the continent, also to Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, and to Texas to fight the Commanche and Apache Indians. They set remarkable records in combat and endurance under severe circumstances. They were given the poorest horses and equipment, yet did their assignments with exemplary performance. The Indians thought their hair and courage matched that of a buffalo, and gave them the name, Buffalo Soldiers. Their story is too long to record here, but their exciting and heroic exploits are well worth reading in many books written on the subject.

In 1940, the federal government could see that American involvement in the war was imminent, and it was decided to build a cavalry base in Campo, California to guard the border with Mexico, the railroad line, and the city of San Diego’s water supply at Lake Morena and Lake Barrett. Also, Campo was on a well-watered trail leading from Ensenada, Mexico into the sparsely settled east county of San Diego. An attacking force could follow this old cattle trail to the east, surround the city, and possibly immobilize many military establishments nearby.

The camp was named Camp Lockett after a dead hero, and it was begun in November 1940, The 11^th Cavalry Regiment was transferred from Monterey, California to Campo to guard the border while the camp was being built.  Half the regiment camped on the shores of Lake Morena, and the other half was sent to Seeley, down the mountains to the Mexican border in the Imperial Valley. The building of Camp Lockett was almost completed, and the men from Lake Morena were being transferred to their new barracks, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The contingent of 11^th Cavalry in Seeley was immediately organized to ride their horses up the mountains to Campo. They covered a distance that would normally have taken much longer, in just two days, arriving at midnight. They stopped only to rest the horses. 

The 11^th Cavalry was shipped out in the spring of 1943, and immediately replaced by the all black 10^th Cavalry. These men were career soldiers who had little education. Two other regiment, the 27th and 28^th, were formed and the 28th  Regiment  sent to Camp Lockett. The men of the 28^th had been drafted in the Chicago area, and from other big cities to the east. Because of laws, and feelings about race at the time, they were given only menial jobs in the army and navy, except for those all-black cavalry regiments where real opportunities existed.

The 10^th Regiment arrived at Camp Lockett first, and the newly formed all black 28^th Regiment embarked a little later on a train at Fort Riley, Kansas and headed west. They heard rumors that they were being sent to California, and after crossing the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona, they began to have visions of palm trees and balmy beaches, but the train stopped at Campo in the mountains east of San Diego still 60 miles east of the Pacific Ocean. They had no idea where they were.

While waiting to get off the train, they noticed the black men on horses, and some took heart that they might like riding a horse and wearing those snazzy boots and uniforms. But they were almost exclusively city boys, and the only contact most of them had with horses was the milkman or iceman’s horse. They had a lot to learn, but in a few months most were riding well, even jumping over fences and barriers.

After only one year at Camp Lockett, the 10^th and the 28^th were shipped out and sent to Morocco. The horses had become loved by the men, but were left behind. When they arrived in Africa, the regiments were summarily disbanded forever, and the men transferred to labor-intensive units, to load and unload trucks and trains. A few managed to join a combat unit that fought with honor in Italy.

When the cavalry units left Camp Lockett, it became an army hospital and there was a POW camp for German and Italian prisoners, until the end of the war in the Pacific.

This is a rather bare-bones story of Camp Lockett and the Buffalo Soldiers and would not be complete without some the anecdotal tales that accompany the days when Camp Lockett gave Campo the highest population it has ever had up to the present time. A reunion was held for Camp Lockett veterans in 1991, and I had the pleasure of transcribing their recorded stories. I’ll include some accounts that I remember best.

While the 11^th Cavalry was still camped at Lake Morena, a shipment of horses arrived from Kansas. They were remounts, which means they used to be ridden, but had been turned loose for a long time and they needed to be retrained. The cavalrymen rode their horses the few miles from Lake Morena to the depot in Campo, and were expected to bring back three horses each on lead ropes. Remember that in 1940, many of these men were draftees and new to the service, so it fell to the seasoned sergeants to teach them how things should be done. Everything was going well, and all the frightened and fractious horses were unloaded. The men were holding the ropes to the extra horses and were waiting for the command to start when a big Indian, named Marron, let out a yell like a enraged cougar, and all hell broke loose.  Horses reared and bucked, and bodies went flying, and bones were broken Those remounts galloped away up the big meadow, and it took two days to recapture them all.  Marron left and wasn’t seen around for a while. Sgt. Seeney told me this story when he was in his late eighties and he would still burst out laughing whenever he pictured the scene in his mind.

Another tale involved a spotted dog, named Scout. He showed up one day, and adopted the men he met on base at Camp Lockett. He became well liked, and someone even sewed him a jacket with sergeant’s stripes on it. Every morning, when the Officer of the Day would give the Plan of the Day, the dog would sit quietly by the officer’s side. One day, Scout stood up and calmly peed on the officer’s leg. Officialdom was ruined, and the men had something to laugh about all day. Next day they had a courts marshall for the dog and stripped him of his jacket for several weeks. In 1996 someone donated a hydrant to the Stone Store Museum, where I was a volunteer, and I often wondered if Scout also had peed on it. He probably did.

In an interview with a light-hearted former army musician, he told about coming back from San Diego late. He was one of the lucky few that had a car. He parked it outside the camp, and crawled up over the rocks to a place where he could get under the fence near the base library. He was aware that the guards were very young, inexperienced and might be trigger-happy. Half way up the rocks, he met another soldier who was also sneaking back into camp. They talked in whispers, and our musician discovered ithe other man was his lieutenant. When he told his story next day, someone asked, “What did you do, stand up and salute?” He replied, “Hell, no! Do you think I wanted to get shot?”

Another person interviewed told another story about that musician. He had gone to town the day before Easter Sunday and came back drunk in the wee hours of the morning. He was still feeling great, so instead of going to bed, he went to the chapel where he began playing the organ. He played boogie-woogie and a few hymns with a boogie-woogie beat until someone came to stop him. He told them he was practicing for the Easter service later that morning. They protested he hadn’t been playing church service music. He replied, “ Well, they told me to make it joyous!”

Another story, not funny, and a sad commentary about the bigotry of the times, involved Fred Jones. I met him when he was in his seventies, and I can’t believe he was ever anything other than the intelligent, soft-spoken man I knew. He was given a two-day pass and decided to take a Greyhound bus to see his family in Los Angeles. The only seat available on the bus was the one in the very first row. Right after him came a lieutenant who looked at the empty seat next to Fred as if expecting him to move. Fred moved over a little with a smile on his face, but the lieutenant frowned, and went back and sat on the bus step and stayed there all the way to Los Angeles, rather than sit by a black man, even a cavalryman in uniform. Fred felt hurt by that until the day he died. Fred Jones, along with my friend and former boss, Roger Challberg, was one of the two men who worked hard to persuade the state of California to create a state park in Campo. After several years during which Fred Jones died, it has been approved and over time Camp Lockett State Park may become another attraction for tourists at Campo, California.