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Title: Child of the Fighting Tenth: On the Frontier With the Buffalo Soldiers by Forrestine C. Hooker, Steve Wilson ISBN: 0-19-516158-0 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (3 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Army Brat
Comment: Having been the Colonel's daughter and the General's daughter-in-law I was the daughter of the Regiment. I loved this book! There was so much military detail! There was even the mention of the color of the lining in the cape of the officer, and for all you militaty brats you know the color is determened by the branch of service. Having been not only an Army brat and an Army wife , I related to the special bonds forged in service. This book speaks to all military wives and children! A must read for all Army brats or those who wish they had been!

Rating: 4
Summary: A Welcome Addition
Comment: (...)Child of the Fighting Tenth is a welcome addition to a body of literature, much of it produced between the l890s and the l930s, based on the memoirs/journals/letters of soldiers (mostly officers), military wives, and occasionally children, who knew regular army service on the frontier between the end of the Civil War and l900. Some of these titles are available in university reprint editions.

(...)The bulk of Hooker's observations deal with the domestic, or what Wilson calls the "behind-the-scenes" side of military life. There is a wealth of interesting and often amusing information: soldiers (called "strikers") who earned extra pay by working as household servants, army housing-both comfortable and primitive, packing box furniture, a sometimes limited menu because the canning industry was in its infancy, parties and outings with family and friends. There are also tales about some well-known frontier personalities such as Tom Custer, Colonels Benjamin Grierson, Wesley Merritt and William Shafter, Generals Nelson Miles and George Crook, Quanah Parker and the Apache leaders Geronimo and Mangus. What a wonderful cast! Hooker also offers a good deal about junior regimental officers, especially the dashing and gallant (Medal of Honor recipient) Powhatan Clarke, on who Hooker cast an admiring teen-age eye.

It is unfortunate that Hooker did not write more about enlisted soldiers, black and white. She could be a keen observer as when she noted that blacks posted in Texas were a "double aggravation" to some white civilians. She clearly had warm memories of some of the men in her father's commands, but she also wrote this: "George Clark, a faithful old Negro soldier of A Troop, had followed father every step of the way, like a faithful, dying dog." One has to ponder if her father saw blacks soldiers in the same light. Hooker is silent on this, although she notes that in early l870 her father requested assignment to a "white" cavalry regiment.

The publisher's decision to direct this book at young readers must have established strict editorial boundaries for Wilson. His introduction is informative, but too brief and his recommendations for additional reading are a bit pedestrian. A map showing all of the Cooper family postings would be most helpful, although Wilson offers a comprehensive list of historic sites to visit. The photo illustrations are first rate and the captions are detailed. I just wish there were more of both (I like captions to be extensions, not brief supplements, to a text). In short, Hooker's memoirs deserve a fully edited and annotated presentation.

To come clean, I did not have to buy my copy of this book, but I gladly would have. Hooker's voice is now part of the Old Army on the frontier "mix", and this is a very good thing.

Tom Phillips

PS According to a detailed count made by historian Frank Schubert, a fellow who has written more about black regulars than anyone else, the 9th Cavalry did more fighting than the "Fighting Tenth": between 1866 and 1897 elements of the 9th participated in eighty-one engagements; the score for the 10th is sixty-six.

Rating: 4
Summary: Great book
Comment: For the frontier reenactor or living historian, this is fantastic. The book is the memoires of Forrestine "Birdie" Cooper Forrester as she and her family followed their father, an officer with the 10th Cav... one of the Buffalo Soldier units.