Former Department of Defense historian and award-winning writer Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D., has written extensively on the history of long-forgotten women in the military to reveal their heroism and sacrifices for the first time. Cathy Williams: From Slave to Buffalo Soldier by Phillip Thomas Tucker, Ph.D., focuses on Cathy Williams, a woman who served in the Buffalo Soldiers on the Santa Fe Trail under the name William Cathay. Dr. Tucker's most recent look at the remarkable life of Cathy Williams was published in the summer of 2017, America's Female Buffalo Soldier, A New Look at the Life of Cathy Williams in History and Memory.
Cathy Williams was born into slavery in 1944, working as a house servant near Jefferson City. At the age of 17 she was captured by the Union Army and pressed into service as a cook and washerwoman, traveling with infantry regiments and eventually working at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. After the Civil War, when several of her family members enlisted into the army, she decided to enlist at Jefferson Barracks as well, and was assigned to Company A of the 38th United States Infantry, a Buffalo Soldier Regiment, under the name William Cathay.
However, her military service from 1866 to 1868 was short-lived, as Cathy spent much of her career in the military dealing with smallpox, though her gender was not discovered through her numerous hospitalizations. Unfortunately, two years after she enlisted a military surgeon discovered her true identity and she was discharged. But she left behind an enduring legacy as America's first and only female Buffalo Soldier, who performed her assigned duties exceptionally well. Cathy then became a pioneer on the western frontier, finding a permanent home in the West.
