b'General William S. McCaskeyParticipant and Witness to HistoryPART 5 By Alan RockmanI t was with great pride but alsoTHE BROWNSVILLE INCIDENT, MCCASKEY a heavy heart that the newly- STANDING BY HIS TROOPS DESPITE RISKING promoted McCaskey pennedTHE IRE OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, his poignant farewell to the 20thPROMOTION TO MAJOR GENERAL, Regiment: SUBSEQUENT RETIREMENT - AND TAPSThe newly-minted brigadier general\'s assignment "After a period of thirty-fiveupon returning to the states was the command of the years of continuous service with the 20th Infantry, yourDepartment of Colorado, which, if the promotion had Regimental Commander has been selected by the Presidentbeen made perhaps a decade before, McCaskey might as a General Officer of the United States Army. Thehave had the pleasure of running Soapy Smith and his standard of excellence as required and sustained during thecoterie of thugs and thieves out of town. A quarter of administrations of my predecessors, General Sykes, Otis,a century earlier, the department might have been a Penrose, Hawkins, Bates, Patterson and Wheaton have"ground zero" for operations against the Cheyenne and been maintained during the four years through which youquelling the unrest of striking miners. Now that Denver have served under me.It is a satisfaction to transfer to mywas "civilized" the Department of Colorado tenure, as successor an organization that any officer may be proud toshort as the one-year duration was an easy and relatively comment. Whether during long tours of duty in arduous"cushy" assignment. Then in late spring 1905 Brigadier frontier posts, in the early days of the Northwest or of theGeneral McCaskey received new orders - he was now Indian Territory or the Mexican border, when portions ofassigned to command the Department of the Southwest your regiment have protected railroad construction, the(Texas) with Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio as his lives and property of pioneer citizens, or the rights of thedepartment headquarters. Ironically, in just another Indians themselves, whether during the difficult militaryone of those strange Custer "coincidences, the officer duty devolving from the great strike of 1894, whetherMcCaskey would be replacing was General Jesse M. Lee, during the trying campaigns in which the regiment waswho, as the acting Indian Agent at Fort Robinson, Nebraskaanimosity of white Texas Rangers, many of whom were ex-engaged from 1898 to 1902, in Cuba and the Philippines, orhad befriended the great Sioux Chief Crazy Horse who, afterConfederate soldiers, towards the Black Cavalrymen of the whether during the many years of field and garrison duty athis surrender, had been detained there. It is said that Agent9th and 10th Cavalry. What was now ironic, however, was the home and abroad, the 20th has left a clean, credible record. Lee was the only white man Crazy Horse ever trusted. Whenresentment of the white and Hispanic inhabitants of the wild During the last 35 years your Regimental Commander hasLee, hugely sympathetic to his charges and to Crazy Horse inand woolly Brownsville, that border town that had endured come in contact with hundreds of officers and thousands ofparticular learned that the great chief was to be arrested onmany border raids, rapes, murders, and brutality from the men who have followed the colors of the Twentieth Infantry,spurious charges, he objected strenuously but was told thehands of Juan Cortina\'s brigand bands on to the onset of the and his service ante-dates by several years, that of any otherorders came from General Crook, and there was nothing he20th Century, and how those same inhabitants constantly member of the Regiment. He has occupied every grade andcould do. Lee tried to warn Crazy Horse, but the latter, havingclamored for the protection of United States troops. But in filled all staff positions in the Regiment, his associationsbecome docile in captivity, trusted Crook, not believing he1906, over 50 years on from the first Cortina depredation, have always been most agreeable, and as the ties of sowould be arrested. Upon arrest, however, the warrior-chiefthe resentment now wasn\'t towards Mexican bandits - it many years are to be sundered now, he acknowledges thechose to resist and was treacherously bayoneted.It was Agentwas now directed towards the Black soldiers of the United great obligations he owes to the officers and the enlistedLee whom the pale, dying chief called to his side, to take hisStates 25th Infantry Regiment stationed at Fort Brown, the men for their cordial support, for their efforts to anticipatehand and apologize for having not listened to him (Wheeler,fort first erected by the army to protect Brownsville, and his wishes, for their uniform courtesy and loyalty, and forColonel Homer W., Buffalo Days, Bobbs-Merrill Company,one of its notable guest commanders was Robert E. Lee. their responsive actions at all times, whether in garrison orIndianapolis, Indiana, 1923, p. 199). Subsequently, the burlyBrownsville was known for its corruptness and before the campaign. It is a great honor to command such men, and noyoung lieutenant, having had a legal background, was namedelection of the physician and reformist Frederick Combe, preferment that may come to your Regimental Commanderrecorder to the Reno Court of Inquiry, looking into thethe Hispanic-dominated police department had been known in the future will efface the satisfaction and pleasure hebehavior and the actions of Major Marcus Reno on the day offor its ill-treatment of the Black troops of the 25th whenever feels in his long association with the 20th Infantry, and hethe Custer disaster. Fair, balanced, but critical, Lee eschewedthey went into town on leave. While Combe did clean up the hopes that after all the ties formed may never be whollymuch of the usual duties of the note-taking court recorderpolice department, he was either unable or unwilling to tamp sundered, and that he may still serve you and you serve him,and became an active interrogator, highly respected for hisdown the increasing hate-filled rhetoric of the townspeople notwithstanding the fact that his name will not again appearskills throughout the hearing which on the surface exoneratedtowards the Black Soldiers of the nearby Fort Brown garrison. in your rolls. the controversial Reno but which also left much doubt asCombe knew he was sitting on a powder keg, something had to his fitness to command (Donovan, A Terrible Glory, p.to give, and give it when just before midnight on the evening The last soldier of the great Civil War to command the 20th353, pp.366-376). Lee was also an active-duty soldier, havingof August 13-14 1906 armed men stormed into town, then Infantry, whose service to your colors have almost equaledfought in the Indian Wars, in the Philippines, and also helpedproceeded to shoot up the streets of Brownsville, killing one in length to the history of your Regiment. He goes from youput down the Boxer Rebellion in China. It is more thanman, a local bartender, and wounding a policeman named knowing that your standard will be kept up and that yourprobable that McCaskey knew his fellow officer, as Lee, havingJoe Dominguez, said to have been the only member of the future commanders will receive allegiance always accordedrisen up the ranks had served as a staff colonel under Generalpre-reform police who never harmed nor harassed a Black him, and wishing you success in every field, he bids youBates in the Philippines. soldier. Townspeople vehemently claimed that the shooters farewell" (Ibid., pp. 105-106). were Black soldiers of the 25th Infantry - and soon the entire Settling with his family in his spacious new quarters atregiment was smeared with the brush of accusationand In response and reflection, Captain Edward M. Lewis,Fort Sam Houston, McCaskey looked forward to what hethe accusations, coupled with the calls of prosecution of the summed up the emotions, pride and respect the officers andthought would be a plumb assignment, easy, peacetimemen of the 25th - a regiment that had served honorably and the men of the 20th held for their longtime commander,duties amongst the plains and deserts of Texas, withwell alongside Roosevelt\'s Rough Riders on San Juan Hill - when, at a farewell dinner for the McCaskeys, he said: nary much in the way of troubles outside of perhaps anhad not only reached the ears of the army high command occasional Mexican border dispute or quelling down a bitbut of President Roosevelt himself, who in the aftermath of "May the star that is shortly to adorn your shoulder strapsof banditry. San Juan Hill was the grateful recipient of hardtack offered soon have a fellow, and when that happy event occurs mayby Sergeant Mingo Sanders of the 25th (Lembeck, Harry, the 20th Infantry be there to see it. And now ladies andBut trouble had been brewing for decades between the racist,Taking On Theodore Roosevelt, Promethus Books,Amherst, gentlemen, I ask you to join me in the health, happinessresentful white citizenry of Texas communities and the BlackNew York, 2015, pp. 28-33, pp. 55-59). Now Sanders was and continued prosperity of our Regimental Commander,army soldiers assigned to defend them. It has been previouslybeing threatened with arrest and a possible lynching, and his Brigadier General William S. McCaskey" (Ibid., p. 106). noted in prior issues of Arizona Real Country about thecomrade Roosevelt plus the one-time Abolitionist McCaskey 54 August 2022'