Negro Frontiersman : The Western Memoirs of Henry O. Flipper
El Paso: Texas Western College Press, 1963. Sepia author photograph frontispiece. First edition, first printing. Publisher's full tan cloth, stamped in black, in printed dust jacket [$6]. x, 54. 9.5" x 6.25" Small spots of rubbing to spine tips, still fine, in near fine dust jacket, with tiny spot of soiling to front panel and lightly rubbed extremities. Overall an extremely tight and clean copy. Item #241726
FIRST BLACK GRADUATE FROM WEST POINT
Henry O. Flipper was the first Black graduate from West Point (1877), commissioned as a calvary second lieutenant who served with the Tenth Calvary as the first Black officer to command peacetime troops. Flipper spent the rest of his military career on the western frontier, fighting in the southwest Indian Wars against the Apache until his court-martialing in 1882. Accused of carelessness with military funds and charged with unbecoming conduct, Flipper was dismissed from the army but remained deeply integrated in his western home, translating within Mexican mining communities in El Paso and becoming the first American Black man to achieve prominence as a mining engineer.
Flipper's account, found here in its first edition, follows his post-West Point life, serving as a landmark Black military text, as well as a glimpse into life on nineteenth century life in the Southwest.
Price: $325.00