Female Buffalo Soldier The Enslaved Woman Who Became the Only one Cathay Williams
Cathay Williams was born into slavery near Independence, Missouri, around 1844. Her mother was enslaved, while her father was reportedly free. As a young girl, Cathay was forced to work on a plantation near Jefferson City. Her life changed during the Civil War—but freedom did not arrive as simply as history sometimes suggests. When Union forces occupied Jefferson City in 1861, enslaved people captured or liberated by the Army were classified as “contraband.” Cathay, still a teenager, was compelled to accompany the Union Army as a cook and laundress. She traveled with military forces across several states and reportedly served alongside troops under General Philip Sheridan. She experienced military life, witnessed wartime campaigns, and learned how the Army operated—but she had little control over her circumstances. After the Civil War and the formal end of slavery, Cathay faced another reality: freedom without financial security.
Employment opportunities for a newly freed Black woman were extremely limited. The Army offered regular wages, food, clothing, and a measure of independence—but women were prohibited from enlisting. Cathay refused to let that barrier decide her future. On November 15, 1866, she reversed her name and enlisted in the United States Regular Army as William Cathay. Wearing men’s clothing and presenting as a man, she passed the Army’s limited medical examination and signed a three-year enlistment.
She was assigned to Company A of the 38th United States Colored Infantry, one of the Black regiments associated with the soldiers known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Cathay was approximately five feet nine inches tall. She marched hundreds of miles with her regiment through Kansas and New Mexico, endured harsh weather and military discipline, and performed the same duties expected of the men around her. Only two people were reportedly aware of her identity—a cousin and a friend serving in the regiment. Her service exacted a tremendous physical toll. She contracted smallpox shortly after enlisting and suffered recurring health problems. Nevertheless, she returned to duty and continued marching with her unit.
In 1868, while Cathay was hospitalized at Fort Bayard in the New Mexico Territory, an Army surgeon discovered that Private William Cathay was a woman. Because women were forbidden from serving, Cathay was discharged on October 14, 1868. Her Army documents cited disability and repeated illness rather than publicly identifying Cathay as a woman. Cathay had successfully protected her identity for nearly two years. After leaving the Army, Cathay worked as a cook, laundress, and seamstress in New Mexico and Colorado. Cathay married briefly, but when her husband stole her money and horses, Cathay had him arrested and continued building her life independently.


In 1876, a journalist interviewed Cathay after hearing reports of a Black woman who had served disguised as a male soldier. Cathay explained her reason plainly: “I wanted to make my own living and not be dependent on relations or friends.” Her story should have earned recognition and security. Instead, the government she had served abandoned her. By the late 1880s or early 1890s, Cathay suffered from diabetes, neuralgia, deafness, and severe complications that reportedly led to the amputation of her toes. She walked with a crutch and applied for a military disability pension. Her claim was denied. The examining physician concluded that her disabilities did not qualify her for compensation—even though illness had repeatedly affected her during military service. White women who had disguised themselves as men in earlier American wars had received pensions, but Cathay Williams received nothing.
Her final years remain largely undocumented. She is believed to have died in Trinidad, Colorado, sometime in the 1890s. Her burial place is unknown, and no authenticated photograph of her is known to exist. Yet her legacy could not remain buried. Cathay Williams is recognized as the first documented African American woman to enlist in the United States Army and the only known woman to serve as a Buffalo Soldier. Her service occurred more than eight decades before the military was formally desegregated. Her story is also complicated. Buffalo Soldiers served a nation that continued to deny Black people equality, and some of their assignments supported westward expansion and campaigns against Indigenous nations. Cathay’s history should therefore be remembered honestly—not as a simple celebration of war, but as the story of a formerly enslaved Black woman pursuing survival, wages, independence, and control over her own life. She was born enslaved. She was forced to serve in the Army before she was free. She later returned to that Army of her own accord, concealed her identity, marched beside men who never knew her secret, and created an opportunity where America had offered her almost none. Cathay Williams did not wait for history to grant her permission. She claimed her place in it. The nation denied her pension. The Army ended her service. History nearly erased her name.
But the Descendants of the Taken Ones remember Private Cathay Williams the woman who crossed the boundaries of slavery, race, and gender to stand in uniform on her own terms.
Sources: National Park Service biography, Fort Union National Monument history, U.S. Army history