Where you'll find the latest news from Norwich University in Northfield, Vt

Friday, April 16, 2010

For Immediate Release
April 16, 2010
Contact: Daphne Larkin
802-485-2886
dlarkin@norwich.edu

NEWS RELEASE

Norwich University Museum opens Buffalo Soldier exhibit

NORTHFIELD, Vt. –
Norwich University’s Sullivan Museum and History Center will open a new exhibit, The Buffalo Soldiers, on Thursday, April 22 at noon with National President of the 9th and 10th Calvary Association Trooper Derek Davis.

The exhibit features photographs and personal belongings from the descendants of the Buffalo Soldiers, who were last stationed at Ft. Ethan Allen over a hundred years ago.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Norwich connection to the Buffalo Soldiers:

Norwich University is proud to have played a role in the distinguished history of the 9th and 10th regiments known as the Buffalo Soldiers. Two Norwich graduates, Edward Hatch (NU 1850) and John Nazzaro (NU 1941), had the opportunity to work with this outstanding group of soldiers who the Native Americans named “Buffalo Soldiers” due to their toughness and fighting capabilities on the battlefield.

A brief history of the Buffalo Soldiers:


On July 28, 1866, Congress authorized the establishment of two cavalry regiments and four infantry regiments of African American enlisted men.

By 1869, the two cavalry regiments were designated the 9th and 10th Cavalry. Colonel Edward Hatch (NU 1850), a student at Norwich for three years with a brilliant Civil War record, was recommended by General Grant to command the new 9th Regiment. He would hold this post for the next 23 years leading his men in defending people and property in the Great Plains, along the wilderness of the Dakotas, in the wilds of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas; and in the mountain ranges and deserts of Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.

The Buffalo Soldiers were called upon to escort stage coaches, wagon trains, and railroad crews. They also built, restored, or installed military posts, roads, telegraph lines, and water holes along with surveying large areas of unexplored land. Between the years 1867-1891 they also took part in the Indian Campaign and earned 12 Congressional Medals of Honor.


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Norwich University is a diversified academic institution that educates traditional-age students and adults in a Corps of Cadets and as civilians. Norwich offers a broad selection of traditional and distance-learning programs culminating in Baccalaureate and Graduate Degrees. Norwich University was founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge of the U.S. Army. Norwich University is the oldest private military college in the United States of America and the birthplace of our nation's Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). www.norwich.edu