Hard Work, Strict Discipline, and $13 a Month

Hard Work, Strict Discipline, and $13 a Month. Enlisted Men's Barracks. “Here you get one night in bed… tonight you are on Guard, tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock you get relieved… one hour after coming off Guard You have to Saddle up and go on Herd. Come in with the Herd at 4 p.m., spend one hour grooming your horse, then get your supper. At sundown the Bugle calls you to Retreat to answer your name, and hear who are detailed for Guard on the morrow… from Retreat till Tattoo (2 hours) you have to shine your belts, clean your gun and brasses so they shine like a gold piece in the dark. Next morning at break of day you fall in ranks for Reveille, answer your name, and then march to the stables, spend half hour on the… horses, come back, swallow your Breakfast, and then put on all your good clothes, comb your hair… put on all your Belts, shoulder your Carbine, and then you are ready for Guard Mount… At the first sound of the Bugle, you rush in ranks to be inspected first by your First Sergeant … [then by] the Sergeant Major… [who] opens your shirt collar to see if that bit of apparel has been to the Laundresses in the course of a couple of months… the Band strikes up those patriotic tunes… You are then marched to the Guardhouse. During the day you escort prisoners around camp, emptying swill barrels &c. At night you… guard over a stable, lots of wagons &c with these orders 'take charge of this Post, and all Government property in view'… That is soldiering, in a nut shell.” , , Eddie Matthews, private, 8th U.S. Cavalry, 1870, Each U-shaped barracks you see here sheltered a company. Inside there were two squad rooms with 21 bunks each, a kitchen and ration room, a company mess hall, a storeroom, an ordnance room for guns and ammunition, and an orderly room. Each company even had a small reading room., Many men in the ranks came from Ireland, Germany, Canada, Scotland, England, France, and Switzerland., Some Spanish-speaking New Mexican volunteers and black “buffalo soldiers” served here alongside the farmers’ sons and city boys from the East., They accepted danger, harsh discipline, and frontier hardships in return for job security, government-furnished clothing, and bed and board during their 5-year long enlistments.