Black Frontiersman: The Memoirs of
Henry O. Flipper, First Black Graduate of West Point
Edited by Theodore Harris

After graduating as the first black from West Point in 1877, Henry O. Flipper was dismissed from the U.S. Army in 1882 following a financial scandal. He went on to enjoy a career as a land surveyor, scholar of mining and land laws, congressional aide, and writer and translator.

Black Frontiersman is Flipper's account of his service with the Tenth U.S. Cavalry in Texas and Oklahoma and the years that followed. Flipper's memoir was first published in 1963 as Negro Frontiersman, edited by Theodore Harris. For this revised edition, Harris has added a new introduction, expanded the endnotes, and added previously unpublished material.

Henry O. Flipper was posthumously vindicated, his discharge changed to honorable, and his body reburied with military honors.

THEODORE D. HARRIS taught history at Texas Western College (now University of Texas at El Paso) and was one of the first scholars to specialize in black studies in the West. He makes his home in Seal Beach, California.

What people are saying about this book

"Theodore Harris has done students of military history, race relations, and Western history a great favor by bringing Flipper's writings to light."—Arizona Journal of History