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 For this revised edition, Harris has added a new introduction, expanded the endnotes, and added previously unpublished material.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.