Soldiers in the Southwest Borderlands, 1848-1886

Soldiers in the Southwest Borderlands explores the diversity of western soldiers, their service and their lives before and after service, before, during, and after the Civil War. Each essay explores a single individual, all of them enlisted soldiers rather than officers, some U.S. regular army, including African American George Goldsby, others Mexican militiaman Santiago Brito, Nuevomexicano volunteer Homobono Carabajal, and Apache scouts Mickey Free and John Rope. Repeated themes are resilience and the benefits of service, including a notable degree of integration by white soldiers into western society, whether by European immigrants (Emil Bode and Louis Geck) or easterners (Harry McConnell), and indeed by Santiago Brito. Yet Goldsby and Carabajal faced prejudice and harassment and fled the service after their resistance resulted in death; Goldsby became a minor legend, portrayed by Frederick Remington, but Carabajal escaped the death sentence through an insanity defense that does not appear to have been disingenuous..