Born a slave on March 21, 1856, in Thomasville, Georgia, Henry Ossian Flipper applied for and received an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1873. He overcame prejudice and isolation to graduate four years later.
The army’s first black officer, Flipper was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 10th Cavalry and was stationed at Fort Still, Oklahoma, and at Forts Davis, Elliott, and Concho, Texas. During that time he served as a signal officer and quartermaster and fought Victorio’s band of Apaches. He also improved basic services by installing telegraph lines, and by supervising the construction of drainage ditches and roads.
Flipper’s military career ended abruptly when his commanding officer accused him of embezzling more than two thousand dollars from commissary funds. Although he was found not guilty of embezzlement, he was convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer. Flipper was dishonorably discharged from the army in 1882.
Flipper continued to serve his country as a civil and mining engineer, and as an expert in Spanish and Mexican mining and land law. He was employed in five different departments of the U.S. government. Flipper served as assistant to the Secretary of the Interior, published two books and many articles, and became the first African American editor of a white newspaper, the Nogales Sunday Herald, in Nogales, Arizona.
Although Flipper succeeded outside the army, he was never able to clear his name. In 1976, the army reopened his case and overturned the sentence. Flipper was granted an honorable discharge thirty-six years after his death. In 1999, President Bill Clinton issued a pardon |
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