A Black Civil War Veteran makes his way to Ft Leavenworth, hoping to join one of the Black regiments being formed for the coming Indian Wars and the White Man’s Manifest Destiny.

SYNOPSIS:

CROSSED SWORDS: THE STORY OF THE BUFFALO SOLDIERS

In 1865 a call went out from the U.S. Government for volunteers to join new Black Regiments that were being formed in Ft Leavenworth, Kansas. A million newly free men and women found themselves homeless and without a job or a future. A small migration of these newly free Slaves, moved to Kansas to join one of these Army Regiments. Women and children went in hope to find a husband and a stable life.

A former member of the 5th Colored Calvary, Sgt. Nicco Jackson finds himself on the train to Ft Leavenworth, where he is given a chance to join the forming 10th Calvary Regiment and soon becomes Company A’s First Sergeant. Nicco, a Civil War Veteran finds himself suffering nightmares and panic attacks from his experience in the War. In other words, he has what was then called, ‘Soldier’s Heart’ and must control it or be forced to leave the Army or possibly worse, the growing asylums filling up with fellow veterans that are suffering from this new disease. He does his best to hide it from the Officers and his Men who are counting on him to lead them through the oncoming Indian Wars.

There are many different people on the train to Leavenworth. Many freed slaves, some free men looking for a future, women with children, mostly Black widows that have lost their husbands in war or had been sold off. Sara is one of these, a widowed mother of three who is searching for a husband to take care of her and her children. Sara will do anything to feed her three children, she whores herself to the soldiers at night. She even has an affair with a white officer in the hopes that she can become his mistress and find a better life for her and her three children.

The Future for the 10th Calvary, its Men and the Women who follow them is full of danger, not just from their enemy, the Native Americans but the racism that exist between the White War Veterans that are moving West and the Black Soldiers. The Army itself is against them, preferring the White Soldiers and Settlers before the Black Soldiers. The growing Railroad has to be protected as it crawls its way across the lands of the Native Americans. The savagery and hardship of the land itself as it fights to keep the wave of immigrants and settlers out of its domain, destroying quickly the new towns and settlements that pop up with its cold winters and drought summers.

The Country begins its move west and it’s Manifest Destiny, the price will be the lives of the settler, the soldiers and most of all, the Indians that they will be facing but the West must be tamed if the Country is to grow and prosper from sea to shining sea.