Buffalo Soldier re-enactors, from left, Alfred L. Crosby, Keith Hill, Mitchell Sayles, Tyree Mason and Sammie Armstrong ride at Armstrong's home last week in the northern Las Vegas Valley. Photos by Craig L. Moran. Buffalo Soldier re-enactors, from left, retired U.S. Army Maj. George Osborne, Harold Cole, Floyd Brown and Kobe Armstrong Smith, 8, watch a horse rider drill last week in the northern Las Vegas Valley. Nedra Armstrong practices for her transformation into Buffalo Soldier William Cathay. Cathay's real name was Cathay Williams. She posed as a man so she could fight in the Army infantry. Physical checkups at the time were close to nonexistent, so Williams was able to slip through as a soldier.

The woman's thick brown hair falls softly in ringlets halfway down her neck. Her light blue blouse and a long, red and black skirt that nearly covers her brown boots are vintage mid-to-late 1800s.

"I am Cathay Williams," the woman announces repeatedly as she walks through an audience of students that gathered in the cafeteria at Bridger Middle School in North Las Vegas. She stops to whisper to some young girls: "You are blessed to walk in the spirit of Cathay Williams."

The sixth- through eighth-graders are on hand to learn about the Buffalo Soldiers, blacks who helped blaze the treacherous trails of the Wild West in the 1800s and who served in segregated military units until they were integrated after World War II.

Courtesy of prominent black Las Vegans, ranging from a millionaire businessman to a former college president, the rich history of the Buffalo Soldiers is coming alive in the Las Vegas Valley.

Cathay Williams, who posed as a man to become the first and only known female Buffalo Soldier, was played at Bridger by Nedra Armstrong, a retired Clark County social worker.

Armstrong told of how Williams worked as a house slave for William Johnson, a wealthy planter in Jefferson City, Mo., until he died. The Civil War broke out at about the same time, and Williams was freed by Union soldiers, Armstrong told the students. Williams then worked as a cook and laundress for the Army during the war.

"When my service with the army was finished, I didn't know what I was going to do," Armstrong said, remaining in character. "I didn't want to be a burden on my family and friends. One day I was talking to my cousin and he told me that he was going to join the colored army."

To the students' surprise, Armstrong began to remove her blouse and skirt as she talked: "The colored Army sounded really good to me, and I decided to do the same thing. ... My cousin promised not to tell anyone I was a girl."

An Army uniform was beneath Armstrong's clothes. And when she took off her wig, Armstrong covered her own short hair with an Army cap.

"On November 15, 1866, I joined the U.S. Army as William Cathay," she said, smiling and saluting to the applause of students. "Cathay Williams proves to women they have the power to be whatever they want to be."

The volunteer presentations have been received warmly by Clark County School District administrators.

"What they're doing is so important," said Stephanie Hirsch, the K-12 social studies coordinator for the school district. "They're adding to the vibrance of history. It is so difficult when you're trying to cover 300 years of history to capture all the magic moments."

The school presentations locally are largely the brainchild of 64-year-old Sammie Armstrong, Nedra Armstrong's husband and the former owner of Ray & Ross Transport, which he described as the largest black-owned charter and sightseeing bus company in the United States.

Until he sold the company in 1995, he said, it was the largest black-owned employer in the state of Nevada with 180 full-time employees and 40 part-timers.

An avid horseman, Armstrong initially simply wanted to start a riding group. But when he read about the Buffalo Soldiers and their contribution to the country, he decided he could satisfy his love both for horses and for history with one organization. In 2005, he received a charter for the Greater Las Vegas Area Chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers.

There are now 30 active members, called troopers, including Dr. Paul Meacham, retired president of the Community College of Southern Nevada; Louis Conner, owner of the Seven Seas Restaurant and Lounge; and Harold Cole and Floyd Brown, who were actual members of Buffalo Soldier units during World War II.

The group, which wears the uniform of the first Buffalo Soldiers, is now a key participant in virtually all local parades. Their horses are favorites of audiences.

"I'm not sure you can ever know where you're going unless you know where you've been," Sammie Armstrong said as he brushed one of his horses on his ranch north of Las Vegas. "Had the men who comprised the Buffalo Soldiers not been so dedicated and so good at what they did, the accomplishments of blacks in this country would be less than what they are. They proved blacks could do the same work just as well as anybody else."

Armstrong and many of his members, often with horses nearby, enjoy telling students how Buffalo Soldiers began, often citing William Leckie's book, "The Buffalo Soldiers."

After the Civil War, in which the U.S. government had formed regiments known at the United States Colored Troops, black soldiers who wanted to remain in the Army were organized into the 9th and 10th Horse Cavalry Regiments and what eventually would become the 24th and 25th Infantry Regiments. With little other work available to blacks, the $13-a-day slots were highly prized.

The regiments were commanded by white officers and operated under severe disadvantages. Many white officers, including George Armstrong Custer, who was slaughtered during the Battle of Little Bighorn, saw the commands as injurious to careers and refused leading what they saw as "inferiors." Prejudice in the frontier towns was so severe that sniper attacks against black troops were common. And blacks often were charged unfairly with crimes that ended in jail time or death.

Still, the units responsible for building roads and escorting settlers, cattle herds, railroad crews and the U.S. mail fought so fiercely during the Indian Wars that they inspired Indians to call them "Buffalo Soldiers," a term reflecting the toughness of the animal that once ruled the plains. From the Buffalo Soldiers' 177 military engagements, 13 enlisted men and six officers earned the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor.

After the Indian Wars ended in the 1890s, the Buffalo Soldiers participated in the Spanish-American War and served in California's Sierra Nevada as some of the nation's first national park rangers. In 1903 Buffalo Soldiers built the first trail to the top of Mount Whitney and in 1904 constructed an arboretum in the southern section of Yosemite National Park.

Meacham, who was a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas after retiring as president of the Community College of Southern Nevada, said it's critical for Americans, especially black Americans, to learn of their work in settling the West. He said the history gives young black men "a sense of place and shows the investment we've made in this country. Once you see that you have an investment, you tend to act differently."

For the 82-year-old Cole, who served with the 9th Cavalry in World War II and ended his military career with the Air Force, the story of the Buffalo Soldiers is different. Although he received battle stars after fighting in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and southern France, he remains irritated that near the end of the war his segregated unit was forced into a support role.

"Here you had one of the best fighting units stopped because whites didn't feel blacks could fight," said Cole, who has served as national president of the 9th and 10th Horse Cavalries that are so revered.

Brown, 89, served stateside with the Buffalo Soldiers and spent a long career in civil service.

"It may be hard for some people to believe now, but I was a sergeant in World War II, and when I was detached to a unit where there were blacks and whites, whites wouldn't take orders from me and the officers wouldn't back me up," he said.

Restaurant owner Conner said the Las Vegas chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers is about far more than giving a history lesson.

"Those of us who became part of this organization want young black men to know that they can be whatever they want, no matter how bad the circumstances," he said. "The Buffalo Soldiers taught us that."

Armstrong, who plans on organizing a Buffalo Soldiers unit in Las Vegas for young people, concurred.

"I hope in some small way it can give life more meaning," he said.

"The average black teenager doesn't value life, doesn't see past age 21. What they can see from the Buffalo Soldiers are men who made the most of an opportunity, who were prepared for it. They didn't have much of an opportunity, but they made the most of it."