By John E. Carey

Henry Vinton Plummer, slave-born, enlisted in the U.S. Navy and saw combat in the Civil War, enrolled in a seminary after the war and became an Army chaplain to the famed Buffalo Soldiers. However, he was drummed out of the Army and humiliated on what his descendants are convinced was a trumped-up charge. He continued to serve his community as a minister until his death in 1905 at age 60.

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He applied to become an Army chaplain in 1884. With Plummer’s war record, service to his congregation and letters of recommendation from dignitaries such as Frederick Douglass, Plummer won appointment in the U.S. Army’s Chaplain Corps. The Army assigned Plummer to minister to the famed 9th U.S. Cavalry, the Buffalo Soldiers, deployed to Kansas, Wyoming and Nebraska.

Plummer reported to Fort Riley, Kan., where he immediately made an impression as a spiritual leader and an excellent minister to the men. His commanding officer attended services and encouraged the troops to “a higher state of morality and education.”

The post correspondent to the Army-Navy Journal complimented Plummer on his fine sermons and prayers and for “doing a good work among the soldiers.” The writer also noted that Plummer could “discount any of the white Chaplains in the Service.”

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