Child of the Fighting Tenth

"No one knew when the bugle sounded reveille what would happen before taps that night." Forrestine "Birdie" Cooper learned at an early age that growing up on the western frontier meant that each new day brought a fresh adventure.

Birdie's father, Charles Cooper, was an officer in the Tenth U.S. Cavalry, known as the Buffalo Soldiers, one of four regiments of black troops with white officers. The Buffalo Soldiers made headlines with their battles against Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Lone Wolf, Billy the Kid, and Pancho Villa. These momentous events were just everyday life, and these men of valor, playmates in the childhood escapades of Birdie Cooper.

Later in life, after she had married and published several novels, Forrestine Cooper Hooker began writing her memoir, which remained unfinished when she died in 1932. Steve Wilson edited the manuscript into publishable form. The compelling yet humorous stories told in Child of the Fighting Tenth capture the drama of the settlement of the American West, the Indian wars on the plains, and the Geronimo campaign in the Southwest and Mexico as seen through the eyes of a young girl. In this memoir, Birdie Cooper draws us into her world, offering a vibrant portrait of behind-the-scenes life on the western frontier.

Forrestine Cooper Hooker wrote nine novels for young adults based on her childhood and life as a ranch woman in southern Arizona. Steve Wilson, Director Emeritus of the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton, Oklahoma, served in Vietnam with the Fourth Infantry Division as an army combat correspondent. He is the author of Oklahoma Treasures and Treasure Tales, The Spider Rock Treasure: A Texas Mystery of Lost Spanish Gold, and Wichita Falls: A Pictorial History.