Henry Ossian Flipper

• Born: March 21, 1856
• Birthplace: Thomasville, Georgia
• Died: May 3, 1940
• Place of death: Atlanta, Georgia

Military leader and engineer

Flipper was the first African American cadet to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1877. His military career ended with a court-martial in 1881 for misconduct that led to his dismissal from the U.S. Army. Flipper subsequently became a prolific writer, translator, surveyor, and engineer.

Early Life

Born into slavery in 1856, Henry Ossian Flipper was the eldest of Festus and Isabella Flipper’s five sons. His father, a talented shoemaker and carriage trimmer, was able to operate a successful business in Atlanta after the Civil War. Because of the financial stability of the family, Flipper was able to receive a good education in schools operated by the American Missionary Association. In 1869, he entered Atlanta University.

In 1873, Georgia Republican congressman James Crawford Freeman wrote a strong letter of recommendation for Flipper to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, after Flipper passed the required examinations. Flipper’s years at West Point were wrought with hardship because his fellow cadets ostracized him, yet he persevered. He graduated four years later, ranked fiftieth in a class of seventy-seven graduates.

Life’s Work

Flipper received his first assignment in the Tenth Cavalry, Company A, one of two black regiments organized after the Civil War, at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Two years later, the company was transferred to Fort Elliot, Texas, but in November, it returned to Fort Sill. While at Fort Sill, Flipper became the post’s engineer. He was ordered to supervise the construction of a drainage system to eliminate stagnant pools of water that were breeding grounds for malaria-spreading mosquitoes. His efforts were successful, and in 1977, “Flipper’s Ditch” was designated as a national historical landmark. Flipper also surveyed routes for telegraph lines and a road from the fort to Gainesville, Texas. In May, 1880, Company A left Fort Sill for Fort Concho, Texas, and a few weeks later, the company began pursing Apache leader Victorio and his small band of warriors, who had been conducting raids near the Rio Grande.

A year later, Flipper was stationed at Fort Davis, where he was assigned the duties of acting assistant quartermaster and acting commissary of subsistence. After several months, some of the commissary money appeared to be missing. Fearing his new commander, Colonel William R. Shafter, who had earned a reputation as a harsh disciplinarian, Flipper tried to conceal the loss until he could account for the funds. He eventually was relieved of duty and court-martialed in late 1881 on charges of embezzlement. The court acquitted Flipper of the embezzlement charge but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. He was dismissed from military service in June, 1882.

After leaving the Army, Flipper excelled in a variety of business and government-sponsored endeavors. In 1887, he opened his own civil and mining engineering offices in Nogales, Arizona. From 1893 to 1901, he worked as a special agent for the Court of Private Land Claims in the U.S. Department of Justice. He was next employed as an engineer for a mining company in Mexico until the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution. Flipper then moved to El Paso and served as a representative for the Sierra Consolidated Mines Company, but by 1919, he had assumed a position with a Senate subcommittee on foreign relations, translating Spanish-language documents and legal tracts. A few years later, he became a special assistant to the secretary of the interior in the Alaskan Engineering Commission. In 1923, Flipper was hired as the resident engineer for the Pantepec Oil Company, a New York-based business that maintained operations in Venezuela. Flipper remained in this position until his retirement in 1930. He died of a heart attack in 1940.

Significance

After his court-martial, Flipper spent the remainder of his life petitioning to have his name cleared. He made numerous attempts to overturn the conviction by the passage of a bill by Congress, the only option open to him, but none of his efforts ever gained enough interest or support in the Legislature. After his death, Flipper’s descendants continued his efforts to clear his name. In 1976, the Army Board for the Correction of Military Records reviewed the court-martial and concluded that the punishment was unduly harsh. Flipper received an honorable discharge and, after further lobbying, a posthumous pardon from President Bill Clinton in 1999. West Point created an annual award in Flipper’s honor for an outstanding senior who exemplifies leadership abilities despite having to endure hardships.

Bibliography

Flipper, Henry O. The Colored Cadet at West Point. New York: H. Lee, 1878. Flipper wrote this personal account of his experiences at the military academy shortly after graduation.

Jackson, Darryl W., Jeffrey H. Smith, and Edward H. Sisson. “Bending Toward Justice: The Posthumous Pardon of Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper.” Indiana Law Journal 74, no. 4 (Fall, 1999): 1251-1297. The authors interpret the evidence of Flipper’s court-martial, concluding that there was a miscarriage of justice because of Flipper’s race.

Robinson, Charles M. The Fall of a Black Army Officer: Racism and Myth of Henry O. Flipper. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. Examining military records that were not previously available, Robinson analyzes the court-martial proceedings to determine whether racism unduly influenced the Army’s decision. Describes how financial mismanagement often occurred in the frontier Army because officers, including Flipper, did not receive enough training in how to properly handle accounts.