Henry Ossian Flipper

author

Henry Ossian Flipper

1856–1940

Born into slavery and determined to learn, this pioneering soldier became the first African American to graduate from West Point. His life moved through military service, engineering work, and a long fight to clear his name after a wrongful conviction.

1 Audiobook

Henry Ossian Flipper, the Colored Cadet at West Point Autobiography of Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, U.S.A., First Graduate of Color from the U.S. Military Academy

Henry Ossian Flipper, the Colored Cadet at West Point Autobiography of Lieut. Henry Ossian Flipper, U.S.A., First Graduate of Color from the U.S. Military Academy

by Henry Ossian Flipper

About the author

Born in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1856, Henry Ossian Flipper was raised in slavery and came of age during the Civil War and Reconstruction. After the war, he studied in schools supported by the American Missionary Association and won an appointment to the United States Military Academy.

In 1877, he became the first African American graduate of West Point and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He served with the 10th Cavalry, one of the Buffalo Soldier regiments, and also worked as an engineer, including on drainage projects at Fort Sill. In 1882, after a court-martial tied to missing commissary funds, he was dismissed from the Army.

Flipper went on to build a wide-ranging career as an engineer, surveyor, translator, and writer, with important work in the American Southwest and in Mexico. Decades after his dismissal, official reviews concluded he had been treated unjustly, and President Bill Clinton granted him a posthumous pardon in 1999. Today he is remembered as a barrier-breaking figure whose perseverance left a lasting mark on American history.