The Trooper Who Never Reached Cuba

Even the dead man's name is unsettled. He appears in the record as Joab Collins, as Abe Collins, and as Jacob Collins.

The soldiers were in Lakeland because Tampa had run out of room. Some 64,000 men were already there, with an insufficient water supply and a shortage of hospital space, so the Army spread the overflow inland. Lakeland had around 1,000 residents, half the size of Bartow, the county seat, and one advantage over its rival: it was one of the most important railroad towns in the Plant system, forty miles east of Tampa. Between May and August of 1898 perhaps 9,000 soldiers came through it, with their horses, mules and wagons. One of them described the town as slower than the resurrection.

The Tenth Cavalry reached Lakeland over three days, May 14 to 16, and camped on the ground where Lakeland Middle Academy stands today. Because it was the first regiment to arrive, it was named Provost Guard. That gave Black troopers the authority to stop white soldiers, demand that passes be produced for inspection, and arrest them. Among the Tenth's officers was a twenty-seven-year-old first lieutenant of Troop D named John J. Pershing, who arrived on May 16 and departed on June 7.

These were men who had come off years of fighting in the Indian wars out west. Bill Rufty, writing in The Ledger in 1998, put the collision plainly: in a town where Black residents were expected to step aside on the sidewalk to let white people pass, soldiers who had faced death daily demanded to be treated as equals. Their training days in camp began at 0500 and ended at 1845. A trooper carried a blanket, a shelter half, a poncho, a canteen, a haversack, and a cartridge belt with 125 rounds in it.

The Buffalo Soldiers were in Lakeland from mid-May until June 7, when they were moved to Tampa and then to Cuba. In July the Tenth stormed San Juan Hill alongside Theodore Roosevelt and the Rough Riders. Hetherington's verdict on the departure was that Lakeland was relieved to see them go.

James Johnson went to Bartow instead.

He and Young were tried there. Young was acquitted and released. Johnson was convicted of second-degree murder. He filed an appeal for a new trial, and the appeal was never granted, because on Nov. 26, 1898, James Johnson died in Bartow. The cause recorded was tuberculosis.

Richard Wilder, the Lakeland man who spent years assembling what is known about him, has said he does not take that record at face value. Johnson was waiting on his appeal. His witnesses, the men who had been on that street with him, were on ships going to Cuba. Then he died, before the appeal could become active. Wilder calls it a big question mark.

A funeral was held for Johnson at First Providence Church in Bartow, and he was buried. His exact burial site has not been located.

In May of 2020, the Polk County historian William Harris published an article called Soldiers in the Sand for the Polk County Historical Society, recounting the events of May 16, 1898. Wilder, president of the Col. Charles Young Chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers Florida, read it and went after the rest of the story.

The chapter bought a headstone. In late November 2020, at eleven on a Saturday morning, the Buffalo Soldiers Florida held a symbolic funeral and headstone dedication for Pvt. James Johnson at Evergreen Cemetery in Bartow, near State Road 60 and Baker Avenue.

The chapter has been trying to find out whether James Johnson left any living descendants.