Cathay Williams was born enslaved in Missouri in the mid-1840s and would go on to become the only documented Black woman to serve as a Buffalo Soldier in the U.S. Army.During the Civil War, Union forces took control of the region where she lived and she was attached to the army, working as a cook and washerwoman for officers. Through this experience, she observed military life firsthand — something few women, especially formerly enslaved women, ever had access to.On November 15, 1866, Williams disguised herself as a man and enlisted under the name William Cathay. She joined Company A of the 38th U.S. Infantry Regiment, one of the newly formed all-Black regular army units later known as the Buffalo Soldiers.She served for nearly two years at posts including Jefferson Barracks, Fort Cummings, and Fort Bayard in the New Mexico Territory. Like many Black soldiers stationed in the West, she faced harsh conditions, disease, limited supplies, and inferior equipment.Williams managed to conceal her identity despite multiple hospital visits, but in 1868 an army surgeon finally discovered she was a woman. She was discharged that October on a medical certificate of disability.Years later, she applied for a military pension based on illnesses developed during service, but the Army denied her claim in 1892. After that, she largely disappears from the historical record, and the date of her death remains unknown.Today, Cathay Williams is remembered as a symbol of determination, survival, and the hidden stories of women in military history — especially Black women whose contributions were often erased.