A woman, Cathy Williams, disguised herself as a man and served as a Buffalo Soldier from 1866 to 1868.

The army surgeon might have examimed Cathay superficially, or not at all. The result was still historcal. William Cathay, the new recurit, was declared "fit for duty", thus giving assurance of her place in history as the only documented female Buffalo Soldier, and as the only documented African-American woman who served in the U.S. army prior to the 1948 law, which officially allowed women to join the army.
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