Levi Morris (ca. 1850-1877) is a Notable burial at https://www.cem.va.gov/cems/nchp/santafe.asp.  He was a Buffalo Soldier. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1872 from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as a plasterer. During his five-year tour of duty he was assigned to one of the segregated regiments established for black soldiers in 1866. Private Morris joined Company B, 9th Cavalry, and accompanied his regiment to the western frontier, primarily forts in Texas. He was murdered in New Mexico while traveling between Forts Craig and Bayard on June 28, 1877, and was buried in the post cemetery at Fort Craig. However, his was among 60 gravesites looted more than a century later. In 2009, Morris’ remains were reinterred at Santa Fe National Cemetery with full military honors.  https://www.deseret.com/2009/7/19/20329689/3-buffalo-soldiers-to-get-proper-funeral-in-new-mexico.
*The preceding content is not intended as a comprehensive biography, but it highlights their significance as a result of military or civilian distinction, lasting achievements, or association with impactful national events. 

Morris and two other buffalo soldiers initially interred at Ft. Craig before being reinterred at Santa Fe National Cemetery in 2009

Morris and two other buffalo soldier interred at Ft. Craig

Image of Confederate and Union soldiers in battle.

Santa Fe National Cemetery

Pvt. Levi Morris served with Co. B, 9th Ca. He was from Akron, Ohio, and died at age 27. Pvt. Morris died a slow, painful death in 1877, the result of an ax wound to the back inflicted during an altercation with another trooper.
Morris and Pvt. Thomas Smith, Co. A, 125th Inf., from New Market, Ky., and Pvt. David Ford, Co. C, 38th Inf. from Taylor County, Ky., were Laid to rest in New Mexico at Fort Craig Post Cemetery. The three lost Buffalo Soldiers whose remains were reburied in the Santa Fe National Cemetery in New Mexico, July 2009; their remains had been left behind by the Army more than 130 years before. The soldiers had served in the remote outposts on the Western frontier. Their bodies were found during a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation investigation of cemetery looting at Fort Craig in southern New Mexico.


LEVI MORRIS

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