Col. Edwin N. Hardy at Fort Huachuca’s parade ground with his beloved dog Skipper at his side.

If Army regulations governed where dogs could and could not go on a military reservation, little heed was given them by Col. Edwin N. Hardy. Skipper, keeping pace with the colonel and his mount on the Fort Huachuca parade ground, was the colonel’s constant companion. And given that his master was the post commander, the frisky Terrier may have been the most photographed dog ever to live within this southern Arizona Army installation.
Notwithstanding his affection for dogs, Col. Hardy was a gifted equestrian whose first love was horses. Following the close of World War I, he met his future wife, Charlotte, at Yellowstone, Wyo. “I first fell in love with this girl’s horse mastership,” he told an interviewer in 1942, “and then with the girl herself.”
Born in Tennessee in 1887, Col. Hardy considered a career in law but opted instead for an appointment to West Point. Described as a sandy-haired, blue-eyed, “biggish” man, he possessed a natural ability for athletics and excelled at the academy in a variety of sports.
His superior horsemanship did not go unnoticed. After graduation in 1911, he was ordered to the Philippines as a 2nd lieutenant of cavalry. Then, as a 1st lieutenant, he was sent to the Mexican border as part of Gen. Pershing’s Punitive Expedition. As Col. Hardy put it, he “joined up” to chase Pancho Villa.
As a captain, then major, he saw duty training troops in cavalry, infantry, and field artillery regiments at army posts across the nation. Three times during World War I, he received orders for European duty, and each time the orders were rescinded. His value, reasoned the army, lay in training troops, particularly soldiers on horseback. “The greatest things in my life have come to me through horses,” he once said, “but through horses I have lost one of the dearest things to a soldier — a chance as a combat commander.”
After the Armistice in November 1918, a succession of assignments followed, including a brief stint as military attaché to the Ecuadorian embassy. But the jobs he coveted involved horses. In 1931, he was assigned duty with Army Cavalry School, teaching tactics and logistics on horseback. From 1932 to 1937, he commanded the Remount Depot at Fort Robinson, Neb. and later at Lexington, Ky. In 1939, he was appointed chief of Remount, Office of Quartermaster General, Washington, D.C. As war neared, and the Army expanded, he purchased 30,000 horses for the cavalry. He insisted on a superior class of animal, and he greatly improved the Army’s stock.
It was Col. Hardy’s intention to retire, take over his father-in-law’s Montana ranch and raise horses and cattle. World War II interrupted his plans. “Since I am considered too old in my grade to command combat troops,” he said, “the job I now have is my second choice.” That job, which he assumed in April 1942, was post commander of Fort Huachuca. A month after his arrival, the 93rd Division, an all-black division under the command of white officers, was reactivated at the fort. Later, the all-black 92nd Division was attached to the fort as well.
It was his mandate to operate an installation where the largest concentration of black troops in the history of the U.S. military was trained for service in World War II. It was also his job to run a strictly segregated post.
During this pre-Civil Rights era, racism was endemic in the United States and the military was no exception. Segregation in all things was rigidly imposed and Fort Huachuca was greatly enlarged to accommodate separate facilities for blacks and whites. Apparently, however, Col. Hardy was an effective administrator who treated his soldiers with as much fairness as an unfair situation would permit.
“I have the privilege of helping to build the largest military Negro unit in the world,” he said. “The American people are going to be proud of the war record of this outfit. Furthermore, the by-products of our work here now will find constructive expression…after this war.”
The 93rd was assigned to the Pacific, the 92nd to the European theater. Each experienced heavy combat. A Fort Huachuca biographer, influenced perhaps by a tinge of racism, was less that ebullient in his praise when he wrote that each division “gave a creditable account of itself in combat overseas.”
Fort Huachuca was Col. Hardy’s last assignment. He retired in July 1945, and lived out his life at Scarlet Gate Ranch in Miller Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains. He passed away in 1963, and was buried in the post cemetery.
— W. Lane Rogers. Photo courtesy of Fort Huachuca Museum.