Upon enlisting in the army in October of 1866, Emanuel Stance was described as bright-eyed, hard-nosed, intelligent, well-spoken and wiry. But because of his diminutive stature, a little over five feet, he almost wasn't accepted. His ability to read and write no doubt helped sway his recruiter, and soon the former sharecropper was riding with Company F, 9th U.S. Cavalry, one of the regiments made up of African Americans who would wear proudly the unofficial title of "Buffalo Soldiers."

Because of his ability to handle paperwork, he got his sergeant's stripes within ten months as the Buffalo Soldiers began policing the frontier tribes and American settlers, and protecting the vital stage and mail routes. In two years Stance had five encounters with hostile Indians. In May of 1870, Stance's Company F rode out from Fort McKavett, Texas, to punish the Kickapoo Indians for raiding local settlements and to look for two captured children.

With a detachment of only ten privates, he attacked a band of Indians herding stolen horses. He immediately gave the order to charge, scattering the Indians and capturing the horses. He and his men spent a hair-raising night camped at Kickapoo Springs listening to the Indians' war dance just beyond the hills.

The next day he attacked a band of hostiles about to ambush two government wagons, and when attacked by the same band later in the day, coolly turned his men about and drove his antagonists off, capturing six more ponies.

Later, while watering their horses at a spring, his men were attacked by the Indians. This time his let his men loose to do what they may. The Indians retreated quickly. Sergeant Emanuel and his little troop proceeded on their way and recovered the two captured white children.

On July 24, 1870, Emanuel Stance, former sharecropper, United States Army sergeant and Buffalo Soldier proudly accepted the Congressional Medal of Honor, "for Valor in the Battle of Kickapoo Springs," and became the first African American to win his country's highest military honor in the post-Civil War period.

Sixteen years after the fight, Stance, now a First Sergeant, was still in the Army. His unit, F Troop, had been reassigned to Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and found little to do other than chase an occasional outlaw. Garrison duty bore heavily upon the soldiers. Tempers flared and brawls became a frequent occurrence. The non-commissioned officers began to lose control of their men and the guard house filled with bored, harassed soldiers who had responded to pettiness with violence. Stance was one of the more strict disciplinarians in the unit and a center of the conflict.

In December 1887, the body of First Sergeant Stance was found on the road to Crawford, Nebraska with four bullet wounds; the probable victim of his own men.