9th Cavalry Regiment (United States) in the context of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division

The San Elizario Salt War, also known as the Salinero Revolt or the El Paso Salt War, was an extended and complex range war of the mid-19th century that revolved around the ownership and control of immense salt lakes at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains in West Texas. What began in 1866 as a political and legal struggle among Anglo Texan politicians and capitalists gave rise in 1877 to an armed struggle by ethnic Mexican and Tejano inhabitants living on both sides of the Rio Grande near El Paso against a leading politician, who was supported by the Texas Rangers. The struggle reached its climax with the siege and surrender of 20 Texas Rangers to a popular army of perhaps 500 men in the town of San Elizario, Texas. The arrival of the African-American 9th Cavalry and a sheriff's posse of New Mexico mercenaries caused hundreds of Tejanos to flee to Mexico, some in permanent exile. The right of individuals to own the salt lakes, which had previously been held as a community asset, was established by force of arms.

The conflict began as a local quarrel and grew in stages to finally occupy the attention of both the Texas and federal governments. Newspaper editors throughout the nation covered the story, often with frenzied tone and in lurid detail. At the conflict's height, as many as 650 men bore arms. About 20 to 30 men were killed in the 12-year fight for salt, and perhaps double that number were wounded.

A troop is a military sub-subunit, originally a small formation of cavalry, subordinate to a squadron. In many armies a troop is the equivalent element to the infantry section or platoon. Exceptions are the US Cavalry and the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery where a troop is a subunit comparable to an infantry company or artillery battery. Historically the remainder of the Royal Horse Artillery used the term troop in the same manner but they eventually aligned with the rest of the Royal Regiment of Artillery in referring to troops as subordinate to artillery batteries.

Troops is often used to refer to the other members of one's company or cause, but because of its military connotations, it conveys a particularly altruistic type of dedicated worker. Traditionally, troops refers to the soldiers in a military.

James Franklin Bell (January 9, 1856 – January 8, 1919) was an officer in the United States Army who served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 1906 to 1910.

Bell was a major general in the Regular United States Army, commanding the Department of the East, with headquarters at Governors Island, New York at the time of his death in 1919. He entered West Point in 1874, and graduated 38th in a class of 43 in 1878, with a commission as second lieutenant of the 9th Cavalry Regiment, a black unit.