Pompey Factor

Covering the retreat, he helped bring his officer to safety.

Pompey Factor was born in Arkansas in 1849 to a Black Seminole father and a Biloxi mother. As an infant he accompanied his family to Mexico, where Black Seminoles sought refuge from kidnapping and enslavement. The community spent two decades there before some members returned to Texas and entered United States Army service.

Factor enlisted as an Indian Scout at Fort Duncan on 16 August 1870. He worked alongside other Black Seminoles whose knowledge of tracking and the border country was valued by the Army. On 25 April 1875, he accompanied Lieutenant John Bullis and scouts John Ward and Isaac Payne on a patrol near the Pecos River.

After following horse tracks to Eagle's Nest Crossing, the four men attacked a larger group of Comanche. During the ensuing exchange they were forced to withdraw. Bullis could not mount his frightened horse. Factor and Payne provided covering fire while Ward returned for the officer. All four escaped and rode back to Fort Clark. Bullis recommended the three scouts for the Medal of Honor, which Factor received in May 1875.

His later life again crossed the United States-Mexico border. Following the disruption of the scout community in the later 1870s, he lived for periods in Mexico and eventually returned to Texas. He farmed in Mexico and around Brackettville. Factor died in Brackettville on 29 March 1928 and was buried in the Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery, alongside others whose service had shaped the history of the Black Seminole scouts.

Medal of Honor citation

With three other men, he participated in a charge against 25 hostiles while on a scouting patrol.