PREFACE.
In the month of July, 1847, the eloquent Bard of Freedom, John G. Whittier, contributed to the National Era a statement of facts relative to the Military Services of Colored Americans in the Revolution of 1776, and the War of 1812. Being a member of the Society of Friends, he disclaimed any eulogy upon the shedding of blood, even in the cause of acknowledged Justice, but, says he, "when we see a whole nation doing honor to the memories of one class of its defenders, to the total neglect of another class, who had the misfortune to be of darker complexion, we cannot forego the satisfaction of inviting notice to certain historical facts, which, for the last half century, have been quietly elbowed aside, as no more deserving of a place in patriotic recollections, than the descendants of the men to whom the facts in question relates, have a place in a Fourth of July procession [in the nation's estimation].
"Of the services and sufferings of the Colored Soldiers of the Revolution, no attempt has, to our knowledge, been made to preserve a record. They have had no historian. With here and there an exception, they have all passed away, and only some faint traditions linger among their descendants. Yet enough is known to show that the Free Colored Men of the United States bore their full proportion of the sacrifices and trials of the Revolutionary War."
In any attempt, then, to rescue from oblivion the name and fame of those who, though "tinged with the hated stain," yet had warm hearts and active hands in the "times that tried men's souls," I will first gratefully tender him my thanks for the service his compilation has afforded me, and my acknowledgments also to other individuals who have kindly contributed facts for this pamphlet. Imperfect as these pages may prove, to prepare even these, journeys have been made to confer with the living, and even pilgrimages to grave-yards, to save all that may still be gleaned from their fast disappearing records.
There are those who will ask,—why make a parade of the military services of Colored Americans, instead of recording their attention to and progress in the various other departments of civil, social, and political elevation? To this let me answer, that I yield to no one in appreciating the propriety and pertinency of every effort on the part of Colored Americans, in all pursuits, which, as members of the human family, it becomes them to share in; and, among these, my predilections are least and last for what constitutes the pomp and circumstances of War.
Did the limits of this work permit, I could furnish an elaborate list of those who have distinguished themselves as Teachers, Editors, Orators, Mechanics, Clergymen, Artists, Farmers, Poets, Lawyers, Physicians, Merchants, etc., to whose perennial fame be it recorded that most of their attainments were reached through difficulties unknown to any but those whose sin is the curl of the hair and the hue of the skin.
There is now an institution of learning in the State of New York, Central College, which recently employed, as Professor of Belles Lettres, a young Colored man, Charles L. Reason, and who, on resigning his chair, dropped his mantle gracefully upon the shoulders of William G. Allen, another Colored young man as worthy for scholastic abilities and gentlemanly deportment.
These men, as Teachers, especially in Colleges open to all, irrespective of accidental differences, are doing a mighty work in uprooting prejudice. The influences thus gathered are already felt. Many a young white man or woman who, in early life has imbibed wrong notions of the Colored man's inferiority, is taught a new lesson by the Colored Professors at McGrawville; and they leave its honored walls with thanksgiving in their hearts for the conversion from Pro-Slavery Heathenism to the Gospel of Christian Freedom; and are thus prepared to go forth as Pioneers in the cause of Human Brotherhood.
But the Orator's voice and Author's pen have both been eloquent in detailing the merits of Colored Americans in these various ramifications of society, while a combination of circumstances have veiled from the public eye a narration of those military services which are generally conceded as passports to the honorable and lasting notice of Americans.
Boston, May, 1851.