RHODE ISLAND.
The Hon. Tristam Burgess, of Rhode Island, in a speech to Congress first month, 1828, said: "At the commencement of the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island had a number of slaves. A regiment of them were enlisted into the Continental service, and no braver men met the enemy in battle; but not one of them was permitted to be a solider until he had first been made a freeman."
"In Rhode Island," says Governor Eustis, in his able speech against slavery in Missouri, twelfth of Twelfth month, 1820, "the blacks formed an entire regiment, and they discharged their duty with zeal and fidelity. The gallant defence of Red Bank, in which the black regiment bore a part, is among the proofs of their valor." In this contest it will be recollected that four hundred men met and repulsed, after a terrible and sanguinary struggle, fifteen hundred Hessian troops, headed by Count Donop. The glory of the defence of Red Bank, which has been pronounced one of the most heroic actions of the war, belongs in reality to black men; yet who now hears them spoken of in connection with it? Among the traits which distinguished the black regiment, was devotion to their officers. In the attack made upon the American lines, near Croton river, on the 13th of Fifth month, 1781, Colonel Greene, the commander of the regiment, was cut down and mortally wounded; but the sabres of the enemy only reached him through the bodies of his faithful guard of blacks, who hovered over him to protect him, every one of whom was killed.
Lieutenant Colonel Barton, of the Rhode Island militia, planned a bold exploit for the purpose of surprising and taking Major-General Prescott, the commanding officer of the royal army at Newport. Taking with him in the night about forty men, in two boats, with oars muffled, he had the address to elude the vigilance of the ships of war and guard boats, and having arrived undiscovered at the General's quarters, they were taken for the sentinels, and the General was not alarmed until the captors were at the door of his lodging chamber, which was fast closed. A negro man named Prince instantly thrust his head through the panel door and seized the victim while in bed. The General's aid-de-camp leaped from a window undressed, and attempted to escape but was taken, and with the General brought off in safety.—Thatcher's Military Journal, August 3, 1777.