CHAPTER XXXIII. BLACK MEN IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.
The Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770, may be regarded as the first act in the great drama of the American Revolution. “From that moment,” said Daniel Webster, “we may date the severance of the British Empire.” The presence of the British soldiers in King Street excited the patriotic indignation of the people. The whole community was stirred, and sage counsellors were deliberating and writing and talking about the public grievances. But it was not for “the wise and prudent” to be the first to act against the encroachments of arbitrary power.
A motley rabble of men and boys, led by Crispus Attucks, a negro, and shouting, “The way to get rid of these soldiers is to attack the main guard; strike at the root; this is the nest!” with more valor than discretion, they rushed to King Street, and were fired upon by Captain Preston’s company. Crispus Attucks was the first to fall; he and Samuel Gray and Jonas Caldwell were killed on the spot. Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded.
The excitement which followed was intense. The bells of the town were rung; an impromptu meeting was held, and an immense assembly was gathered. Three days after, on the 8th, a public funeral of the martyrs took place. The shops in Boston were closed; all the bells of Boston and neighboring towns were rung. It was said that a greater number of persons assembled on this occasion than were ever before gathered on the continent for a similar purpose.
The body of Attucks, the negro slave, had been placed in Faneuil Hall, with that of Caldwell, both being strangers in the city. Maverick was buried from his mother’s house in Union Street, and Gray from his brother’s, in Royal Exchange Lane. The four hearses formed a junction in King Street, and there the procession marched on in columns six deep, with a long file of coaches belonging to the most distinguished citizens, to the middle burying-ground, where the four victims were deposited in one grave, over which a stone was placed with the following inscription:
“Long as in Freedom’s cause the wise contend,
Dear to your country shall your fame extend;
While to the world the lettered stone shall tell,
Where Caldwell, Attucks, Gray and Maverick fell.”
The anniversary of this event was publicly commemorated in Boston, by an oration and other exercises, every year until after our national independence was achieved, when the Fourth of July was substituted for the fifth of March, as the more proper day for general celebration. Not only was the occasion commemorated, but the martyrs who then gave up their lives were remembered and honored. For half a century after the close of the war, the name of Crispus Attucks was honorably mentioned by the most noted men of the country, who were not blinded by foolish prejudice, which, to say the most, was only skin-deep.
A single passage from Bancroft’s history will give a succinct and clear account of the condition of the army in respect to colored soldiers, at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill:—
“Nor should history forget to record, that, as in the army at Cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free negroes of the colony had their representatives. For the right of free negroes to bear arms in the public defence was, at that day, as little disputed in New England as their other rights. They took their place not in a separate corps, but in the ranks with the white man; and their names may be read on the pension-rolls of the country, side by side with those of other soldiers of the Revolution.”[48]
The capture of Major-General Prescott, of the British army, on the 9th of July, 1777, was an occasion of great rejoicing throughout the country. Prince, the valiant negro who seized that officer, ought always to be remembered with honor for his important service.
The battle of Red Bank, and the battle of Rhode Island, on the 29th of August, 1778, entitle the blacks to perpetual honor.[49]
When Colonel Green was surprised and murdered, near Points Bridge, New York, on 14th of May, 1781, his colored soldiers heroically defended him till they were cut to pieces; and the enemy reached him over the dead bodies of his faithful negroes. Of this last engagement, Arnold, in his “History of Rhode Island,” says:—
“A third time the enemy, with desperate courage and increased strength, attempted to assail the redoubt and would have carried it, but for the timely aid of two continental battalions despatched by Sullivan to support his almost exhausted troops. It was in repelling these furious onsets, that the newly raised black regiment, under Colonel Greene, distinguished itself by deeds of desperate valor. Posted behind a thicket in the valley, they three times drove back the Hessians, who charged repeatedly down the hill to dislodge them; and so determined were the enemy in these successive charges, that, the day after the battle, the Hessian colonel, upon whom this duty had devolved, applied to exchange his command, and go to New York, because he dared not lead his regiment again to battle, lest his men should shoot him for having caused them so much loss.”