"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 May, 1781, Col. 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 blacks, who gathered around him to protect him, and every one of whom was killed."
Now the negro began to take the field; not scattered here and there throughout the army, filling up the shattered ranks of white regiments, but in organizations composed entirely of men of their own race, officered, however, by white officers, men of high social and military character and standing. The success of the measure in Rhode Island, emboldened the effort in Massachusetts, where the advocates of separate negro organizations had been laboring zealously for its accomplishment. Officers of the army in the field, expressed their desire to be placed in command of negro troops, in separate and distinct organizations. Every effort, however, up to this time to induce Massachusetts to consent to the proposition had failed. Rhode Island alone sent her negro regiments to the field, whose gallantry during the war more than met the most sanguine expectations of their warmest friends, and fully merited the trust and confidence of the State and country. As the struggle proceeded, re-enforcements were more frequently in demand; but recruits were scarce, and the question of arming negroes became again prominent in the colonies and the army.
In April, 1778, Thomas Kench, then serving in an artillery regiment, addressed letters to the Massachusetts Legislature urging the enlistment of negroes. He wrote:
"A re-enforcement can quickly be raised of two or three hundred men. Will your honors grant the liberty, and give me the command of the party? And what I refer to is negroes. We have divers of them in our service, mixed with white men. But I think it would be more proper to raise a body by themselves, than to have them intermixed with the white men; and their ambition would entirely be to outdo the white men in every measure that the fortunes of war calls a soldier to endure. And I could rely with dependence upon them in the field of battle or to any post that I was sent to defend with them; and they would think themselves happy could they gain their freedom by bearing a part of subduing the enemy that is invading our land, and clear a peaceful inheritance for their masters, and posterity yet to come, that they are now slaves to."
The letter from which this extract was made was duly referred to a joint committee "to consider the same and report." Some days later "a resolution of the General Assembly of Rhode Island for enlisting negroes in the public service" was referred to the same committee. They duly reported the draft of a law, differing little from the Rhode Island Resolution. A separate organization of negro companies, by Kench, does not appear to have been deemed advisable at that time. The usage was continued of "taking," in the words of Kench, "negroes in our service, intermixed with the white men."
The negroes of Boston and their abolition friends, rather insisted upon the intermingling of the races in the army, believing that this course had a greater tendency to destroy slavery, and the inequality of rights among the blacks and whites; though it deprived the negroes, as we now see, of receiving due credit for their valor, save in a few individual cases. It was not in Massachusetts alone, but in many other States that the same idea prevailed; and now the facts connected with the services of the negroes are to be gathered only in fragments, from the histories of villages and towns, or among the archives of the State, in a disconnected and unsatisfactory form.
The legislature of New York, two months after the murder of Col. Greene and his faithful negro troops at Point's Bridge, in that State, by the British, passed an act (March, 1781) looking to the raising of two regiments. The sixth section of the act reads as follows:
"And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that any person who shall deliver one or more of his able-bodied male slaves to any warrant officer, as aforesaid, to serve in either of the above regiments or independent corps, and produce a certificate thereof, signed by any person authorized to muster and receive the men to be raised by virtue of this act, and produce such certificate to the Surveyor-General, shall, for every male slave so entered and mustered as aforesaid, be entitled to the location and grant of one right, in manner as in and by this act is directed; and shall be, and hereby is discharged from any further maintenance of such slave, any law to the contrary notwithstanding. And such slave so entering as aforesaid, who shall serve for the term of three years or until regularly discharged, shall, immediately after such service or discharge, be, and is hereby declared to be, a free man of this State."
In 1821, in the convention which revised the constitution of New York, Mr. Clark, speaking in favor of allowing negroes to vote, said in the course of his remarks:
"My honorable colleague has told us, that, as the colored people are not required to contribute to the protection or defence of the State, they are not entitled to an equal participation in the privileges of its citizens. But, Sir, whose fault is this? Have they ever refused to do military duty when called upon? It is haughtily asked, Who will stand in the ranks shoulder to shoulder with a negro? I answer, No one, in time of peace; no one, when your musters and trainings are looked upon as mere pastimes; no one, when your militia will shoulder their muskets and march to their trainings with as much unconcern as they would go to a sumptuous entertainment or a splendid ball. But, Sir, when the hour of danger approaches, your white 'militia' are just as willing that the man of color should be set up as a mark to be shot at by the enemy, as to be set up themselves. In the War of the Revolution, these people helped to fight your battles by land and by sea. Some of your States were glad to turn out corps of colored men, and to stand 'shoulder to shoulder' with them.