There is abundant evidence of the fidelity and bravery of the colored patriots of Rhode Island during the whole war. Before they had been formed into a separate regiment, they had fought valiantly with the white soldiers at Red Bank and elsewhere. Their conduct at the “Battle of’ Rhode Island,” on the 29th of August, 1778, entitles them to perpetual honor. That battle has been pronounced by military authorities to have been one of the best-fought battles of the Revolutionary War. Its success was owing, in a great degree, to the good fighting of the negro soldiers. Mr. Arnold, in his “History of Rhode Island,” thus closes his account of it:—
“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 Col. 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.”—Arnold’s History of Rhode Island, vol. ii. pp. 427, 428.
Three years later, these soldiers are thus mentioned by the Marquis de Chastellux:—
“The 5th [of January, 1781] I did not set out till eleven, although I had thirty miles’ journey to Lebanon. At the passage to the ferry, I met with a detachment of the Rhode-Island regiment,—the same corps we had with us all the last summer; but they have since been recruited and clothed. The greatest part of them are negroes or mulattoes: they are strong, robust men; and those I have seen had a very good appearance.”—Chastellux’s Travels, vol. i. p. 454; London, 1789.
When Col. Greene was surprised and murdered, near Points Bridge, New York, on the 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.
That large numbers of negroes were enrolled in the army, and served faithfully as soldiers during the whole period of the war of the Revolution, may be regarded as a well-established historical fact. And it should be borne in mind, that the enlistment was not confined, by any means, to those who had before enjoyed the privileges of free citizens. Very many slaves were offered to, and received by, the army, on the condition that they were to be emancipated, either at the time of enlisting, or when they had served out the term of their enlistment. The inconsistency of keeping in slavery any person who had taken up arms for the defence of our national liberty had led to the passing of an order forbidding “slaves,” as such, to be received as soldiers.
That colored men were equally serviceable in the last war with Great Britain is true, as the following historical document will show:—
GENERAL JACKSON’S PROCLAMATION TO THE NEGROES.
Headquarters, Seventh Military District, Mobile, Sept. 21, 1814.
To the Free Colored Inhabitants of Louisiana.