n the course of time there arose an urgent need for the Negro in the
army. The army reached the point when almost all sorts of soldiers were
acceptable. In 1778 General Varnum induced General Washington to send
certain officers from Valley Forge to Rhode Island to enlist a battalion
of Negroes to fill the depleted ranks of that State.[38] Setting forth in
the preamble that "history affords us frequent precedents of the wisest,
freest and bravest nations having liberated their slaves and enlisted
them as soldiers to fight in defense of their country," the Rhode Island
Assembly resolved to raise a regiment of slaves, who were to be freed upon
their enlistment, their owners to be paid by the State according to the
valuation of a committee. Further light was thrown upon this action in the
statement of Governor Cooke, who in reporting the action of the Assembly
to Washington boasted that liberty was given to every effective slave to
don the uniform and that upon his passing muster he became absolutely
free and entitled to all the wages, bounties and encouragements given to
any other soldier.[39]

The State of New Hampshire enlisted Negroes and gave to those who served
three years the same bounty offered others. This bounty was turned over to
their masters as the price of the slaves in return for which their owners
issued bills of sale and certificates of freedom.[40] In this way slavery
practically passed out in New Hampshire. This affair did not proceed so
smoothly as this in Massachusetts. In 1778 that legislature had a committee
report in favor of raising a regiment of mulattoes and Negroes. This action
was taken as a result upon receiving an urgent letter from Thomas Kench, a
member of an artillery regiment serving on Castle Island. Kench referred to
the fact that there were divers of Negroes in the battalions mixed with
white men, but he thought that the blacks would have a better esprit de
corps should they be organized in companies by themselves. But the feeling
that slaves should not fight the battles of freemen and a confusion of the
question of enlistment with that of emancipation for which Massachusetts
was not then prepared,[41] led to a heated debate in the Massachusetts
Council and finally to blows in the coffee houses in lower Boston. In
such an excited state of affairs no further action was taken. Finding
recruiting difficult it is said that Connecticut undertook to raise a
colored regiment[42] and in 1781 New