Tracing
his separate history in the Revolutionary War is a task of much
difficulty, for the reason that while individual instances of valor and
patriotism abound, there were so few separate bodies of Negro troops
that no separate record appears to have been made. The simple fact is
that the fathers as a rule enlisted men both for the Army and Navy, just
as now it is only continued by the Navy; that is to say, they were
assigned wherever needed, without regard to race or color. Varner's
Rhode Island Battalion appears to have been the only large aggregation
of Negroes in this war, though Connecticut, New York, and New Hampshire
each furnished one separate company in addition to individuals scattered
through their other organizations, so that ere the close of the war,
there were very few brigades, regiments, or companies in which the
Negro was not in evidence.

The free Negro appears to have gone in from the beginning without
attracting or calling out special comment. Later, as men grew scarcer
and necessity more pressing, slaves were taken in also, and then the
trouble began. Those who held slaves did not care to lose them in this
way. Others who had not did not think it just the thing in a war for
avowed freedom to place an actual slave in the ranks to fight. Some did
not want the Negro, bonded or free, to take part as a soldier in the
struggle. So that in May, 1775, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety
voted that thereafter only free men should be enlisted. In July, General
Gates issued an order prohibiting further enlistments of Negroes, but
saying nothing of those already in the service.

In October a council of war presided over by General Washington,
comprising three major-generals and six brigadier-generals, voted
unanimously against the enlistment of slaves, and by a decided majority
against further enlistments of Negroes. Ten days later in a conference
held at Cambridge, Mass., participated in by General Washington,
Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Lynch, and the deputy
governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island, a similar action was taken.

On the 7th November, 1775, Earl Dundore, commanding the force of His
Majesty the King, issued a proclamation offering freedom and equal pay
to all slaves who would join his armies as soldiers. It did not take the
colonists long to find out their mistake, although General Washington,
in accordance with the expressed will of his officers and of the
Committee of