My apologies, but this article has been removed for a very good reason.

It has been expanded into a

book and will be available in May or June 2019 via Helion & Company in the U.K., and in the U.S.
through their American distributor Casemate Publishing.

https://www.casematepublishers.com/distributed-publishers/helion-and-company/they-were-good-
soldiers.html#.XHgNjIhKiM8

https://www.amazon.com/They-Were-Good-Soldiers-African-Americans/dp/1911628542

The book’s table of contents and Preface is appended. Cheers, John Rees

“They were good soldiers.”

African Americans Serving in the Continental Army, 1775-1783
John U. Rees

1. Introduction
2. ‘I do promise to every Negroe … full security … within these Lines …’:
Black Americans in Service to the Crown.
3. ‘Numbers of Free Negroes are desirous of inlisting,’:
An Overview of African Americans in the Continental Army
4. Analysis: ‘Return of the Negroes in the Army,’ August 1778
5. ‘At Eutau Springs he received three wounds …’
Regimental Service and Soldier Narratives
a. Unit Lineage and Why it Matters.
b. 1775 Regiments of Foot and the 1777 Additional Regiments.
c. Commentary: Veterans’ Pension Accounts.
d. Massachusetts: ‘The Person of this … Negro Centers a Brave & gallant
Soldier.’
e. Connecticut: ‘He … entered the service upon condition of receiving his
freedom …’
f. New Hampshire: ‘I was in the battles of Harlem-heights & Monmouth.’
g. Rhode Island: ‘Very much crippled in one arm … [by] a wound received …
[at] Monmouth’
h. New York: ‘The Enemy made a stand and threw up a b[r]east work’
i. New Jersey: ‘Enlisted … for nine months … was in the Battles of Crosswick
& monmouth’
j. Pennsylvania: ‘Wounded in the right thigh, at Brandywine …’
h. Georgia: ‘He served as a drummer in this company …’
 k. South Carolina: ‘A Ball … passed through his left side, killing the
Drummer immediately behind’
l. Maryland: ‘He will never forget the roaring of Cannon …’
m. Delaware: ‘Discharged … 1782, being a slave for life & claimed.’
n. Virginia: ‘Served for two years … in the light infantry commanded by Colo
Harry Lee’
o. North Carolina: ‘The men sent on Board of Prison Ships – myself among
them …’
6. ‘They had a great frollick … with Fiddling & dancing.’: Small Things Forgotten
7. ‘Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness …’: Post-War Societal Attitudes,
the Black Experience, and Slavery
8. Afterword: “They were good soldiers.”
Appendices
A. ‘Being a coloured man he was taken as a waiter’: Overview of Officers’
Servants
B. ‘Lately apprehended in the first Maryland regiment, …’
African American Women with the Army
C. ‘Peters is an East-India Indian …’: Compendium of Deserter Notices for
Soldiers of Color
D. African American Veterans Featured in the Narrative
__________________

Preface

My first in-depth exposure to African Americans’ contributions in the War for Independence
was some thirty years ago, when I first read Benjamin Quarles’ 1961 classic The Negro in the
American Revolution. Professor Quarles introduced me to one of the conflict’s many interesting
facets, black Revolutionary soldiers and their military service, joined with the conundrum of
slavery and American independence. As I continued my own research into the armies of the
Revolution, I turned up additional references to soldiers of color, and increasingly realized what a
complex and little-known aspect of the war their service was. Having written two articles on the
subject, when approached to do a book, I almost immediately decided to further examine black
Continental soldiers’ capacities and experiences during the war.
The story of African American soldiers in the cause for American Independence is tied to the
complicated history of English and American enslavement of Africans, the genesis and growth of
the abolition movement, and, despite efforts to the contrary, post-war entrenchment of black
slavery in the United States. White society’s attitude towards African Americans, free and enslaved,
is also part and parcel of the soldiers’ history. As will be seen, black Americans participated early-
on in the militia and New England Army of Observation and, despite some backlash, continued to
be accepted as soldiers to the war’s end. By and large, commanders treated them as they did other
enlisted men and their white fellow-soldiers appreciated their contributions to the cause, and many,
perhaps most, valued them as human beings. Despite the waning of Northern slavery, with the
ratification of the 1789 United States Constitution, and boosted by the 1794 cotton gin patent, black
bondage was cemented as a political and economic fact, and detrimental racial attitudes hardened
before, but more especially after, 1800. In the first quarter of the 19th century many citizens either
did not know or willfully forgot that African Americans had served as soldiers. This societal
amnesia was so ingrained that when southern Congressmen questioned black citizenship during the
1820 Missouri debates, northerners had to remind them with ready evidence of African American
participation in the Continental Army and militia. Thirty-five years after the war black
Revolutionary veterans, along with their white comrades, were eligible for service pensions, but
even in that system, they experienced the effect of increasing bias. When all is said and done,
African American military service was a direct challenge to slavery and the racial construct.
Before proceeding to the narrative, some discussion of methodology is in order. Having used
African American veterans’ pension accounts for an earlier work, two attributes led me to rely on
them again. First, they are the best way to hear the men’s stories in as close to their own words as is
possible - to almost hear them speak. And, second, personal details, available nowhere else, are
revealed by the veterans themselves or people close to them. In essence, my wish is to present their
experiences as soldiers, as citizens, and as individuals, and pension narratives are the best way to
accomplish that. 1
Two other factors are crucial in studying African American Continental Army service. A
discussion of numbers is a must, though the only reliable figures are from the 1778 ‘Return of the
Negroes’ in Gen. George Washington’s main army. Similar information is available for a few small
units, but data on total numbers of black soldiers who served the ‘Rebel’ cause is lacking, and any
statistics are based on educated assumptions rather than hard facts. It is also important we delve
into the lineage of the military units black soldiers served in. Men who signed on for more than one
year periodically experienced changes in company and regimental organization, even being
reassigned en masse to another newly forming unit with an unfamiliar officer corps. These
transformations and transferals were integral to the Continental Army’s organizational churn and
affected most soldiers at some point during their career. Soldier numbers and black wartime free
and slave populations are covered in a dedicated chapter, while unit lineage is included in the
chapters covering individual states.
There is more, much more, to be discovered and written on this subject, but this is my small
contribution, a supplement to the canon of better historians than myself concerning the African
American experience and their contributions to our nation.

John U. Rees
March 2019
Solebury, Pennsylvania
http://tinyurl.com/jureesarticles

__________________

1
Using pensions as the foundation of my work was a leap of faith. While their narratives can be compelling
and eye-opening, many are limited to simple facts, and there was no way of knowing how many informative,
usable accounts I would find. To increase the difficulty, my search was narrowed to a subset of a subset, black
veterans with some Continental Army service. From the outset quickly locating pension files belonging to
black veterans was a large hurdle. The online Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension website
contains thousands of transcribed pensions, is fully searchable, and an invaluable resource. Unfortunately, it
covers only veterans with southern service and not yet even all of those. After several false starts and dead-
ends, I stumbled across Eric Grundset’s Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots in
the Revolutionary War (National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, 2008), a fully searchable
digital resource. Though the ability to search Grundset’s collection was useful, to ensure accuracy I examined
each entry, state by state, to glean all the men listed with pension numbers. Along the way I discovered some
few errors and probable duplicates. I also found men I knew had pension files, but were not listed as such.
While Forgotten Patriots was crucial to my work, undoubtedly some African American veterans and pension
accounts were missed.
____________________
For an online preliminary study for the book see:

“’At Eutau Springs he received three wounds …’: Black Soldiers in Southern Continental
Regiments”
Contents
Overview of Numbers
Gleaning Veterans’ Pensions
Georgia
South Carolina
Maryland
Delaware
Virginia
Analysis: William Ranney’s Painting “Battle of Cowpens” and Black Cavalry Soldiers
Analysis: Officers’ Servants
North Carolina
Post-War Comments on Unit Integration, Slavery, and Societal Attitudes towards Blacks
Appendices
A. "Return of the Negroes in the Army," 24 August 1778, White Plains, New York
B. Estimated Populations of the American Colonies, 1700-1780
C. Synopsis of African-American veterans’ pensions found on Southern Campaign Revolutionary War
Pension Statements & Rosters (with links to pension transcriptions)
D. Analysis of average number of African Americans in all the brigades listed in the 24 August 1778 “Return
of the Negroes in the Army” showing 755 black soldiers in fifteen brigades of Gen. George Washington’s main
army at White Plains, New York.
E. A Study in Complexity: Comparison of Virginia Continental regiment lineage with that of the
Pennsylvania and Massachusetts Lines
F. Synopsis of the Chesterfield List (Virginia, 1780-1781) (Including, “Numbers of African-Americans on the
Chesterfield List.”)
https://www.scribd.com/doc/290761045/At-Eutau-Springs-he-received-three-wounds-Black-
Soldiers-in-Southern-Continental-Regiments

Pensions used for the above study:

A. Delaware and Georgia Pensions Gleaned from “Southern Campaign Revolutionary War Pension
Statements & Rosters,”
https://www.academia.edu/18409677/Delaware_and_Georgia_Pensions_Gleaned_from_So
uthern_Campaign_Revolutionary_War_Pension_Statements_and_Rosters_as_of_14_April
_2011_http_www.southerncampaign.org_pen_
B. South Carolina Pensions Gleaned from SCRWP,
https://www.academia.edu/18409708/South_Carolina_Pensions_Gleaned_from_Southern_
Campaign_Revolutionary_War_Pension_Statements_and_Rosters_as_of_14_April_2011_
http_www.southerncampaign.org_pen_
C. Maryland Pensions Gleaned from SCRWP,
https://www.academia.edu/18409828/Maryland_Pensions_Gleaned_from_Southern_Camp
aign_Revolutionary_War_Pension_Statements_and_Rosters_as_of_14_April_2011_http_w
ww.southerncampaign.org_pen_
D. Virginia Pensions Gleaned from SCRWP (Including a Synopsis of the 1780 Chesterfield
Roll),
https://www.academia.edu/18409884/Virginia_Pensions_Gleaned_from_Southern_Campai
gn_Revolutionary_War_Pension_Statements_and_Rosters_as_of_14_April_2011_http_ww
w.southerncampaign.org_pen_
E. North Carolina Pensions Gleaned from SCRWP,
https://www.academia.edu/18409910/North_Carolina_Pensions_Gleaned_from_Southern_
 Campaign_Revolutionary_War_Pension_Statements_and_Rosters_as_of_14_April_2011_
http_www.southerncampaign.org_pen_
F. Examples of African-Americans Serving in the North Carolina Militia Gleaned from
SCRWP, https://www.academia.edu/18409926/Examples_of_African-
Americans_Serving_in_the_North_Carolina_Militia
See also: Examples of the Complexity of Continental Army Unit Lineage: (The Virginia, Pennsylvania
and Massachusetts Continental Lines)
https://www.scribd.com/doc/307784931/Examples-of-the-Complexity-of-Continental-Army-Unit-
Lineage-The-Virginia-Pennsylvania-and-Massachusetts-Continental-Lines