Brazil declared war on Germany October 26.

CHAPTER VII.


NEGROES RESPOND TO THE CALL.


SWIFT AND UNHALTING ARRAY—FEW PERMITTED TO VOLUNTEER—ONLY NATIONAL GUARD ACCEPTED—NO NEW UNITS FORMED—SELECTIVE DRAFT THEIR OPPORTUNITY—PARTIAL DIVISION OF GUARDSMEN—COMPLETE DIVISION OF SELECTIVES—MANY IN TRAINING—ENTER MANY BRANCHES OF SERVICE—NEGRO NURSES AUTHORIZED—NEGRO Y.M.C.A. WORKERS—NEGRO WAR CORRESPONDENT—NEGRO ASSISTANT TO SECRETARY OF WAR—TRAINING CAMP FOR NEGRO OFFICERS—FIRST TIME IN ARTILLERY—COMPLETE RACIAL SEGREGATION.



When the call to war was sounded by President Wilson, no response was more swift and unhalting than that of the Negro in America. Before our country was embroiled the black men of Africa had already contributed their share in pushing back the Hun. When civilization was tottering and all but overthrown, France and England were glad to avail themselves of the aid of their Senegalese, Algerian, Soudanese and other troops from the tribes of Africa. The story of their valor is written on the battlefields of France in imperishable glory.


Considering the splendid service of the—in many cases—half wild blacks from the region of the equator, it seems strange that our government did not hasten sooner and without demur to enlist the loyal Blacks of this country with their glowing record in former wars, their unquestioned mental attainments, their industry, stamina and self reliance. Yet at the beginning of America's participation in the war, it was plain that the old feeling of intolerance; the disposition to treat the Negro unfairly, was yet abroad in the land.


He was willing; anxious to volunteer and offered himself in large numbers at every recruiting station, without avail. True, he was accepted in numerous instances, but the condition precedent, that of filling up and rounding out the few Negro Regular and National Guard organizations below war strength, was chafing and humiliating. Had the response to the call for volunteers been as ardent among all classes of our people; especially the foreign born, as it was from the American Negro, it is fair to say that the selective draft would not necessarily have been so extensive.


It was not until the selective draft was authorized and the organization of the National Army began, that the Negro was given his full opportunity. His willingness and eagerness to serve were again demonstrated. Some figures dealing with the matter, taken from the official report of the Provost Marshall General (General E.H. Crowder) will be cited later on.


Of the four colored regiments in the Regular Army, the 24th infantry had been on the Mexican border since 1916; the 25th infantry in Hawaii all the years of the war; the Ninth cavalry in the Philippines since 1916, and the 10th cavalry had been doing patrol and garrison duty on the Mexican border and elsewhere in the west since early in 1917. These four regiments were all sterling organizations dating their foundation back to the days immediately following the Civil war. Their record was and is an enviable one. It is no reflection on them that they were not chosen for overseas duty. The country needed a dependable force on the Mexican border, in Hawaii, the Philippines, and in different garrisons at home.


A number of good white Regular Army regiments were kept on this side for the same reasons; not however, overlooking or minimizing the fact not to the honor of the nation in its final resolve, that there has always been fostered a spirit in the counsels and orders of the Department of War, as in all the other great government departments, to restrain rather than to encourage the patriotic and civic zeal of their faithful and qualified Negro aids and servants. That is to say, to draw before them a certain imaginary line; beyond and over which the personal ambitions of members of the race; smarting for honorable renown and promotion; predicated on service and achievement, they were not permitted to go. A virtual "Dead Line"; its parent and wet nurse being that strange thing known as American Prejudice, unknown of anywhere else on earth, which was at once a crime against its marked and selected victims, and a burden of shame which still clings to it; upon the otherwise great nation, that it has condoned and still remains silent in its presence.


Negro National Guard organizations had grown since the Spanish-American war, but they still were far from being numerous in 1917. The ones accepted by the war department were the Eighth Illinois Infantry, a regiment manned and officered entirely by Negroes, the 15th New York Infantry all Negroes with five Negro officers, all the senior officers being white; the Ninth Ohio, a battalion manned and officered by Negroes; the 1st Separate Battalion of the District of Columbia, an infantry organization manned and officered by Negroes; and Negro companies from the states of Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and Tennessee. Massachusetts also had a company known as the 101st Headquarters company and Military Police. The Eighth Illinois became the 370th Infantry in the United States army; the 15th New York became the 369th Infantry; the Ninth Ohio battalion and the companies from Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and Tennessee, as well as the District of Columbia battalion, were all consolidated into the 372nd Infantry.


When the above organizations had been recruited up to war strength there were between 12,000 and 14,000 colored men representing the National Guard of the country. With a population of 12,000,000 Negroes to draw from; the majority of those suitable for military service anxious to enlist, it readily can be seen what a force could have been added to this branch of the service had there been any encouragement of it. There was not lacking a great number of the race, many of them college graduates, competent to act as officers of National Guard units. Many of those commissioned during the Spanish-American war had the experience and age to fit them for senior regimental commands. The 8th Illinois was commanded by Colonel Franklin A. Denison, a prominent colored attorney of Chicago and a seasoned military man. He was the only colored man of the rank of Colonel who was permitted to go to France in the combatant or any other branch of the service. After a brief period in the earlier campaigns he was invalided home very much against his will.


The 15th New York was commanded by Colonel William Hayward, a white man. He was devoted to his black soldiers and they were very fond of him. Officers immediately subordinate to him were white men. The District of Columbia battalion might have retained its colored commander, Major James E. Walker, as he was a fine soldierly figure and possessed of the requisite ability, but he was removed by death while his unit was still training near Washington. Some of the Negro officers of National Guard organizations retained their commands, but the majority were superseded or transferred before sailing or soon after arrival in France.


The 369th, the 370th and the 372nd infantry regiments in the United States army, mentioned as having been formed from the colored National Guard units, became a part of the 93rd division. Another regiment, the 371st, formed from the draft forces was also part of the same division. This division was brigaded with the French from the start and saw service through the war alongside the French poilus with whom they became great friends. There grew up a spirit of which, side by side, they faced and smashed the savage Hun, never wavered or changed. Besides the soldiers from Illinois, New York, Ohio, District of Columbia, Connecticut, Maryland and Tennessee, there were Negro contingents from Mississippi and South Carolina in the 93rd division. One of the regiments of this division, the 369th (15th New York) was of the first of the American forces to reach France, following mutual admiration between these two widely different representatives of the human family, that during the period in the expeditionary force of Regulars which reached France June 13, 1917; being among the first 100,000 that went abroad. However, the 93rd division, exclusively Negro, had not been fully formed then and the regiment did not see much real fighting until the spring and summer of 1918.


sweeney_025s
NEGRO NURSES CARRYING BANNER OF FAMOUS NEGRO REGIMENT. MARCHING DOWN FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. IN GREAT PARADE WHICH OPENED RED CROSS DRIVE.


The 92nd division was another exclusively Negro division. There were many more Negro troops in training in France and large numbers at training camps in this country, but the 92nd and 93rd, being the earlier formed and trained divisions, saw practically all the fighting. Units belonging to one or both divisions fought with special distinction in the Forest of Argonne, near Chateau Thierry, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel district, Champagne sector, at Metz and in the Vosges mountains.


In the 92nd division was the 325th Field Signal battalion, the only Negro signal unit in the American army. The division also contained the 349th, 350th and 351st Artillery regiments, each containing a machine gun battalion; the 317th Trench Mortar battery; the balance being made up of Negro engineers, hospital units, etc., and the 365th, 366th, 367th and 368th Infantry regiments.


Enlisted, drafted and assigned to active service, upwards of 400,000 Negroes participated in the war. The number serving abroad amounted to about 200,000. They were inducted into the cavalry, infantry, field and coast artillery, radio (wireless telegraphy, etc.), medical corps, ambulance and hospital corps, sanitary and ammunition trains, stevedore regiments, labor battalions, depot brigades and engineers. They also served as regimental clerks, surveyors and draftsmen.


Sixty served as chaplains and over 350 as Y.M.C.A. secretaries, there being a special and highly efficient Negro branch of the Y.M.C.A. Numerous others were attached to the War Camp Community Service in cities adjacent to the army camps.


Negro nurses were authorized by the war department for service in base hospitals at six army camps—Funston, Sherman, Grant, Dix, Taylor and Dodge. Race women also served as canteen workers in France and in charge of hostess houses in this country.


One Negro, Ralph W. Tyler, served as an accredited war correspondent, attached to the staff of General Pershing, Dr. R. R. Moton, who succeeded the late Booker T. Washington as head of the Tuskegee Institute, was sent on a special mission to France by President Wilson and Secretary Baker.


A race woman, Mrs. Alice Dunbar Nelson of Wilmington, Delaware, was named as a field worker to mobilize the Negro women of the country for war work. Her activities were conducted in connection with the Women's Committee of the Council of National Defense.


The most conspicuous honor paid to a Negro by the administration and the war department, was in the appointment, October 1, 1917, of Emmett J. Scott as special assistant to the Secretary of War. This was done that the administration might not be accused of failing to grant full protection to the Negroes, and that a thorough examination might be made into all matters affecting their relation to the war and its many agencies.


Having been for 18 years confidential secretary to Booker T. Washington, and being at the time of his appointment secretary of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute for Negroes, Mr. Scott was peculiarly fitted to render necessary advice to the war department with respect to the Negroes of the various states, to look after all matters affecting the interests of Negro selectives and enlisted men, and to inquire into the treatment accorded them by the various officials connected with the war department. In the position occupied by him, he was thus enabled to obtain a proper perspective both of the attitude of selective service officials to the Negro, and of the Negro to the war, especially to the draft. In a memorandum on the subject addressed to the Provost Marshall General, December 12, 1918, he wrote:


"The attitude of the Negro was one of complete acceptance of the draft, in fact of an eagerness to accept its terms. There was a deep resentment in many quarters that he was not permitted to volunteer, as white men by the thousands were permitted to do in connection with National Guard units and other branches of military service which were closed to colored men. One of the brightest chapters in the whole history of the war is the Negro's eager acceptance of the draft and his splendid willingness to fight. His only resentment was due to the limited extent to which he was allowed to join and participate in combatant or 'fighting' units. The number of colored draftees accepted for military duty, and the comparatively small number of them claiming exemptions, as compared with the total number of white and colored men called and drafted, presents an interesting study and reflects much credit upon this racial group."


Over 1,200 Negro officers, many of them college graduates, were commissioned during the war. The only training camp exclusively for Negro officers was at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. This camp ran from June 15, 1917, to October 15, 1917. A total of 638 officers was graduated and commissioned from the camp. Negro Regulars and Negro National Army men who had passed the tests for admission to officers training camps were sent mainly to the training schools for machine gun officers at Camp Hancock, Augusta, Georgia; the infantry officers training school at Camp Pike, Little Rock, Arkansas, and the artillery officers training school at Camp Taylor, Louisville, Kentucky. They were trained along with the white officers. The graduates from these camps along with a few National Guardsmen who had taken the officers' examinations, and others trained in France, made up the balance of the 1,200 commissioned.


In connection with the artillery training an interesting fact developed. It had been charged that Negroes could not develop into artilleryman. A strong prejudice against inducting them into that branch of the service had always existed in the army. It was especially affirmed that the Negro did not possess the mathematical ability necessary to qualify as an expert artillery officer. Nevertheless, out of a number of Negro aspirants, very small in comparison with the white men in training for officers' commissions at the camp, five of the Negroes stood alongside their white brothers at the head of the class. The remainder were sprinkled down the line about in the same proportion and occupying the same relative positions as the whites. The prejudice against the Negro as an artilleryman was further and effectually dispelled in the record made by the 349th, 350th and 351st artillery regiments and their machine gun battalions in the 92nd division.


With the exception of the training camp for officers at Des Moines, Iowa, no important attempt was made to establish separate Negro training camps. In the draft quotas from each state were whites and blacks and all with few exceptions, were sent to the most convenient camp. Arrangements existed, however, at the different camps for the separate housing and training of the Negro troops. This was in line with the military policy of the Government, as well as in deference to the judgment of both white and black officers. It undoubtedly was necessary to separate the two races. Furthermore, as the military policy called for regiments, battalions and, divisions made up entirely of Negroes, it was proper to commence the organization at the training camps. Companies formed in this manner thus became homogeneous, accustomed to one another individually and to their officers.


The situation was different from the Spanish-American war, where Negro units, at least in one case, served in white regiments. Racial strife and rivalry were eliminated. The only rivalry that existed was the good-natured and healthy one of emulation between members of the same race. On the field of battle there was rivalry and emulation between the whites and blacks, but it was the rivalry of organizations and not of races. The whole was tempered by that splendid admiration and fellow-feeling which comes to men of all races when engaged as partners in danger or near death; in the defense and promotion of a great cause; the eternal verities of Justice and Humanity.

CHAPTER VIII.


RECRUDESCENCE OF SOUTH'S INTOLERANCE.


CONFRONTED BY RACIAL PREJUDICE—- SPLENDID ATTITUDE OF NEGRO SHAMED IT—KEPT OUT OF NAVY—ONLY ONE PER CENT OF NAVY PERSONNEL NEGROES—MODIFIED MARINES CONTEMPLATED—FEW HAVE PETTY OFFICERS' GRADES—SEPARATE SHIPS PROPOSED—NEGRO EFFICIENCY IN NAVY—MATERIAL FOR "BLACK SHIPS"—NAVY OPENS DOOR TO NEGRO MECHANICS.



Old feelings of race prejudice and intolerance, appearing mainly in the South, confronted the Negro at the beginning of the war. The splendid attitude of the Negro shamed and overcame this feeling in other sections of the country, and was beginning to have its effect even in the South. It is true that men of the race were not accepted for voluntary enlistment in numbers of consequence in any section, but had the voluntary system continued in vogue, the willingness and desire of the race to serve, coupled with the very necessities of the case, would have altered the condition.


No new Negro volunteer units were authorized, but the demand for men would soon have made it imperative. It would have been combatted by a certain element in the South, but the friends of the few volunteer units which did exist in that section were firm in their championship and were winning adherents to their view that the number should be increased. The selective draft with its firm dictum that all men within certain ages should be called and the fit ones chosen, put an end to all contention. The act was not passed without bitter opposition which developed in its greatest intensity among the Southern senators and representatives; feelings that were inspired entirely by opposition to the Negro.


It would have been a bad thing for the country and would have prolonged the war, and possibly might have lost it, if the selective draft had been delayed. But it would have been interesting to see how far the country, especially the South, would have progressed in the matter of raising a volunteer army without accepting Negroes. Undoubtedly they soon would have been glad to recruit them, even in the South.


Unfortunately for the Negro, the draft was not able to prevent their being kept out of the Navy. It is a very desirable branch of the service vitiated and clouded, however, with many disgusting and aristocratic traditions. When the Navy was young and the service more arduous; when its vessels were merely armed merchantmen, many of them simply tubs and death traps and not the floating castles of today, the services of Negroes were not disdained; but times and national ideals had changed, and, the shame of it, not to the credit of a Commonwealth, for whose birth a Negro had shed the first blood, and a Washington had faced the rigors of a Valley Forge, a Lincoln the bullet of an assassin.


The annual report of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, rendered to the Secretary of the Navy and covering the fiscal year ending June 30, 1918, showed that in the United States Navy, the United States Naval Reserve Force and the National Naval Volunteers, there was a total of 435,398 men. Of that great number only 5,328 were Negroes, a trifle over one percent. Between June and November 1918, the Navy was recruited to a total force somewhat in excess of 500,000 men. Carrying out the same percentage, it is apparent that the aggregate number of Negroes serving, in the Navy at the close of the war, could not have been much in excess of 6,000.


Some extra enlistments of Negroes were contemplated, as the Navy had in process of establishment just prior to the armistice, a new service for Negro recruits. It was to be somewhat similar to the Pioneer units of the army, partaking in some degree of the character of Marines, just as the Pioneers partake of the character of infantry, but in general respects resembling more the engineer and stevedore units. About 600 men had been selected for this service when the project was abandoned on account of the ending of the war.


With the exception of a very limited number who have been permitted to attain the rank of petty officer, Negroes in the Navy were confined to menial occupations. They were attached to the firing forces as coal passers, while others served as cooks assistants, mess attendants and in similar duties. Quite a number were full rated cooks. A few were water tenders, electricians and gunners' mates, each of which occupations entitled them to the aforesaid rank of petty officer. Among the petty officers some had by sheer merit attained the rank of chief petty officer, which is about equal to the rank of sergeant in the army.


The idea of separate ships for the Negro might to some degree ameliorate the sting incident to race prohibition in that arm of government service. The query is advanced that if we can have black colonels, majors, captains and lieutenants in the army, why cannot we have black commanders, lieutenants, ensigns and such in the Navy?


Negroes have often and in divers ways displayed their intelligence and efficiency in the Navy. Take, for instance, the case of John Jordan, a Negro of Virginia, who was chief gunner's mate on Admiral Dewey's flagship the "Olympia" during the Spanish-American war, and was the man who fired the first shot at the enemy at Manila Bay. A Negro chief electrician, Salisbury Brooks, was the originator of inventions which were adopted without reservation by the Navy designers and changed the construction of modern battle ships.


One of the principal instructors on the U.S.S. Essex, the government training ship at Norfolk, is Matthew Anderson, a Negro. He has trained thousands of men, many of them now officers, in the art and duties of seamanship. Scores of Negroes; men of the type of these in the Navy, would furnish the nucleus for officers and crews of separate Negro ships.


In a recent issue of "Our Navy" a magazine devoted entirely to naval affairs, especially as regards the enlisted man, a writer reflects the opinion of these men in the following article:
"Whether you like the black man or not, whether you believe in a square deal for him or not, you can't point an accusing finger at his patriotism, his Americanism or his fighting ability. It is fair to neither the white man nor the black man to have the black man compete with the white man in the Navy. True, we have black petty officers here and there in the Navy, and in some cases black chief petty officers. It stands to reason that they must have been mighty good men to advance. They surely must know their business—every inch of it—to advance to these ratings. Yet they are not wanted in these ratings because they involve the black man having charge of white men under him. Outside of the messman branch you will find comparatively few Negroes in the Navy today.

"There should be 'black ships' assigned to be manned by American Negroes. These are days of democracy, equality and freedom," continues the writer. "If a man is good enough to go over the top and die for these principles, he is good enough to promote in the Navy. Why not try it? Put the black men on their own ships. Promote them, rate them, just the same as the white man. But above all keep them on their own ships. It is fair to them and fair to the white men. The Brazilian and Argentine navies have 'black ships.'"
Recruiting officers of the Navy have recently opened the doors to discharged Negro soldiers, and some civilians. If physically fit they are permitted to enlist as machinists and electricians. The Navy has opened a school for machinists at Charleston, S.C., and a school for electricians at Hampton Roads, Va.


Men for the machinists' school are enlisted as firemen 3rd class. While in training they are paid $30 a month. They also receive their clothing allotment, their food, dry comfortable quarters in which to live, and all text books and practical working tools. In return for this chance to become proficient in a very necessary trade, all that is required of those enlisting is a knowledge of common fractions, ambition to learn the trade, energy and a strict attention to the instruction given them.


Subjects taught in the course are arithmetic, note book sketching, practical engineering, theoretical engineering, clipping and filing, drilling, pipe fitting, repair work, rebabbiting, brazing, tin smithing, lathes, shapers, milling machines and grinders. It will be seen that they get a vast amount of mechanical knowledge and practically two trades, machinists and engineering.


In the electrical school the course is equally thorough. The men get a high grade of instruction, regardless of cost of material and tools. The best text books that can be had are available for their use.


This liberality in order to get machinists and electricians in the Navy, argues that some change of attitude towards the Negro is contemplated.


It may evolve into the establishment of "black ships." The Negro sailor has been pleading for years that his color has been a bar to him. With a ship of his own, would come his chance. He would strive; do all within his power to make it a success and would succeed.

CHAPTER IX.


PREVIOUS WARS IN WHICH THE NEGRO FIGURED.


SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD—CRISPUS ATTUCKS—SLAVE LEADS SONS OF FREEDOM—THE BOSTON MASSACRE—ANNIVERSARY KEPT FOR YEARS—WILLIAM NELL, HISTORIAN—3,000 NEGROES IN WASHINGTON'S FORCES—A STIRRING HISTORY—NEGRO WOMAN SOLDIER—BORDER INDIAN WARS—NEGRO HEROES



Our American school histories teach us that the "shot which was heard around the world",—the opening gun of the Revolutionary war, was fired at Lexington in 1775. The phrase embodies a precious sentiment; time has molded many leaders, the inspiration for almost a century and a half of the patriotic youth of our land. This is as it should be. All honor and all praise to the deathless heroes of that time and occasion.


But why has not history been more just; at least, more explicit? Why not say that the shot which started the Revolution—that first great movement for human liberty and the emancipation of nations—was fired five years earlier; was fired not by, but at, a Negro, Crispus Attucks? The leader of the citizens in that event of March 5, 1770, known as the Boston Massacre, he was the first man upon whom the British soldiers fired and the first to fall; the pioneer martyr for American independence.


It is perhaps fitting; a manifestation of the inscrutable ways of Providence, that the first life given in behalf of a nation about to throw off a yoke of bondage, was that of a representative of a race; despised, oppressed and enslaved.


Botta the historian, in speaking of the scenes of the 5th of March says:
"The people were greatly exasperated. The multitude ran towards King street, crying, 'Let us drive out these ribalds; they have no business here.' The rioters rushed furiously towards the Custom House; they approached the sentinel, crying 'Kill him, kill him!' They assaulted him with snowballs, pieces of ice, and whatever they could lay their hands upon.

"The guard were then called, and in marching to the Custom House, they encountered a band of the populace, led by a mulatto named Attucks, who brandished their clubs and pelted them with snowballs. The maledictions, the imprecations, the execrations of the multitude, were horrible. In the midst of a torrent of invective from every quarter, the military were challenged to fire. The populace advanced to the points of their bayonets.

"The soldiers appeared like statues; the cries, the howlings, the menaces, the violent din of bells still sounding the alarm, increased the confusion and the horrors of these moments; at length the mulatto Attucks and twelve of his companions, pressing forward, environed the soldiers and striking their muskets with their clubs, cried to the multitude: 'Be not afraid, they dare not fire; why do you hesitate, why do you not kill them, why not crush them at once?'

"The mulatto lifted his arms against Captain Preston, and having turned one of the muskets, he seized the bayonet with his left hand, as if he intended to execute his threat At this moment, confused cries were heard: 'The wretches dare not fire!' Firing succeeds. Attucks is slain. Other discharges follow. Three were killed, five severely wounded and several others slightly."
Attucks was killed by Montgomery, one of Captain Preston's soldiers. He had been foremost in resisting and was first slain. As proof of a front engagement, he received two balls, one in each breast. The white men killed with Attucks were Samuel Maverick, Samuel Gray and Jonas Caldwell.


John Adams, afterwards President of the United States, was counsel for the soldiers in the investigation which followed. He admitted that Attucks appeared to have been the hero of the occasion and the leader of the people. Attucks and Caldwell, not being residents of Boston, were buried from Faneuil Hall, the cradle of liberty. The citizens generally participated in the solemnities.


If the outrages against the American colonists had not been so flagrant, and so well imbedded as indisputable records of our history; if the action of the military authorities had not been so arbitrary, the uprising of Attucks and his followers might be looked upon as a common, reprehensible riot and the participants as a band of misguided incendiaries. Subsequent reverence for the occasion, disproves any such view. Judge Dawes, a prominent jurist of the time, as well as a brilliant exponent of the people, alluding in 1775 to the event, said:
"The provocation of that night must be numbered among the master-springs which gave the first motion to a vast machinery—a noble and comprehensive system of national independence."
Ramsey's History of the American Revolution, says:


"The anniversary of the 5th of March was observed with great solemnity; eloquent orators were successively employed to preserve the remembrance of it fresh in the mind. On these occasions the blessings of liberty, the horrors of slavery, and the danger of a standing army, were presented to the public view. These annual orations administered fuel to the fire of liberty and kept it burning with an irresistible flame."
The 5th of March continued to be celebrated for the above reasons until the anniversary of the Declaration of American Independence was substituted in its place; and its orators were expected to honor the feelings and principles of the former as having given birth to the latter. On the 5th of March 1776, Washington repaired to the intrenchments. "Remember" said he, "It is the 5th of March, and avenge the death of your brethren."


In the introduction to a book entitled "The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution" by William C. Nell, a Negro historian, Harriet Beecher Stowe said in 1855:
"The colored race have been generally considered by their enemies, and sometimes even by their friends, as deficient in energy and courage. Their virtues have been supposed to be principally negative ones." Speaking of the incidents in Mr. Nell's collection she says: "They will redeem the character of the race from this misconception and show how much injustice there may often be in a generally accepted idea". Continuing, she says:

"In considering the services of the colored patriots of the Revolution, we are to reflect upon them as far more magnanimous, because rendered to a nation which did not acknowledge them as citizens and equals, and in whose interests and prosperity they had less at stake. It was not for their own land they fought, not even for a land which had adopted them, but for a land which had enslaved them, and whose laws, even in freedom, oftener oppressed than protected. Bravery, under such circumstances, has a peculiar beauty and merit.

"And their white brothers—may remember that generosity, disinterested courage and bravery, are of no particular race and complexion, and that the image of the Heavenly Father may be reflected alike by all. Each record of worth in this oppressed and despised people should be pondered, for it is by many such that the cruel and unjust public sentiment, which has so long proscribed them, may be reversed, and full opportunities given them to take rank among the nations of the earth."
Estimates from competent sources state that not less than 3,000 Negro soldiers did service in the American army during the Revolution. Rhode Island first made her slaves free men and then called on them to fight. A black regiment was raised there, of which Colonel Christopher Green was made commander. Connecticut furnished a black battalion under command of Colonel David Humphrey.


Prior to the Revolution, two Virginia Negroes, Israel Titus and Samuel Jenkins, had fought under Braddock and Washington in the French and Indian war.


It has been said that one of the men killed when Major Pitcairn commanding the British advance on Concord and Lexington, April 19, 1775, ordered his troops to fire on the Americans, was a Negro bearing arms. Peter Salem a Negro did service during the Revolution, and is said to have killed this same Major Pitcairn, at the battle of Bunker Hill. In some old engravings of the battle, Salem is pictured as occupying a prominent position. These pictures were carried on some of the currency of the Monumental bank of Charlestown, Massachusetts and the Freeman's bank of Boston. Other black men fought at Bunker Hill, of whom we have the names of Salem Poor, Titus Coburn, Alexander Ames, Barzillai Lew and Gato Howe. After the war these men were pensioned.


Prince, a Negro soldier, was Colonel Barton's chief assistant in capturing the British officer, Major General Prescott at Newport, R.I. Primus Babcock received an honorable discharge from the army signed by General Washington. Lambo Latham and Jordan Freeman fell with Ledyard at the storming of Fort Griswold. Freeman is said to have killed Major Montgomery, a British officer who was leading an attack on Americans in a previous fight. History does not record whether or not this was the same or a related Montgomery to the one who killed Crispus Attucks at Boston.


Hamet, one of General Washington's Negroes, was drawing a pension as a revolutionary soldier as late as 1839, Oliver Cromwell served six years and nine months in Col. Israel Shreve's regiment of New Jersey troops under Washington's immediate command. Charles Bowles became an American soldier at the age of sixteen years and served to the end of the Revolution. Seymour Burr and Jeremy Jonah were Negro soldiers in a Connecticut regiment.


A Negro whose name is not known obtained the countersign by which Mad Anthony Wayne was enabled to take Stony Point, and guided and helped him to do so.


Jack Grove was a Negro steward on board an American vessel which the British captured. He figured out that the vessel could be retaken if sufficient courage were shown. He insisted and at length prevailed upon his captain to make the attempt, which was successful.


There was in Massachusetts during those Revolutionary days one company of Negro men bearing a special designation, "The Bucks." It was a notable body of men. At the close of the war its fame and services were recognized by John Hancock presenting to it a beautiful banner.