The matter was not yet settled, however.  On the eighth of the following month there was held a council of war consisting of Washington, Ward, Lee, Putnam, Thomas, Spencer, Heath, Sullivan, Greene and Gates, to consider the question whether or not it would be advisable to enlist Negroes in the new army or “whether there be any distinction between such as are slaves and those who are free.”  It was unanimously agreed to reject all slaves and by a large majority to refuse Negroes altogether.[17] Upon considering ten days later the question of devising a method of renovating the army, however, the question of enlisting Negroes came up again before a Committee of Conference.  The leaders in this council were Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Lynch, the Deputy Governors of Connecticut and Rhode Island, and the Committee of Council of Massachusetts Bay.  They were asked the question whether Negroes should be excluded from the new enlistment, especially such as were slaves.  This council also agreed that Negroes should be rejected altogether.[18] Accordingly, the general orders from Washington, dated November 12, 1775, declared that neither Negroes, boys unable to bear arms, nor old men unfit to endure fatigues of the campaign should be enlisted.

The men who had taken this position had acted blindly.  They had failed to consider the various complications which might arise as a result of the refusal to admit Negroes to the army.  What would the Negroes think when they saw their offering thrown away from the altar of their country?  Were the Revolutionary fathers so stupid as to think that the British would adopt the same policy?  They could not have believed that the situation could be so easily cleared.  Before the Revolution was well on its way the delegates from Georgia to the Continental Congress had already experienced certain fears as to the safety of Georgia and South Carolina.  They believed that if one thousand regular troops should land in Georgia under a commander with adequate supplies and he should proclaim freedom to all loyal Negroes, twenty thousand of them would join the British in a fortnight.  It was to them a matter of much concern that the Negroes of these provinces had such a wonderful art of communicating intelligence among themselves as to convey information several hundred miles in a week or in a fortnight.[19] The colonists, too, could not ignore the bold attempt of Lord Dunmore, the dethroned governor of Virginia, who issued a proclamation of freedom to all slaves who would fight for the king, endeavored to raise a black regiment among them, and actually used a number of Negroes in the battle at Kemp’s Landing, where they behaved like well-seasoned soldiers, pursuing and capturing one of the attacking companies.[20] Referring thereafter to Lord Dunmore as an arch-traitor who should be instantly crushed, George Washington said:  “But that which renders the measure indispensably necessary is the Negroes, if he gets formidable numbers of them, will be tempted to join” him.