Farther South the enlistment of Negroes had met with obstacles.  The best provision the Southern legislatures had been able to make was to provide in addition to the allotment of money and land that a person offering to fight for the country should have “one sound Negro"[45] or a “healthy sound Negro"[46] as the laws provided in Virginia and South Carolina respectively.  Threatened with invasion in 1779, however, the Southern States were finally compelled to consider this matter more seriously.[47] The Continental Army had been called upon to cope with the situation but had no force available for service in those parts.  The three battalions of North Carolina troops, then on duty in the South, consisted of drafts from the militia for nine months, which would expire before the end of the campaign.  What were they to do then when this militia, which could not be uniformly kept up, should grow impatient with the service?  Writing from the headquarters of the army at this time, Alexander Hamilton in discussing the advisability of this plan doubtless voiced the sentiment of the staff.  He thought that Colonel Laurens’s plan for raising three or four battalions of emancipated Negroes was the most rational one that could be adopted in that state of Southern affairs.  Hamilton foresaw the opposition from prejudice and self-interest, but insisted that if the Americans did not make such a use of the Negroes, the British would.

The movement received further impetus when special envoys from South Carolina headed by Huger appeared before the Continental Congress on March 29, 1779, to impress upon that body the necessity of doing something to relieve the Southern colonies.  South Carolina, they reported, was suffering from an exposed condition in that the number of slaves being larger than that of the whites, she was unable to effect anything for its defense with the natives, because of the large number necessary to remain at home to prevent insurrections among the Negroes and their desertion to the enemy.  These representatives, therefore, suggested that there might be raised among the Negroes in that State a force “which would not only be formidable to the enemy from their numbers and the discipline of which they would readily admit but would also lessen the danger from revolts and desertions by detaching the most vigorous and enterprising from among the Negroes.”  At the same time the Committee expressed the opinion that a matter of such vital interest to the two States concerned should be referred to their legislative bodies to judge as to the expediency of taking this step, and that if these commonwealths found it satisfactory that the United States should defray the expenses.