[575] Biographical Sketch in “The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.”

[576] Colored Patriots of the Revolution, p. 134.

[577] This return was discovered by the indefatigable Dr. George H. Moore.  It is the only document of the kind in existence.

CHAPTER XXVII.

NEGROES AS SOLDIERS.

1775-1783.

     THE NEGRO AS A SOLDIER.—­BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL.—­GALLANTRY
     OF NEGRO SOLDIERS.—­PETER SALEM, THE INTREPID BLACK
     SOLDIER.—­BUNKER-HILL MONUMENT.—­THE NEGRO SALEM POOR
     DISTINGUISHES HIMSELF BY DEEDS OF DESPERATE VALOR.—­CAPTURE
     OF GEN.  LEE.—­CAPTURE OF GEN.  PRESCOTT.—­BATTLE OF RHODE
     ISLAND.—­COL.  GREENE COMMANDS A NEGRO REGIMENT.—­MURDER OF
     COL.  GREENE IN 1781.—­THE VALOR OF THE NEGRO SOLDIERS.

As soldiers the Negroes went far beyond the most liberal expectations of their stanchest friends.  Associated with white men, many of whom were superior gentlemen, and nearly all of whom were brave and enthusiastic, the Negro soldiers of the American army became worthy of the cause they fought to sustain.  Col.  Alexander Hamilton had said, “their natural faculties are as good as ours;” and the assertion was supported by their splendid behavior on all the battle-fields of the Revolution.  Endowed by nature with a poetic element, faithful to trusts, abiding in friendships, bound by the golden threads of attachment to places and persons, enthusiastic in personal endeavor, sentimental and chivalric, they made hardy and intrepid soldiers.  The daring, boisterous enthusiasm with which they sprang to arms disarmed racial prejudice of its sting, and made friends of foes.

Their cheerfulness in camp, their celerity in the performance of fatigue-duty, their patient endurance of heat and cold, hunger and thirst, and their bold efficiency in battle, made them welcome companions everywhere they went.  The officers who frowned at their presence in the army at first, early learned, from experience, that they were the equals of any troops in the army for severe service in camp, and excellent fighting in the field.

The battle of Bunker Hill was one of the earliest and most important of the Revolution.  Negro soldiers were in the action of the 17th of June, 1775, and nobly did their duty.  Speaking of this engagement, Bancroft says,—­

     “Nor should history forget to record that, as in the army at
     Cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free negroes of
     the colony had their representatives."[578]