he soon gave orders that no Negroes should be enlisted.  He was sustained in this position by a council of war and by a committee of conference in which were representatives from Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and it was agreed that Negroes be rejected altogether.  The American Negro’s persistency in pressing himself where he is not wanted but where he is eminently needed began right there.  Within six weeks so many colored men applied for enlistment, and those that had been put out of the army raised such a clamor that Washington changed his policy, and the Negro, who of all America’s population contended for the privilege of shouldering a gun to fight for American liberty, was allowed a place in the Continental Army, the first national army organized on this soil, ante-dating the national flag.  The Negro soldier helped to evolve the national standard and was in the ranks of the fighting men over whom it first unfolded its broad stripes and glittering stars.

     [Transcriber’s Note:  This footnote appeared in the text
     without a footnote anchor: 

     “To the Honorable General Court of the Massachusetts Bay: 

“The subscribers beg leave to report to your Honorable House, which we do in justice to the character of so brave a man, that, under our own observation, we declare that a Negro man called Salem Poor, of Col.  Frye’s regiment, Capt.  Ames’ company, in the late battle at Charlestown, behaved like an experienced officer, as well as an excellent soldier.  We would only beg leave to say, in the person of this said Negro centres a brave and gallant soldier.  The reward due to so great and distinguished a character we submit to the Congress.

     “Cambridge, Dec. 5, 1775.”

These black soldiers, fresh from heathen lands, not out of slavery, proved themselves as worthy as the best.  In the battle of Bunker Hill, where all were brave, two Negro soldiers so distinguished themselves that their names have come down to us garlanded with the tributes of their contemporaries.  Peter Salem, until then a slave, a private in Colonel Nixon’s regiment of Continentals, without orders fired deliberately upon Major Pitcairn as he was leading the assault of the British to what appeared certain victory.  Everet in speaking “of Prescott, Putnam and Warren, the chiefs of the day,” mentions in immediate connection “the colored man, Salem, who is reported to have shot the gallant Pitcairn as he mounted the parapet.”  What Salem Poor did is not set forth, but the following is the wreath of praise that surrounds his name: 

Jona.  Brewer, Col.              Eliphalet Bodwell, Sgt. 
Thomas Nixon, Lt.-Col.          Josiah Foster, Lieut. 
Wm. Precott, Col.               Ebenr.  Varnum, 2d Lieut. 
Ephm.  Corey, Lieut.             Wm. Hudson Ballard, Capt. 
Joseph Baker, Lieut.            William Smith, Capt. 
Joshua Row, Lieut.              John Morton, Sergt. (?)
Jonas Richardson, Capt.         Richard Welsh, Lieut.]

It is in place here to mention a legion of free mulattoes and blacks from the Island of St. Domingo, a full account of whose services is appended to this section, who fought under D’Estaing with great distinction in the siege of Savannah, their bravery at that time saving the patriot army from annihilation.