, O., in
1852, truly said: "Of the services and sufferings of the colored
soldiers of the Revolution, no attempt has, to our knowledge, been made
to preserve a record. Their history is not written; it lies upon the
soil watered with their blood; who shall gather it? It rests with their
bones in the charnel house; who shall exhume it?" Upon reading these
lines, it occurred to me that somewhere among the archives of that
period there must exist at least a clue to the record of the negro
patriots of that war. If I cannot exclaim _Eureka_, after years of
diligent search, I take pride in presenting what I _have_ found
scattered throughout the pages of the early histories and literature,
and from the correspondence of men who in that period discussed the
topics of the day--who led and fashioned public opinion, many of whom
commanded in the field. Not a few biographers have contributed to my
fund of knowledge. To avoid as much as possible the charge of plagiarism
I have aimed to give credit to my informants for what shall follow
regarding the colored patriots in the war of the Revolution. I have
reason to believe that I have gathered much that has been obscure; that
I have exhumed the bones of that noble Phalanx who, at Bunker Hill and
Yorktown, in various military employments, served their country. It is
true they were few in number when compared to the host that entered the
service in the late Rebellion, but it must be remembered that their
number was small at that time in the country, and that the seat of war
was at the North, and not, as in the late war, at the South, where their
numbers have always been large.

Of the three hundred thousand troops in the Revolutionary war, it has
been estimated that five thousand were colored, and these came
principally from the North, whose colored population at that time was
about 50,000, while the Southern colonies contained about 300,000. The
interest felt in the two sections for the success of the cause of
independence, if referred to the army, can easily be seen. The Northern
colonies furnished two hundred and forty-nine thousand, five hundred and
three, and the Southern colonies one hundred and forty-seven thousand,
nine hundred and forty soldiers, though the whole population of each
section was within a few hundred of being equal.

The love of liberty was no less strong with the Southern than with the
Northern colored man, as their efforts for liberty show. At the North he
gaine