d Resolved_, That there be allowed,
and paid by this State to the owners, for every such slave
so enlisting, a sum according to his worth at a price not
exceeding one hundred and twenty pounds for the most
valuable slave, and in proportion for a slave of less value;
_Provided_ the owner of said slave shall deliver up to the
officer who shall enlist him the clothes of said slave; or
otherwise he shall not be entitled to said sum."

[Illustration: ON PICKET]

To speak of the gallantry of the negro soldiers recalls the recollection
of some of their daring deeds at Red Bank, where four hundred men met
and repulsed, after a terrible, sanguinary struggle, fifteen hundred
Hessian troops led by Count Donop.

"The glory of the defence of Red Bank, which has been
pronounced one of the most heroic actions of the war,
belongs in reality to black men; yet who now hears them
spoken of in connection with it? Among the traits which
distinguished the black regiment was devotion to their
officers. In the attack made upon the American lines, near
Croton river, on the 13th of May, 1781, Col. Greene, the
commander of the regiment, was cut down and mortally
wounded; but the sabres of the enemy only reached him
through the bodies of his faithful blacks, who gathered
around him to protect him, _and every one of whom was
killed_."

Now the negro began to take the field; not scattered here and there
throughout the army, filling up the shattered ranks of white regiments,
but in organizations composed entirely of men of their own race,
officered, however, by white officers, men of high social and military
character and standing. The success of the measure in Rhode Island,
emboldened the effort in Massachusetts, where the advocates of separate
negro organizations had been laboring zealously for its accomplishment.
Officers of the army in the field, expressed their desire to be placed
in command of negro troops, in separate and distinct organizations.
Every effort, however, up to this time to induce Massachusetts to
consent to the proposition had failed. Rhode Island alone sent her negro
regiments to the field, whose gallantry during the war more than met the
most sanguine expectations of their warmest friends, and fully merited
the trust and confidence of the State and country. As the struggle
proceeded, re-enforcements were more frequently in deman