The Hon. Tristam Burgess, of Rhode Island, in a speech to Congress
first month, 1828, said: "At the commencement of the Revolutionary War,
Rhode Island had a number of slaves. A regiment of them were enlisted
into the Continental service, and no braver men met the enemy in
battle; but not one of them was permitted to be a solider until he had
first been made a freeman."
"In Rhode Island," says Governor Eustis, in his able speech against
slavery in Missouri, twelfth of Twelfth month, 1820, "the blacks formed
an entire regiment, and they discharged their duty with zeal and
fidelity. The gallant defence of Red Bank, in which the black regiment
bore a part, is among the proofs of their valor." In this contest it
will be recollected that four hundred men met and repulsed, after a
terrible and sanguinary struggle, fifteen hundred Hessian troops,
headed 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 Fifth month, 1781, Colonel 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 guard of blacks, who hovered over him to protect him, every
one of whom was killed.
Lieutenant Colonel Barton, of the Rhode Island militia, planned a
bold exploit for the purpose of surprising and taking Major-General
Prescott, the commanding officer of the royal army at Newport. Taking
with him in the night about forty men, in two boats, with oars muffled,
he had the address to elude the vigilance of the ships of war and guard
boats, and having arrived undiscovered at the General's quarters, they
were taken for the sentinels, and the General was not alarmed until the
captors were at the door of his lodging chamber, which was fast closed.
A negro man named Prince instantly thrust his head through the panel
door and seized the victim while in bed. The General's aid-de-camp
leaped from a window undressed, and attempted to escape but was taken,
and with the General brought off in safety.--Thatcher's Military
Journal, August 3, 1777.