This letter contains at least one important fact showing the
development of racial relations in the United States since the
establishment of the independence of this country.
February 8, 1916.
MR. C. G. WOODSON,
EDITOR, THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF NEGRO
LIFE AND HISTORY,
2223 12th St., NW.,
Washington, D. C.
_Sir_:
Referring to your letter of the 4th instant, in which you express
a desire to be furnished with information showing the number of
negro soldiers who served in the Revolutionary War, their names,
if possible, and some information concerning the regiments in
which they served, and in which letter you also make inquiry as
to whether such records are accessible to some member of your
staff for making the necessary research, I am directed by the
Secretary of War to inform you as follows:
A cursory examination of the Revolutionary War records on file in
this Department has resulted in the discovery of information here
and there concerning the services of colored men in that war, but
there is no index indicating where records of such services may
be found and in order to ascertain data showing the names,
organizations and numbers of such colored men it would be
necessary to make an extended search of the entire collection of
Revolutionary War records in the custody of this Department. Even
after making such an extended search the results would be
doubtful because the War Department records afford but little
information showing whether Revolutionary War soldiers were white
or colored.
No attempt has ever been made by the War Department to compile
information regarding the numbers or names of colored men in the
Revolutionary War or the designations of the organizations to
which they belonged, and owing to the limited clerical force
allowed by law, the Department cannot undertake any compilation,
which, as already explained, would in any event necessarily be
incomplete and unsatisfactory.
Historical investigators of recognized standing are permitted to
have access to the War Department records under certain
conditions, but the Revolutionary War records have become so worn
and dilapidated by reason of lapse of time and long use thereof
that access thereto is permitted only under exceptional
circumstances. Inasmuch as those records are very incomplete and
afford scarcely any information bearing upon the subject in
question it is not seen that any useful purpose can be served by
granting permission to search those records for the data desired.
Many of the States that had troops in the Revolutionary War have
published rosters of such troops. These rosters can probably be
readily consulted in the Congressional Library, and it is
believed that they afford the most promising source for obtaining
the information sought
Very respectfully,
H. T. MCCAIN,
_The Adjutant General_
The following sent out some time ago under the frank of Congressman
Goldfogle may have some historic value:
When the Jamestown Exposition Bill was under consideration by the
Committee on Industrial Arts and Expositions of the House of
Representatives, at Washington, Congressman Henry M. Goldfogle,
of New York, a member of the committee, took a very keen and
lively interest in securing an appropriation of a hundred
thousand dollars for a Negro exhibit.
On the day the Committee finally revised the bill and voted on
it, Congressman Goldfogle was suffering intensely from
carbuncles, and was about to undergo a surgical operation.
Despite this, he went to the committee meeting, and there moved
the insertion of the provision for the appropriation for a Negro
exhibit.
Some members of the committee who were not favorable to the
project and others who were quite indifferent to it urged the
Congressman to allow the matter to remain in abeyance, saying
that it might be taken up at some future time. Judge Goldfogle,
however, insisted there was no time like the present and that the
colored men and women of the country ought to have an opportunity
to show through means of the proposed exhibit the remarkable
progress that they had made since the days when they emerged from
slavery. In the course of his remarks to the Committee, he said
that he came of a race that had been oppressed and which
centuries ago had been in slavery, and that had he lived forty
years after the children of Israel had passed out of the house of
bondage, he would have been thankful and grateful had anyone
given his people an opportunity to show the progress they had
made as free men.
Congressman Goldfogle called attention to the testimony that had
been given during the hearings before the Committee of the great
advancement made by the colored people in every avenue of life
from the time of their emancipation, and the credit that was due
to many of the men and women of the Negro race who had shown
themselves worthy of the freedom that happily this country
accorded them.
After quite a spirited debate, in which Judge Goldfogle warmly
espoused the cause of the colored man, the Committee, by a
majority of one vote, inserted the appropriation provision; and
thus, mainly through the efforts of this New York Congressman,
who has not a single colored vote in his district, the Negro
exhibit was established at the Jamestown Exposition.