COLORED SOLDIERS.
The brave colored soldiers of America, who fought for the boasted land of equal rights and liberty, in the American war against Great Britain.
In the Revolutionary War on Bunker Hill, in that victorious battle, the colored soldiers fought bravely—standing shoulder to shoulder in regiments with the whites, and gained that great victory over a superior number of British troops. [See the old map of Bunker Hill battle, a slave standing behind his master and shooting down an officer of the British army, and ready for another fire.] Our fathers
shed their blood on the shores of Jersey, and faced the British bayonets in the most desperate hour of danger in the Revolution.
Hon. Mr. Burgess of Rhode Island, said on the floor of Congress Jan. 28, 1828:—
"At the commencement of the Revolutionary War, Rhode Island had a number of this description of people, [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 soldier until he had first been made a freeman."
Said the Hon. Mr. Martindale of New York, in Congress, Jan. 22d, 1838:—
"Blacks who had been slaves, were entrusted as soldiers in the war of the revolution; and I, myself, saw a battalion of them, as fine, martial looking men as I ever saw attached to the northern army in the last war, on its march from Plattsburg to Sackett's Harbor."
Said the Hon. Charles Miner, of Pennsylvania, in Congress, February 7th, 1828:—
"The African race make excellent soldiers. Large numbers of them were with Perry, and aided to gain the brilliant victory on Lake Erie. A whole battalion of them was distinguished for its soldierly appearance."
The Hon. Mr. Clarke, in the Convention which revised the Constitution of New York, in 1821, said in regard to the right of suffrage of colored men:—
"In the war of the revolution these people helped to fight your battles by land and by sea. Some of your states were glad to turn out corps of colored men, and to stand
