colored soldiers. Maryland sought in 1781 to raise 750 Negro troops. Massachusetts had colored troops in her various units from 72 towns in that State. “In view of these numerous facts it is safe to conclude that there were at least 4,000 Negro soldiers scattered throughout the Continental Army.”[1]
In a debate in Congress in 1820 two men, one from the North and one from the South, gave the verdict of that time on the value of the Negro in the Revolutionary War. William Eustis of Massachusetts said: “The war over and peace restored, these men returned to their respective States, and who could have said to them on their return to civil life after having shed their blood in common with the whites in the defense of the liberties of the country, ‘You are not to participate in the rights secured by the struggle or in the liberty for which you have been fighting?’ Certainly no white man in Massachusetts.”
Charles Pinckney of South Carolina said: that the Negroes, “then were, as they still are, as valuable a part of our population to the Union as any other equal number of inhabitants. They were in numerous instances the pioneers and, in all, the laborers of your armies. To their hands were
- ↑ W. B. Hartgrove, Journal of Negro History, Vol. I, pp. 125-9.
