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On the eve of the war ... With almost one of every six Americans
being Black, they were of interest to both sides of the conflict.
Their support could have meant the difference between victory and
defeat.
One of the most compelling stories in Patriots of
Color is that of Jude Hall. Enlisting and fighting at Bunker
Hill, Hall fought in a number of major engagements of the American
Revolution from Ticonderoga to Saratoga.
He was discharged from the Continental Army in 1783 and was living
peacefully and free with his family in New Hampshire when his
three sons were captured in 1790 and sold into slavery.
In a terrible irony, the freedom that Jude Hall fought for
-- for all Americans -- was not possible for his own sons.
Read more of the story of
Jude Hall here.
The Revolutionary War was Natick's final blow. Decades later,
the few surviving Natick Indians would tell the General Court: "almost
all that were able did go into the Service of the United States
and either died in the service or soon after their return
home. We your petitioners are their widows, there not being one
male left now that was then of age to go to war."
On his way to the battle, a sixteen year-old named John Greenwood
made an extraordinary observation of courage and individual
initiative which he preserved in his journal:
Everywhere the greatest terror and confusion seemed to prevail,
and as I ran along the road leading to Bunker Hill it was filled
with chairs and wagons, bearing the wounded and dead, while groups
of men were employed in assisting others, not badly injured, to
walk. Never having beheld such a sight before, I felt very much
frightened, and would have given the world if I had not enlisted
as a soldier; I could positively feel my hair stand on end.
Just as I came near the place, a negro man, wounded in the back
of his neck, passed me and, his collar being open and he not having
anything on except his shirt and trousers, I saw the wound quite
plainly and the blood running down his back. I asked him if it hurt
him much as he did not seem to mind it; he said no, that he was
only going to get a plaster put on it, and meant to return. You
cannot conceive what encouragement this immediately gave me; I began
to feel brave and like a soldier from that moment, and fear never
troubled me afterward during the whole war.3
3 Greenwood, Isaac J. (ed.). The Revolutionary
Services of John Greenwood of Boston and New York 1775-1783 (1922),
12-13. Greenwood was to serve again, notably at the Battle of Trenton
with General Washington and, in later life, became his personal
dentist.
Look for Patriots
of Color, published by Eastern
National Press, in Winter 2004. For
ordering information, email Paul
Tiemann.
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