the most liberal terms.

How the Army of General Johnston was surrendered a few days later has already been narrated. After four dreadful years of bloodshed and sorrow, the Civil War was at an end.

The Northern Army lost in round numbers five hundred thousand men, and the Southern Army three hundred and fifty thousand; and the national debt had reached nearly three thousand millions of dollars.

CHAPTER XX.

COLORED MEN AS SOLDIERS.

"I will bring back the colors, or report to God the reason why," were the last words of Planciancois, before a cannon ball took off his head.

As

S long as men love liberty, the War of the Revolution against the thraldom of the British Government, and the oppressive rule of King George, and the establishment of this, the grandest of all nations. will ever be regarded as the climax of courage and daring by those who participated in it, that has a record on the pages of history.

The first fatal collision and first gun fired that hastened the conflict was that of Crispas Attucks, a colored man, who was a leader of the patriot band, and one of the four killed outright by the British fire. This was March 5, 1770, at what is known as the "Boston Massacre." At the battle of Bunker Hill, Peter Salem, also a colored man, who so gallantly manned and defended the slight breastworks, shot dead Major Pitcairn, of the British Marines, who, in the final struggle, had scaled the redoubt, shouting, "The day is our own!" and was commanding the patriots to surrender, thereby probably gaining the battle. Nor will history forget to record that, as in the army at Cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free Negroes of the Colony had their representatives. For the right of free Negroes to bear arms in the public defense was at that day as little disputed in New England as their other rights. They took their place not in a separate corps, but in the ranks with the white man; and their names may be read on the pension-rolls of the country, side by side with those of others soldier of the Revolu tion.

Negroes largely swelled the motley host of raw but gallant patriots suddenly collected around Boston by the tidings of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, and were freely admitted

in regiments mainly white; though Major Samuel Lawrence of Groton, Massachusetts, is reported as having, at an early day, commanded a company of Negroes in the Continental line. The inconsistency of employing slaves as such was so galling to their ideas of justice that they restricted themselves in this respect. But this rescript did not forbid the enlistment of Negroes, only those still held in bondage. Many were thereupon emancipated in order that they might lawfully serve in the patriot forces, and the tendency to recruit Negroes was very strong with the patriot recruiting-officers.

In the Continental Congress, Mr. Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina, moved that all Negroes be dismissed from the patriot armies, and was supported therein by several Southern delegates; but the opposition was so formidable and so determined that the motion did not prevail. Negroes, instead of being expelled from the service, continued to be received, often as substitutes for ex-masters or their sons; and, in Virginia especially, it gradually became a custom among the superior race to respond to an imperative summons to the field, by giving an athletic slave his freedom on condition of his taking the place in the ranks assigned to his master.

It is stated that after the close of the war quite a number who had thus earned their freedom were constrained to sue for it; and that the Courts of the Old Dominion-which had not yet discovered that a slave has no will and so can make no legal binding contract-uniformily sustained the action, and gave judgment to compel the master to act as if he had been honest. The Legislature felt constrained in 1783, to provide by law that every slave who had enlisted upon the strength of such a promise should be set free accordingly; to which end the Attorney-General was required to commence an action in favor of every such patriot soldier thereafter unjustly restrained of his liberty, who should be entitled, upon due proof of his averment, not only to his freedom, but to damages for past injury in withholding and denying it.

South Carolina authorized the enlistment of slaves, who were to receive a daily pay of seven shillings and six pence.

Lord Dunmore, Royal Governor of Virginia, had ere this issued a proclamation of Martial law, wherein he called all persons capable of bearing arms to report to His Majesty's standard, as soon as may be for the more speedy reducing of this Colony to a proper sense of their duty to His Majesty's Crown and dignity. Freedom was promised to the slaves who joined his cause and some of the Negroes listened to the voice of the Royal charmer! He at one time had large expectations of raising Black troops for King George; but he finally explained to his government" that a malignant fever has carried off an incredible number of our people, especially the Blacks. Had it not been for this horrid disorder, I am satisfied that I should have had two thousand Blacks; with whom I should have had no doubt of penetrating into the heart of this Colony."

Still Negroes were enlisted on both sides; in the North more on the side of Independence; while in the South a large number fled from plantation slavery to strike for King George, against their masters.

An official return of the Negroes serving in the army under Washington's command, soon after the battle of Monmouth, makes their number reach 755, and this was prior to any systematic effort to enlist them.

Rhode Island, in 1778, authorized a general enlistment of slaves for the patriot Army-every one to be free from the moment of enlisting and to receive pay, bounty etc., precisely like other soldiers. A colored regiment was raised under this policy, which fought bravely at the battle of Rhode Island, and elsewhere; as many of those composing it had done prior to its organization. Massachusetts, New York and other States followed the example of Rhode Island, in offering liberty to slaves who would enlist in the patriot armies; and the policy of a general freeing and arming of able and willing slaves, was urged by Hon. Henry Laurens of South Carolina, by his son, Colonel John Laurens, by Colonel Alexander Hamilton, General Lincoln, James Madison, General Green and other ardent patriots. It is highly probable that had the Revolu

tionary War lasted a few years longer, it would then have abolished slavery throughout the Union. Sir Henry Clinton, the King's Commander in the North, issued a proclamation, premising that the ememy had adopted a practice of enrolling Negroes among their troops; and thereupon offering to pay for all Negroes taken in arms, and guaranteeing to every one who should desert the "Rebel" standard full security to follow within these lines any occupation which he shall think proper. Lord Cornwallis, during his Southern campaign, proclaimed freedom to all slaves who would join him; and his subordinates -Tarleton especially-took away all who could be induced to to accompany them. Jefferson, in a letter to Dr. Gordon, estimates that this policy cost Virginia no less than thirty thousand slaves in one year, most of them dying soon of smallpox and camp fever. Thirty were carried off by Tarleton from Jefferson's own homestead; and Jefferson characteristically says: "Had this been to give them freedom, he would have done right."

The war of 1812 with Great Britain was much shorter than that of the Revolution, and was not like that, a struggle for life or death. Yet, short as it was, Negro soldiers-who, at the outset, would doubtless have been rejected—were in demand before its close. New York authorized the raising of two regiments of "freemen of color"-to receive the same pay and allowances as whites and provided that "any able bodied slave" might enlist therein "with the written assent of his master or mistress," who was to receive his pay aforesaid, while the Negro received his freedom, being manumitted at the time of his honorable discharge. General Jackson's em ployment of Negroes in his famous defense of New Orleanshis public and vigorous reprobation of the "mistaken policy" which had hitherto excluded them from the service, and his emphatic attestation of their bravery and good conduct while serving under his eye-are too well known to require citation or comment.

General Hunter, while in command at Hilton Head, was the first to direct the organization of colored men as soldiers, soon