The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 6.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

The celebrated Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, in his speech on the Missouri question, and in defence of the slave representation of the South, made the following admissions:—

‘They (the colored people) were in numerous instances the pioneers, and in all the laborers, of our armies. To their hands were owing the greatest part of the fortifications raised for the protection of the country. Fort Moultrie gave, at an early period of the inexperienced and untried valor of our citizens, immortality to the American arms; and in the Northern States numerous bodies of them were enrolled, and fought side by side with the whites at the battles of the Revolution.’

Let us now look forward thirty or forty years, to the last war with Great Britain, and see whether the whites enjoyed a monopoly of patriotism at that time.

Martindale, of New York, in Congress, 22d of first month, 1828, said: ‘Slaves, or negroes who had been slaves, were enlisted 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.’

Hon. Charles Miner, of Pennsylvania, in Congress, second month, 7th, 1828, said: ‘The African race make excellent soldiers. Large numbers of them were with Perry, and helped to gain the brilliant victory of Lake Erie. A whole battalion of ’