Introduction: The Mythology of RhodeIsland's "Black Regiment"

... This State [Rhode Island] has been highly commended by several writers for having inaugurated and continued the policy of employing slaves and negroes to fill her quotas in the Continental Army during the war of the Revolution; and much has been written in our histories touching the services of these slave soldiers in battle highly creditable to them. How far these statements are in accordance with the facts in the case, is the purpose of this inquiry ... It is unnecessary for the author to say that in this investigation he sought no other end other than the truth, and that he was ready to adopt any opinion which the search justified. The question simply was whether the statements which have been so often made were the truth, for Truth alone is History.

So began the preface of Sidney Smith Rider's monograph on the "Black Regiment" that was self-published in Providence, Rhode Island in 1880. Sidney S. Rider was an antiquities dealer, an independent historian, and a publisher in Providence in the late 1800's and early 1900's. His "Rhode Island Historical Tracts No. 10" remains one of the classical pieces in the published literature on the subject of the First Rhode Island Regiment, or the "Black Regiment" that served in Rhode Island's Continental Line from 1778 to 1780. An earlier book written by Providence attorney Benjamin Cowell in 1850, Spirit of '76 in Rhode Island, did not cover the history of the "Black Regiment" in any great detail. Using manuscript evidence that was available to him from various sources in Providence, Rhode Island, particularly original letters, documents from Rhode Island's General Assembly, and the State Treasurer's Report on the slaves who enlisted into the "Black Regiment," Rider was able to disprove systematically many of the commonly held "truths" that were told by New England politicians and historical scholars in the period leading up to and beyond the American Civil War.

Rhode Island's "Black Regiment" of the Revolutionary War had become an accepted symbol in the popular abolitionist movement of New England prior to the Civil War. In 1862, Rhode Island attempted to raise the Sixth Regiment of Volunteers composed of colored enlistees. The state Adjutant General sought to recruit colored soldiers with the following proclamation: "... Our colored fellow-citizens are reminded that the Regiment from this State in the Revolution, consisting entirely of colored persons, was pronounced by Washington equal, if not superior, to any in the service. They constitute a part of the quota from this State, and it is expected they will respond with zeal and spirit to this call." As will be examined in this book, the Adjutant General's statement of history is quite inaccurate. In a very ironic result, the effort to create the Rhode Island Sixth Regiment of Volunteers during the Civil War failed, as only one hundred African Americans signed enlistments. It would take another year before a different regiment of colored soldiers in the State of Rhode Island was organized successfully, the Fourteenth Regiment of Rhode Island Heavy Artillery (colored).

Sidney Rider's work was a rather serious criticism of Rhode Island's "Black Regiment" of the Revolutionary War. Rider correctly noted that the "Regiment" was organized as a battalion, as most American Continental Line infantry units of that period were. Questioning the actual numbers of colored soldiers who served in the battalion, Rider described the official laws of the State of Rhode Island that related to recruitment of colored soldiers into the battalion. He drew attention to the reality that colored recruits were no longer allowed to enlist into the Rhode Island Continental Line from 1782 to the end of the war. Rider reprinted a very damaging quote from Lieutenant Colonel Jeremiah Olney, the commanding officer of the integrated Rhode Island Regiment in 1782, about the overall experiences of the Rhode Island Continental officer corps concerning desertions and service of colored soldiers.

Sidney Rider also suggested that the "Deeds of Desperate Valor" interpretation of the performance of the "Black Regiment" in the Battle of Rhode Island penned by politician and historian Samuel Greene Arnold was largely based on hearsay evidence. Samuel Greene Arnold's History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations published in two volumes from 1859 to 1860 was very popular in Rhode Island during the time of the Civil War. A graduate of Brown University, Samuel G. Arnold was a well-liked politician in Rhode Island serving at various times as a Lieutenant Governor, Acting Governor, and United States Senator. He was also recognized until the time of his death as "the" historical expert in all matters Rhode Island; he became President of the Rhode Island Historical Society. As an independent historian, Sidney Rider carefully delayed publication of his "Historical Tracts No. 10" until after Samuel Arnold had died in February 1880.

There are some minor errors in Sidney Rider's work. Rider simply didn't have access to the muster rolls, pay rolls, Revolutionary War pension files, General George Washington's official correspondence, personal journals, and the other military evidence that is available to historians today. However, much of this material has been available to researchers since the 1930's and 1940's. No other significant historical research on Rhode Island's "Black Regiment" was done until 1952, when an African American scholar, Doctor Lorenzo J. Greene, published "Some Observations on the Black Regiment of Rhode Island in the American Revolution" in...