Prince, a Negro soldier, was Colonel Barton’s chief assistant in capturing the British officer, Major General Prescott at Newport, R.I.  Primus Babcock received an honorable discharge from the army signed by General Washington.  Lambo Latham and Jordan Freeman fell with Ledyard at the storming of Fort Griswold.  Freeman is said to have killed Major Montgomery, a British officer who was leading an attack on Americans in a previous fight.  History does not record whether or not this was the same or a related Montgomery to the one who killed Crispus Attucks at Boston.

Hamet, one of General Washington’s Negroes, was drawing a pension as a revolutionary soldier as late as 1839, Oliver Cromwell served six years and nine months in Col.  Israel Shreve’s regiment of New Jersey troops under Washington’s immediate command.  Charles Bowles became an American soldier at the age of sixteen years and served to the end of the Revolution.  Seymour Burr and Jeremy Jonah were Negro soldiers in a Connecticut regiment.

A Negro whose name is not known obtained the countersign by which Mad Anthony Wayne was enabled to take Stony Point, and guided and helped him to do so.

Jack Grove was a Negro steward on board an American vessel which the British captured.  He figured out that the vessel could be retaken if sufficient courage were shown.  He insisted and at length prevailed upon his captain to make the attempt, which was successful.

There was in Massachusetts during those Revolutionary days one company of Negro men bearing a special designation, “The Bucks.”  It was a notable body of men.  At the close of the war its fame and services were recognized by John Hancock presenting to it a beautiful banner.

The European struggle recently ended furnished a remarkable example of female heroism and devotion to country in the case of the Russian woman who enlisted as a common soldier in the army of the Czar, served with distinction and finally organized an effective unit of female soldiers known as the “Battalion of Death.”  More resourceful and no less remarkable and heroic, is the case of Deborah Gannet, a Negro woman soldier of the Revolution, which may be summed up in the following resolution passed by the General Court of Massachusetts during the session of 1791:—­

“XXIII—­Whereas, it appears to this court that the said Deborah Gannett enlisted, under the name of Robert Shurtliff, in Capt Webb’s company, in the Fourth Massachusetts regiment, on May 20, 1782, and did actually perform the duties of a soldier, in the late army of the United States to the 23rd day of October, 1783, for which she has received no compensation; and, whereas, it further appears that the said Deborah exhibited an extraordinary instance of female heroism by discharging the duties of a faithful, gallant soldier, and at the same time preserving the virtue and chastity of her sex unsuspected and unblemished, and was discharged from the service with a fair and honorable character, therefore,

     “Resolved, that the Treasurer of this Commonwealth be, and he
     hereby is, directed to issue his note to the said Deborah for the
     sum of thirty-four pounds, bearing interest from October 23, 1783.”