Lot 235

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Description:

Revolutionary War

 

 

Fascinating Claim by African American Soldiers Who Served in the Continental Army

 

[AFRICAN AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR SOLDIERS]. Autograph Letter, March 13, 1794, Providence, Rhode Island, likely to Comptroller Oliver Wolcott Jr. 2 pp., 7.875" x 6.25".  Expected folds; bottom third removed; very good.

 

Complete Transcript

                                                                        Providence, 13th March 1794

Sir,

Having been solicited by the following Negroes late soldiers of the Rhode Island line enlisted for the war, viz Prime Rhodes, Dick Rhodes, Pero Mowry[,] Prosper Gorton, & Sampson Hazard deceased, who has left a free widow to lay their claims for depatriation[1] or their monthly pay before you, which I respectfully do, & request sir that when you have adopted a mode for the final adjustment of the Negroe claims that have been transferred as well as those still retained in their own names, that you will be so obliging as to acquaint me with it, when they will empower some suitable person....

 

[Response on verso:]

                                                                        Treasury Department

                                                                        Comptrollers office

                                                                        20th March 1794

Sir

            I have recd your favor of the 13th Instant, and have transmitted the same to the accountants office as evidence of the presentation of the claims of the Negroes therein mentioned.

            At the present moment I have no time to spare to this description of accounts, but you may be assured, that they shall receive due attention

                                                                        I am / very respectfully

                                                                        [Oliver Wolcott, Jr., Comptroller?]

 

Historical Background

In 1778, Rhode Island was having difficulties meeting the troop quotas set by the Continental Congress. The Rhode Island General Assembly promised slaves who enlisted their freedom and compensation to their masters. Between February and June 1778, a total of 88 slaves enlisted in the reorganized 1st Rhode Island Infantry under the command of Colonel Christopher Greene (1737-1781), as did some free black men. The regiment eventually totaled 225 men, of which approximately 140 were African Americans, segregated into their own companies within the regiment. The 1st Rhode Island fought in the Battle of Rhode Island in August 1778, but saw little combat thereafter, as the focus of the war shifted to the southern colonies. While guarding a bridge over the Croton River in Yorktown, New York, the 1st Rhode Island was surprised by loyalist forces, who killed Colonel Greene and Major Ebenezer Hazard (1747-1781), and killed or captured several African American soldiers.

 

All five of the African American soldiers listed in this document were members of the 1st Rhode Island Infantry, and at least three were former slaves. They all enlisted in 1778 and were honorably discharged on June 15, 1783. Prime Rhodes, Pero Mowry, Prosper Gorton (b. 1748), and Sampson Hazard (b. 1756) were all members of Captain (later Major) Ebenezer Hazard’s company. Richard Rhodes was a member of Captain Thomas Arnold’s detachment and was wounded in the arm at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778.

 

In June 1784, thirteen African American veterans of the 1st Rhode Island hired Samuel Emory to present their claims to the War Department. The Rhode Island General Assembly passed a special act for these soldiers in February 1785, entitled “An Act for the support of paupers, who heretofore were slaves, and enlisted into the Continental battalions.” The town council had to care for any “Indian, negro or mulatto” veteran who was sick or unable to support himself. Some veterans remained in Rhode Island, but others chose to settle on bounty land in New York or Ohio.

 

A few weeks before this letter arrived, on February 26, 1794, Comptroller Oliver Wolcott Jr. had requested a list of all the claims pending “for the service of Negroes, in the late Rhode:Island line of the Army” from the War Department. The same day, Major Joseph Howell responded with a list of nine names as “all claims for services of Negroes in the Rhode Island line, at present depending in the Accountants Office.”

 

In January 2015, several members of Congress introduced a bill “To award a Congressional gold medal, collectively, to the First Rhode Island Regiment, in recognition of their dedicated service during the Revolutionary War.” The medal would be placed on display in the Smithsonian Institution. Members of Congress reintroduced the bill in June 2017, but again it did not pass.

 

 

Oliver Wolcott Jr. (1760-1833) was born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale College and Litchfield Law School. During the Revolutionary War, he served as his father’s aide-de-camp and then as quartermaster from 1779 to 1781. He left the army to practice law and served on the Connecticut Committee of the Pay Table from 1782 to 1784. After serving as Connecticut Comptroller of Public Accounts, he became the first auditor of the federal Treasury Department in 1789. In 1791, he became Comptroller of the Treasury Department. In 1795, he succeeded Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury and served until the end of 1800, when he resigned under accusations by political enemies. President John Adams appointed Wolcott as judge of the U.S. Circuit Court for the Second Circuit, one of Adams’s “midnight judge” appointments at the end of his administration. Wolcott held the position until President Thomas Jefferson and the Republican-controlled Congress abolished it in mid-1802. After serving as a director of the Bank of the United States from 1810 to 1811, he established the Bank of America in 1811 and continued with it until 1814. He served ten consecutive one-year terms as Governor of Connecticut from 1817 to 1827, and also served as a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1818.

 

 

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