Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812 — A Reader’s Guide

A Documentary Mosaic

The book's structure is that of a scrapbook assembled from official records, pension applications, newspaper clippings, and personal interviews. Nell does not synthesize these sources into a single argument; instead, he lets the documents speak for themselves. For example, the account of Oliver Cromwell, a New Jersey veteran who 'saw the last man killed' at Yorktown, is drawn from a Burlington Gazette article titled 'I Am One Hundred Years Old To-day.' The text reproduces the newspaper's own language, including Cromwell's reported humor: 'they knocked the British about lively' at Princeton. This method preserves the texture of the original source while placing it alongside other testimonies, such as the story of Charles Black, an impressed seaman who 'refused to fight against his country' in the War of 1812 and was subsequently imprisoned at Dartmoor. The juxtaposition of these voices creates a chorus of individual experiences rather than a single historical thesis.

Recurring Images of Wounds and Refusal

Two motifs recur across the excerpts: physical injury and the refusal to fight against the United States. Charles Black, interviewed in a hospital, is described with 'his head bent down' and a neck 'so injured' he could not hold it erect. He had been beaten by a mob in Philadelphia and earlier wounded in the Battle of Lake Champlain, yet 'never received a pension.' This image of the wounded, uncompensated veteran appears again in the story of Oliver Cromwell, whose 'attenuated frame' and 'silvered head' mark him as a living relic. The motif of refusal is equally persistent: Black refused to fight for the British despite 'nine hundred dollars prize money'; the 2,500 Black men who labored at Gray's Ferry did so voluntarily, without pay. These repeated details—injury, loyalty without reward, and the choice to serve—function as a visual and moral refrain throughout the compilation.

Movement Between Battlefield and Home Front

The text shifts abruptly between scenes of combat and scenes of domestic or civic labor. The Revolutionary War section includes a description of the 2,500 'Colored men' who 'assembled in the State House yard' in Philadelphia and 'marched to Gray's ferry' to build fortifications, then returned home. This movement from public assembly to physical labor and back mirrors the structure of the book itself, which alternates between military engagements and home-front episodes. In the War of 1812 section, Charles Black's story moves from the deck of a British ship to Dartmoor prison, then to Lake Champlain, and finally to a Philadelphia hospital. The narrative does not linger in any one location; it travels as the veterans traveled, tracing a geography of service that extends from New Jersey to the Great Lakes to the streets of Philadelphia. This restless movement underscores the breadth of Black participation across multiple theaters and roles.

The Editor's Hand and the 1902 Context

H. T. Kealing's 1902 statement reveals that the original 'Canada edition' of 1855 has been revised: 'matter which has become untrue by the progress of events since the first edition of this book has been carefully exscinded.' This editorial intervention is itself a structural feature—the book is not a static reprint but a living document updated for a new era. Kealing's preface explicitly ties the compilation to contemporary debates, noting that 'archives and libraries are being ransacked by scholarly men of the Negro race for defensive data.' The inclusion of a bibliography and references to 'authorities quoted by Mr. Nell' further signals the work's function as a research tool. The reader is thus aware of a double frame: Nell's original 1855 collection, assembled during the antebellum period, and Kealing's 1902 edition, shaped by the post-Reconstruction struggle for civil rights. This layered authorship gives the book a temporal depth that a simple chronicle would lack.

Readers approaching this volume should attend to the tension between the documentary format and the editorial framing. The excerpts are raw material, not finished argument; the work of interpretation is left partly to the reader. Kealing's introduction and Phillips's preface provide a lens, but the documents themselves often resist simple moralizing. The book rewards those who read across the excerpts, noticing how the same themes—loyalty, injury, refusal, mobility—recur in different contexts. It is less a history than a repository, and its value lies in the density of specific, verifiable detail it preserves.

I kept thinking about how Nell gathered those voices—soldiers’ letters, official records—so the wounds felt close, not distant. That same ache lives in the quiet pages of History of the Revolt of the Netherlands — Complete — Story, Setting & Ideas, where ordinary people endure upheaval and hold onto small dignities. History repeats a familiar, tender grief. It stayed with me, like a weather pattern.