And the "Continental Battalion" detached to Rhode Island to battle the British occupying Aquidneck Island was Rhode Island's own First Regiment -- the only all-black regiment in the Army.

01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, June 21, 2006

BY GERALD M. CARBONE
Journal Staff Writer

On the 4th of July, 1778, rain fell on Rhode Island till about 10 a.m. At noon, cannons boomed from Providence, Warren and Warwick in celebration of the second anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Around 2 p.m. the clouds cleared, creating "a remarkable fine evening," wrote Frederick Mackenzie, then a lieutenant with the Royal Welsh Fusilers stationed in Newport.

"About 6 in the Evening there was a great discharge of Cannon and Musquetry at Providence, which continued without any intermission, for near an hour: during which time near 300 Cannon were fired," Mackenzie wrote. "As the evening was then very still, the Eccho down the Bay had a remarkably fine effect."

Most of the muskets and cannon that thundered down the Bay on that July 4th did not contain any shot, being strictly celebratory. But by summer's end those cannons and muskets would be loaded for the 6,706 British occupying Aquidneck Island, from Newport to Portsmouth. Gen. George Washington had decided that the time had come to rid Rhode Island of the British, and the French Navy would help him do it.

The French fleet had set out from Toulon in April, and the ships had a painfully slow crossing. It took 85 days for the ships to arrive off the Virginia coast, too late to help Washington's troops take on Sir Henry Clinton's troops in Philadelphia.

The fleet then sailed for New York, arriving off Sandy Hook, N.J., in mid-July -- too late to prevent Clinton's troops from piling into transport ships to sail into New York.

At first Washington wanted to use the French ships to attack New York, but they were too big and drew too much water -- 27 feet -- to pass the bar at Sandy Hook.

When he learned that the French ships might not be able to reach New York, Major-Gen. Nathanael Greene wasted no time in suggesting to Washington an attack on the British ensconced in his home state of Rhode Island.

The fleet from Sandy Hook can run into Newport in three days time, Greene wrote to Washington in mid-July. And: General [James] Varnum . . . has very lately returnd from Rhode Island; he says that there are 1500 State troops including the Artillery Regiment. There is the Continental Batallion commanded by Col [Christopher] Greene about 130 strong.

The "Continental Battalion" detached to Rhode Island for the coming battle was Rhode Island's own First Regiment -- the only all-black regiment in the Army. Plenty of blacks -- both slave and free -- fought in the Revolution; some 700 of Washington's 13,500 troops at Monmouth were black. But Rhode Island was the only state that armed an all-black regiment, promising slaves their freedom for enlisting, much to the consternation of the state's plantation owners:

"Your observation upon South Kingston in Respect to the Negro Rigment is very Just; they are not pleased with it all and grumble a goodeal," Gov. Nicholas Cooke wrote to Greene. "About 30 have gone over to the Ennemy this Spring already."

Not all blacks were keen on the idea either. Slaveholders could sell them into the service, where they'd risk lives and limbs for a country that enslaved them.

On Newport, British Lt. Fredrick Mackenzie observed in spring 1778: "Three White-men and five Negroes came off in a small boat last night from South Kingston. . . . Those men intended to come to Newport, having fled from their homes to avoid being obliged to serve in the Rebel Army."

Great news

As quartermaster general, Nathanael Greene was responsible for putting everything in place for an attack upon his home state. From the main Army's camp at White Plains, N.Y., he wrote to Ephraim Bowen, his deputy quartermaster in Rhode Island:

There is an expedition going on against Newport. The forces that will be collected for this purpose will be considerable. Great exertions, therefore, will be necessary in our department. You must get the most active men to assist you as you possibly can.

A great number of Teams and Boats will be wanted upon the occasion. If tents are likely to be wanted get all that Mr Chace, Mr Andrews and Mr Greene have. The "Mr Greene" from whom he wanted to buys tents was Greene's own brother, Jacob, a frequent vendor for the Army while Greene was quartermaster general. Such blatant nepotism was more acceptable then than now, though it did open Greene to criticism even from his contemporaries.

For Greene, the planned attack on Rhode Island was great news; it would finally get the state's eminent citizens off his back. From the day the British first invaded Newport -- Dec. 7, 1776 -- Rhode Islanders had badgered Greene to use his influence with Washington to bring the Continental Army home for a battle.

And Rhode Islanders had ample cause to grumble. While their crack troops were off killing and dying in New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia, their own state capital was occupied by a large force.

The occupying force did not confine itself to Newport. In May 1778, a force of 500 British and Hessians rowed under cover of night to Bristol Neck, arriving at 3:30 a.m. Their goal was to destroy military stores in Warren, including 70 open boats moored in the Kickemuit River; they had been used to transport American militia in an aborted attack on Newport the previous fall.

At the river they burned all but 12 of the boats, the Kickemuit bridge, a corn mill.

In town they torched a house used for gunpowder storage. The explosion from the powder magazine engulfed the meeting house and spread to six other houses.

Then they marched for Bristol.

"The English wore lobsterback coats with many pleats, buff facings, and a profusion of white lace striped in red and white," George Howe wrote in his book, Mount Hope. ". . . Their hair was clubbed and tied behind with a ribbon. They carried 'Brown Bess' the standard musket of the British Army. The Hessian[s] . . .wore huge fur busbys (though it was a warm day,) black belts at their waists, and gaping boots in which to carry their plunder."

Rhode Island's 300 militia men at Bristol overstated British troop strength and got out of their way;

Bill Barton, who had once captured a British general at Newport, led a party of men from Providence that grew to 200. They peppered the British with musket fire as they marched; Barton, standing in the stirrups of his horse, took a ball in the groin. He continued fighting, though the ball nearly killed him; for two weeks after he lingered near death from the wound.

In Bristol the British burned St. Michael's Church and 22 houses, looting most of those they did not burn.

Townspeople watched helplessly as the British plundered their homes of shirts and teapots, and took from the women the rings from their fingers, the handkerchiefs from their necks, even the buckles from their shoes.

"None would wish to have so destructive a cruel war come near there own dwellings where there wives and Children and there all that is worth living for is setteled down," Governor Cooke wrote to Greene, in one of his many appeals for Continental troops.

Greene could empathize. Near his family's homestead at Potowomut a British warship laid at anchor, and his pregnant wife was living, unhappily, with friends in Boston.

gcarbone@projo.com / (401) 277-7434

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Sources consulted for today's installment:

Boatner III, Mark M. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Stackpole Books: Mechanicsburg, Pa., 1994.

Dearden, Paul F. The Rhode Island Campaign of 1778. The Rhode Island Bicentennial Foundation: Providence, 1980.

Diary of Frederick Mackenzie, Vol. 1. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass., 1930.

Hattendorf, John B. Newport, the French Navy, and American Independence. The Redwood Press: Newport, 2005.

Howe, George. Mount Hope. The Viking Press: New York, 1959.

Showman, Richard K., ed. The Papers of Nathanael Greene, Vol. II. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1980.

A continuing series.