Watercolor of four American soldiers, including an African American from the Rhode Island Regiment. He is shown in full uniform, holding a rifle with attached bayonet. The illustration is in the manuscript diary of Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger, an officer in Count de Rochambeau’s expeditionary army which was sent by the French to help during the American Revolution. Courtesy, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University Library.
Joseph T. Wilson, The black phalanx: a history of the Negro soldiers of the United States in the war of 1775-1812, 1861-’65 (Hartford, Conn., 1888), facing p. 34. (Copy in Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library)
Titled, “Battle of Bunker Hill,” the sub-title (cropped here) reads ‘Peter Salem shooting the British Major Pitcairn.” An artist’s rendition of this famous event in the American Revolution. Peter Salem, born a slave, served in the 6th Massachusetts Regiment at the Battle of Bunker Hill and allegedly fired the shot that killed the British officer.
From William C. Nell, Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855)
Lt. Grosvenor and his Negro Servant Peter Salem. John Trumbull, 1786. Yale University Art Gallery. Detail from the Battle of Bunker Hill.