Washington's Crossing

by David Hackett Fischer

At first George Washington was not happy about the enlistment of African Americans, but after much discussion he worked out a sequence of compromises. The first was to allow African Americans to continue in the ranks but to prohibit new enlistments. The second was to tolerate new enlistments but not to approve them. By the end of the war, African Americans were actively recruited, and some rose to the rank of colonel in New England. Washington’s attitudes were different from those of Colonel Glover, but here again he worked out a dynamic compromise that developed through time. It also kept the peace within the army, allowed men of different views to fight the war together, and encompassed another idea of freedom in the American Revolution. In that process the Continental army, beginning with the Marblehead regiment, became the first integrated national institution in the United States.46