act provided that each and every slave who had enlisted "by the
appointment and direction of his owner" and had "been received as a
substitute for any free person whose duty or lot it was to serve" and
who had served faithfully during the term of such enlistment, unless
lawfully discharged earlier, should be fully and completely
emancipated and should be held and deemed free in as full and ample
manner as if each and every one of them were specially named in the
act. The act, though apparently so fair on its face, and interlarded
as it is with patriotic and moral phrases, is nevertheless very narrow
and technical, liberating only those who enlisted by the appointment
and direction of their owners, and who were accepted as substitutes,
and who came out of the army with good discharges. It is not hard to
see that even under this act many an ex-soldier might end his days in
slavery. The Negro had joined in the fight for freedom and when
victory is won finds himself a slave. He was both a slave and a
soldier, too often, during the war; and now at its close may be both a
veteran and a slave.

The second war with Great Britain broke out with an incident in which
the Negro in the navy was especially conspicuous. The Chesapeake, an
American war vessel was hailed, fired upon and forced to strike her
colors, by the British. She was then boarded and searched and four
persons taken from her decks, claimed as deserters from the English
navy. Three of these were Negroes and one white. The Negroes were
finally dismissed with a reprimand and the white man hanged. Five
years later hostilities began on land and no opposition was manifested
toward the employment of Negro soldiers. Laws were passed, especially
in New York, authorizing the formation of regiments of blacks with
white officers. It is remarkable that although the successful
insurrection of St. Domingo was so recent, and many refugees from that