Washington and Caesar (77 page)

COLONEL TYE—Commanded the “Black Brigade,” a unit of as many as 600-900 blacks who served as partisans in New Jersey and New York from 1776 to 1782. Tye was viewed as a respectable and honorable adversary by his foes and had several escapes worthy of fiction. He died of a wound in 1782.

SGT. THOMAS PETERS—The senior black soldier serving in a regular provincial regiment, Peters ended the war in the “Black Pioneers” and, with Colonel Tye, is the model for the fictional Caesar. Peters was a slave, escaped to join the British, served in both the Loyal Ethiopians and in the Black Pioneers. He became the senior black Loyalist in Nova Scotia, and when conditions there became untenable, he led a delegation to London in 1790 that resulted in many Nova Scotia blacks settling in Sierra Leone, where he became one of the colony’s leaders.

GEORGE WASHINGTON—Most of Washington’s slaves ran off to the British during the revolution, although some were recovered. However, at some point between 1772 and 1796, Washington underwent a dramatic reversal in his views on slavery, and despite being a very successful slave farmer, he came to agree with Lafayette before he died that the system was pernicious and a blot on the liberty of America.

The research for this book has spanned so many years that I can’t guarantee to remember all those who have every right to my thanks. I beg the forgiveness of any who have been forgotten. I have benefited from the research of hundreds of people, from articles on eight-eenth-century warfare in West Africa to articles on prostitution in early America. I hope that their hard work is reflected here, and can only insist that any historical errors are entirely mine.

From the first, I have had the support of many members of the revolutionary war reenactment community. Beyond their priceless knowledge of material culture and period life, their ranks contain many professional and amateur historians who have unearthed a great deal of data vital to this book. Jevon Garrett, a close friend from university and a reenactor who portrays a black Loyalist, set me on this road. Todd Braistead (whose article on black Loyalists appears in
Moving On
noted below) provided signal assistance, as did Jim Corbett, whose detailed knowledge of the staff officers and internal politics of both armies I have only inadequately represented. I would also like to thank the men and women of the British Brigade, the Brigade of the American Revolution, and the Northern Brigade. Dozens of units deserve special praise, but I’ll limit mine
to several recreated units for their constant enthusiasm and help on details of the period; Gavin and Nancy Watt and the King’s Royal Regiment of New York; Fil Walker, Tom Callens, Elizabeth McAnulty and all the members of Captain Fraser’s Company of Select Marksmen, the Sixty-fourth Regiment of foot and Mike Grenier, their commander; the Fortieth Regiment and Roy Najecki, and Daniel Gariepy and the members of his baroque dance classes. I’ll close my praise of reenactors with my thanks to the Queen’s Rangers of Canada, both their recreated unit and its commander, Jim Millard, as well as the original and continuing regiment, the Queen’s York Rangers of Canada, whose historian, Captain Bob Kennedy, has opened their armoury and regimental museum to me many times.

I’d like to thank many museums and research institutions in the United States, Canada and Great Britain, most especially the Metro Toronto Reference Library, the National Archives of Canada, The National Army Museum in Great Britain and Brendan Morrissey, the City of London Museum, the Society of the Cincinnati in Washington, D.C., Mount Vernon, and Fort Ticonderoga and Chris Fox, for access to their libraries and their collections over the years.

Bob Sulentic (another old friend from university) and Vivian Stephens provided signal help with research, especially quotes from classical authors in eighteenth-century translations.

Special thanks to the first readers of the manuscript, Nancy and Gavin Watt and Jevon Garrett, all noted above; Allison McRae, who proofread the initial draft (a daunting task), and my incomparable editor in England, Tim Waller. Bill Massey, my American editor, added excellent advice at the last lap, and Fil Walker, Doug Cubbison, Bob Sulentic and my wife, Sarah, provided a last read for detail and accuracy. Sarah also remained cheerful despite many
opportunities to be otherwise as I finished this manuscript in the midst of our wedding preparations.

And finally, for my father, Kenneth Cameron, to whom this book is dedicated and without whom it never would have been started, much less finished.

A former officer in the US Navy, Christian Cameron is a novelist and military historian with a lifelong interest in the American Revolution. Along with Kenneth Cameron, he is also the co-author of the novels
Night Trap, Peacemaker, Top Hook
and
Hostile Contact
– published under the pseudonym Gordon Kent.

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