Whatever Happened to Virginia’s Black Patriots? Stories from the Declarations for Revolutionary War Pensions

Crispus Attucks, Peter Salem, James Lafayette. The first person to die in the American Revolution at the Boston Massacre, a soldier responsible for killing a key British officer during the Battle of Bunker Hill, and a double agent undercover behind British lines who was vital in ensuring victory at Yorktown. When we talk about the Black patriots of the Revolutionary War, we tend to focus on the biggest names and retell the most famous stories. But there were many, many more Black revolutionary soldiers whose names have mostly been buried by history, and some of their stories can be uncovered by digging into the Library of Virginia’s archival collections.

In Virginia, free Black men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were able to enlist in the Continental Army as early as 1775.¹ Several were even drafted to serve in their local militias, despite previously having only been allowed to be “employed as drummers, trumpeters, pioneers, or in such other servile labor.”² Enslaved men also occasionally found themselves impressed into the fight for Virginia’s freedom. Their enslavers were able to present them as substitutes after being drafted, and in some cases attempted to re-enslave them when they returned from fighting. Freedom for these veterans wasn’t guaranteed until a 1783 order was passed down by the Virginia General Assembly.³ Black soldiers could ultimately be found throughout Virginia’s revolutionary military. One Virginia brigade, commanded by General Peter Muhlenberg, was at one point the second most racially diverse regiment in the Continental Army, with Black soldiers comprising 7.8 percent of its forces.⁴

Following the war, Black Revolutionary War veterans received the same benefits as those who were white: mostly nothing until Congress passed the first Revolutionary War Pension Act in 1818. Soldiers hoping to receive lifetime pensions then had to file declarations in their local courts describing not only their time in the military, but also their current health, professional occupations, and families.

From Black soldiers ordered to perform menial labor to Black soldiers who fought directly in the Siege of Yorktown, from Black veterans who were rewarded with land warrants to Black veterans who had to file multiple petitions to receive their due from the federal government, records found in the Library of Virginia’s Declarations for Revolutionary War Pensions collections make it clear just how diverse the experiences of Virginia’s Black revolutionary servicemen truly were. As the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution approaches, we want to highlight the stories of four of those soldiers—their military service during the war, and their lives afterwards in the country they fought to create.

Reuben Bird was only sixteen years old when he enlisted in Virginia’s Continental Line in 1780. Most of his time in the war was spent serving in the Virginia Regiment of Dragoons. Because of his status as a free Black man, his regiment wouldn’t allow him to fight directly in any battles. He instead served primarily as a bowman and assisted in the fighting from a distance. But even as a bowman, he “was very near the ground where several more fought,” most notably at the infamous Patriot defeat at the Battle of Camden in South Carolina.

Bird remained in the military “until the peace came.” After the war, he settled down in Powhatan County, where he started work as a bricklayer, married, and eventually had a daughter. Unfortunately for Bird, he had sustained an injury that forced him “to wear a trap of steel” on his foot. This injury made it increasingly difficult for him to work as he got older. In 1820, four decades after his initial enlistment, Bird chose to take advantage of the Congressional Pension Acts of 1818 and 1820 and filed a declaration for military pension at the Powhatan County Court.

James Carter could no longer remember the exact date of his enlistment by the time he filed his declaration in 1832. That’s understandable, considering he enlisted twice over the course of the Revolutionary War. In the early days of the war, Carter joined a small garrison that had been assigned to guard a fort at King’s Creek in Northampton County, where he served as a private for eighteen months before he was honorably discharged and returned home.

After six months as a civilian, Carter made the decision to rejoin the military—this time in a position that was much closer to active combat. He re-enlisted as a private in the 2nd Virginia Regiment of Artillery. Unlike Reuben Bird, Carter’s company allowed him to fight in battles on the ground as a regular soldier. He was also present at the Battle of Camden and later participated in the Siege of Yorktown. In his declaration for a military pension, filed at the Northampton County Court, Carter stated that he ultimately served for five years of the American Revolution and even received a bounty land warrant of 200 acres from the state of Virginia in recognition of this service.

In 1777, Sherard Goin (alternately known as Sherod or Sherwood Gowing) was twenty-one years old and newly enlisted in the 14th Virginia Regiment. He served in that regiment for a full three-year term, then re-enlisted for another eighteen months. Like Carter, Goin was actively engaged in the fighting at several battles and was likewise also present at the Siege of Yorktown. Goin’s service also extended to significant northern battles of the Revolutionary War—the Battle of Germantown in Pennsylvania and the Battle of Monmouth in New Jersey.

Goin eventually settled in Albemarle County, where he married and had two sons. For a long time, Goin was able to support his family through his own occupation as a day laborer. Partly for this reason and partly due to a lack of knowledge about the Congressional Pension Acts, he did not file a declaration for a military pension at the Albemarle County Court until 1828, ten years after the original act. In the words of his declaration, “his age and infirmities have now deprived him of his only reliance (that is his own exertion) for subsistence and he now calls on that country to aid him in his necessities, in whose service he devoted his youth.”

Richard Spinner had a very different military experience from his fellow Albemarle County resident, seeing very little (if any) active combat over the course of the Revolutionary War. Spinner was originally born into enslavement in Amelia County. He remained enslaved until he was thirty-three years old, when he was manumitted by his enslaver in Mecklenburg County. The American Revolution began shortly after Spinner obtained his freedom and he soon found himself drafted into the Virginia Continental Line as a regular soldier.

Spinner’s service was initially confined to what he called “fatigue duty,” non-combat labor done by soldiers. He described it as mostly “cutting wood & c & c.” Specifically, Spinner was involved in the clearing out of Waller’s Wood, a militia encampment located to the east of Williamsburg. After his first year, Spinner took on the role of wagoner for the Virginia military. He transported “provisions and nutritions [sic]” back and forth between Williamsburg, the prisoner-of-war barracks in Albemarle, and various other Virginia military sites until the end of his three-year term. He then re-enlisted as a substitute and returned to service as a wagoner for another four years.

Following the Revolutionary War, Spinner moved to Albemarle County permanently and started a family. Spinner supported himself through his occupation as a well cleaner for many years, and, like Goin, did not file a declaration after the initial pension acts, even though he had been a regular soldier. It was only after age and infirmity left him unable to work and forced him to move in with an adult son that he filed a declaration for military pension at the Albemarle County Court in 1826. But his original declaration was apparently rejected, for reasons unknown. Spinner had to file a second declaration in 1832 to finally receive his military pension from the United States government.

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Richard Spinner’s second declaration, filed in 1832, which includes a short deposition in which he was asked several questions related to his service and life before the war.

Interested in diving deeper into the stories of Reuben Bird, James Carter, Sherard Goin, Richard Spinner, and hundreds of Virginia’s other Revolutionary War soldiers? You can explore their records for yourself through the Library of Virginia’s Declarations for Revolutionary War Pensions collections. Declarations for nineteen Virginia localities are currently available, with even more localities on the way as new records are identified and processed. To see if there are any records for soldiers from your county or city, or to learn more about these collections in general, visit the Archival Resources of the Virginias website or the Library of Virginia catalog and search for “Declarations for Revolutionary War Pensions.” You can also dive deeper into the lives of Sherard Goin, James Carter, and even more of Virginia’s Black revolutionary soldiers through the lists compiled in L. P. Jackson’s Virginia Negro Soldiers and Seamen in the Revolutionary War, available for free online through the HathiTrust Digital Library. To learn more about resources for Virginia’s Revolutionary War military records, visit the Virginia Revolutionary War Service Records research guide or contact Archives Reference Services directly at archdesk@lva.virginia.gov and 804-692-3888.

Not able to visit the Library of Virginia to view these records in person? The Declarations for Revolutionary War Pensions collections are in the process of being indexed and digitized and will be available for transcription via our Making History: Transcribe program. After digitization, images of the declarations will be available online as part of LVA’s digital collections related to Virginians’ military service during the American Revolution. Stay tuned to the UncommonWealth blog and the Library of Virginia’s other social media for more updates!