In September 1848, 86-year-old Mary Hicks appeared before a Justice of the Peace. She was applying for a widow’s pension. Her deceased husband, Micajah Hicks, served in the 1st Regiment of the NC line from 1779 through 1782. After the American army surrendered in Charleston, South Carolina, Hicks spent six months on a prison ship in the harbor. He escaped, rejoining the Continental Army in NC. Hicks also fought in the Battles of Guilford Courthouse and Eutaw Springs.
In May 1779, Agrippa Hull, a free Black Massachusetts soldier, transferred to the command of General Tadeusz Kościuszko. At the time, Polish-born Kościuszko served as the chief military engineer to the Continental Congress. While trekking through the war’s Southern Campaign, Hull and Kościuszko developed a friendship. The two men displayed selfless patriotism at the Siege of Ninety-Six and Battles of Cowpens and Guilford Courthouse. During these engagements, Hull provided medical aid.
Hicks and Hull are only two of the 5,000 African Americans, both free and enslaved, who served in Patriot military forces during the Revolutionary War. These men volunteered in their respective state’s militia and Continental Lines as waggoners, laborers, and medical assistants. They even fought alongside and in the same units as their white compatriots—unrepeated until 170 years later during the Korean War.
