RARE DOCUMENT RECORDING PAYMENT TO CAESAR CHAPMAN, A BLACK SOLDIER WHO SERVED NEARLY THE ENTIRETY OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION WITH THE CONNECTICUT LINE

Partly-printed document signed recording receipt of the Pay-Table Committee's order for payment and "balance due" to Caesar Chapman of Connecticut's 4th Regiment. Hartford, [Connecticut], 26 November 1782. 1p, 6 3/4 x 7 in. Docketed to verso "Caesar Chapman / Recd / £18.18 / Novr 26.1782 / Vol. 6 fol. 22 / Entered."

Document reads, in full: "Received of Pay-Table-Committee, their Order on the Treasurer of this State, to secure the Payment of Eighteen pounds and eighteen shillings it being the Balance due to Casar [sic] Chapman on the first Day of January, 1782, as stated by the Committee of the State and of the Army. In behalf of Casar Chapman [signed] Exekiel [sp?] Butler."

At least 820 African American soldiers and seamen served in the Revolutionary War from Connecticut, representing about 16% of the known 5,000 African American men who served from the 13 Colonies, though some research suggests that the actual number of African Americans who served may have been closer to 10,000 (see National Mall Liberty Fund D.C. "Quick Facts about Connecticut's African American Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War). African Americans served in at least the 1st through 9th Connecticut Regiments, often as privates in integrated units.

Among those African American men who fought for America's freedom was Caesar Chapman (recorded alternately as Cesar, Cesara, Ceasor, Cassar) of Haddam, Connecticut. Champman's Compiled Revolutionary War Military Service Record shows that he initially served with the 6th Connecticut Regiment, Captain Charles Pond's Company, Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs's Regiment, enlisting in April 1777 for a term of three years. Rolls indicate that Chapman was taken prisoner on 31 October 1777 at an unnamed engagement and "Returned from Captivity Nov 5." Over the following years three years - through December 1780 - he remains a private in the 6th, with sporadic details in the rolls only indicating "On Command" at various locations including Fairfield, Reading, West Point, and Newark, as well as "Sick in Camp" in January 1779. 

The Record of Connecticut Men in the Military and Naval Service During the War of the Revolution 1775-1783 (1889) documents the servicemen of the Fourth Regiment, the second formation of the "Line," serving from 1 January 1781 to 1 January 1783, including enlisted men of the 6th Regiment of the previous formation. Caesar Chapman is listed as a private serving from 1 January 1781 to 31 December 1781 (p339) in the Fourth Regiment. In April 1782, Chapman appears on the rolls of Captain David Humphreys's Co., 4th Connecticut Regiment, commanded by Col. Zebulon Butler. Humphrey's "Company of Colored Troops," the Second Company, 4th Connecticut Regiment, "Connecticut Line" was organized in 1782 to some acclaim. Whereas most Continental regiments were integrated, this regiment consisted entirely of African American soldiers (serving under white officers). Ebenezer Baldwin's Observations on the Physical, Intellectual, and Moral Qualities of the Colored Population (1834) notes that "the company of African attached to Meigs' regiment raised for continental service in New Haven ad its vicinity, and commanded by Captain David Humphreys (1752-1818), afterwards aide to General Washington...was one of the most efficient in the continental line...." (p31). William C. Nell's Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855) states that "During the Revolutionary War, and after the sufferings of a protracted contest had rendered it difficult to procure recruits for the army, the Colony of Connecticut adopted the expedient of forming a corps of colored soldiers. A battalion of blacks was soon enlisted, and, throughout the war, conducted themselves with fidelity and efficiency" (p134). 

The last name "Chapman" was an old and prominent one in Haddam, Connecticut in the 1700s, suggesting that Caesar Chapman may at one point have been enslaved by a member of the Chapman family and adopted that surname. The census report, "Heads of Families, at the First Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1790" identifies six Connecticut men with the last name "Chapman" still holding slaves. Enslavement remained legal in Connecticut after the Revolutionary War; gradual abolition was enacted in 1784, but slavery was not abolished in the state until 1848. Caesar Chapman's post-war fate is unclear, and certainly warrants additional research. 

The contributions of Black soldiers to the Revolutionary War effort were substantive, with African American men sometimes making up 10% of certain Continental Army units. With their ranks including escaped slaves, freemen, and those still in bondage, the African American soldiers fighting for the Patriot cause were fighting for more than a new country - they fought for the chance to live free and share equally in the possibilities offered by a new nation. 

A scarce record of the dedicated service of an African American soldier.

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