At least 500 of Connecticut’s estimated 35,000 soldiers serving in the Revolutionary War were Black, according to military records. One of these men, forcibly taken from either Africa or South America to Connecticut in the mid-1700s, was a physician known as Doctor Cuff Saunders.

Saunders’ occupation was rare: Black soldiers often worked as cooks, orderlies and trench-diggers. Before the war, Saunders had been bound to an apothecary in Colchester and a doctor in Hartford, records show. He enlisted as a private in the 4th Connecticut Regiment in 1777 to earn his freedom. His medical skills likely caught the attention of his commanding officers, as he spent most of his service in Danbury assisting Philip Turner, surgeon general of the army’s eastern division, with medical procedures and preparing medicine.

Historical data compiled by Forgotten Voices reveals that Saunders and 180 other known Black or Indigenous soldiers were also stationed at the Redding Encampment — sometimes referred to as “Connecticut’s Valley Forge.” From June to September 1778, personnel documents also describe Saunders as tending the sick at the actual Valley Forge in Pennsylvania.

In 1777, Connecticut passed two laws that incentivized slaveowners to send Black soldiers into war. Any two men who could “procure an able-bodied soldier” for enlistment were exempted from the draft. And slaveowners who freed enslaved people were no longer required to financially support them. Taken together, a slaveowner could promise an enslaved person freedom in exchange for serving in his stead, without being liable for his former dependent after the war. 

Kevin Johnson, a member of Connecticut State Library’s history and genealogy department, has portrayed Black historical figures involved in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars for 28 years. He draws on extensive archival research to ensure audiences leave “feeling” the humanity of the individual. Johnson cited freedom as the main reason Black soldiers enlisted, but emphasized the many meanings of the word.

“Their own personal freedom definitely was the main reason,” he said. “For some, it was patriotism for the land that enslaved them. … They were willing to die for it.”

During the war, many enslaved soldiers began dropping the last names of their enslavers and choosing their own. Last names such as “Freeman,” “Freedom” and “Liberty” pepper historical records, reflecting the promise of freedom extended to enslaved soldiers by slaveowners and the Revolution alike. But life after the war revealed the limits of freedom without support.

“Most people did receive their [manumission] and were free, but they didn’t really have anywhere to go, because they didn’t have any wealth or extensive family lines,” said Dana Meyer, digital projects manager at the Connecticut League of Museums. “So freedom could also mean losing a lot.”

Instead, like white soldiers, older Black soldiers eventually applied for pensions. Sixty-three percent of pension applications catalogued by the Connecticut State Library were submitted in 1820, soon after Congress expanded eligibility for Revolutionary War pensions.

Words related to “family” appeared in 297 summaries of pension applications. Many applicants cited a need to provide for their family, or having no family who could support them. Disability was the second-most mentioned category: Applicants were “feeble,” “blind” or simply “unable” to work.

Saunders died from influenza in 1788. In 1837, his wife Phillis, twice-widowed, applied for a pension. It took six years for her application to pass, perhaps due to administrative lags or skepticism surrounding her marriage to Saunders. She collected dozens of pages of affidavits from respected white members of the community, all of whom confirmed Saunders’ period of service in the war and the validity of his marriage to his wife. In 1843, age 95, she finally received a pension of $80 a year.

Johnson marveled at the “humanity” present in primary source documents that are often understudied. He said that piecing together the stories of soldiers such as Saunders, along with his own reenactment work, were part of a larger project by Black Americans to write “ourselves back into history.”

Though three decades had passed, Johnson remembers his first reenactment with clarity. It was February 10, 1998. Clad head-to-toe in military dress, he strode into a University of Connecticut classroom as Civil War fighter William Webb, singing a spiritual to students unfamiliar with the story he was about to tell: “Said I’m free, praise the Lord, I’m free, no longer bound, no more chains holding me…”

“Even if the people didn’t remember every word I said,” Johnson said, “they would have known that Connecticut had a Black soldier that fought in the Civil War, in the Revolutionary War.”