From: Henry Burke Friday - July 13, 1996 MARIETTA TIMES "Windows to the Past" by Henry Robert Burke African Americans in the U.S. Military Forces. (Washington County, Ohio) Part 1-- Bazabeel Norman From the American Revolutionary War through Desert Storm, African Americans have answered the call to military duty. Here in Washington County, Ohio we have sent our share of young men to win and maintain America's freedom. One of the early African American military veterans in Washington County, Ohio, was Bazabeel Norman. He was one of 5000 African American colonists to fight against Britain in the War of Independence (1776- 1783). Bazabeel was born "free" in Frederick County, Maryland on July 12, 1760. He was raised in a rural setting on a prosperous but modest tobacco plantation. Preceding the war, Bazabeel had often heard debates about the English Colonies separating from England and these principles of freedom excited him. Quite possible he thought, as many free mulattos of that time did, that all the slaves in the English Colonies would be freed if the Americans won independence. At the onset of the war, General Washington had declared freedom for any slave that fought with the Americans. In 1777, at the age of seventeen, Bazabeel joined Col. John Gumby's Infantry Regiment. The year 1777 also marked the turning point of the war in favor of the American cause. Bazabeel served in many campaigns. As the prospects for winning grew, many of the colonists that owned slaves began to fear that all their slaves would join the Continental Army and thus secure their freedom. They voiced their concern and the numbers of slave enlistment's were curtailed from that point on. On August 14, 1781, Washington received word that de Grasse was bringing the French fleet to Chesapeake Bay. He immediately decided to attack Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. The troops of Washington and Rochambeau marched south, leaving a containing force to watch Clinton in New York. De Grasse's fleet arrived at the Chesapeake capes on August 30, drove off a British fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves, and established a tight blockade of Cornwallis's army. Some 16,000 American and French troops and Virginia militia, under Washington's command, laid siege to Yorktown. Cornwallis made several vain attempts to break through allied lines, but on October 19, 1781, he was obliged to surrender Bazabeel was discharged from military service in 1781 and returned to his home in Maryland. He married Fortune Stevens in 1782 and moved to Virginia for a while, where he worked on a tobacco farm. A provision of the Ordinance of 1787 allowed for land grants in the Northwest Territory to veterans of the Revolutionary War. Bazabeel was granted land in 3rd Ward of Marietta and settled here. Eventually Bazabeel settled on a farm in Roxbury Twp., Washington County, Ohio where he died in 1830. (The area of Roxbury Twp., Wash. Co. is now part of Morgan County). Bazabeel is probably buried there, but the Daughters of the American Revolution have placed his marker among his fellow Revolutionary War veterans in Mound Cemetery in Marietta. Bazabeel has many descendants in Ohio today, including Mr. Wilbur Norman of Zanesville, Ohio, who did the Norman family's genealogy. Another branch of Bazabeel's descendants moved to Michigan, where they settled around the town of Remus. Henry R. Burke burkeh@mcnet.marietta.edu URL: http://www.marietta.edu/~burkeh