After the battle of Long Island, N.Y., Gen. Washington evacuated most of his troops, after losing about 1400 men, wounded, dead or captured. Samuel Sutphin, a slave and Rev. War veteran,who was substituting for his master, hid from the British troops for several days and was taken in a boat by a black man across the East River to rejoin Washington's troops who had retreated to Brooklyn Heights. Sutphin was later wounded in a skirmish with the Hessian mercenaries, who were labeled as "butchers" by the American troops.Sutphin had joined the Revolutionary Army as a substitute for his master and the promise of his own freedom. After he was discharged, he returned to New Jersey to collect his manumission papers and his master sold him!
Sutphin was sold four times in the next twenty years, until he earned enough to buy his freedom.
(Ebony Patriots N.Y. New York University, Inst. of Af. Amer. Affairs,1976, American Patriots, by Gayle L. Buckley)