Anthony Gilman: The Black Revolutionary War Soldier Who Escaped Slavery

In This Article

His Story

Anthony Gilman fought for American independence, only to find himself deprived of the very freedom for which he had served. An African American soldier in the Continental Army, Gilman began his military career as a fifer, participated in important battles of the Revolution, and was eventually captured by British forces in New York. Instead of being treated solely as a prisoner of war, he was sold into slavery.

His captivity carried him from New York to Nova Scotia. There, after a prolonged period of servitude, Gilman managed to escape. His surviving pension record preserves a remarkable account of military service, racial discrimination, enslavement, and the struggle to regain personal freedom.

Gilman’s experiences also reveal the complicated position of African Americans during the Revolutionary War. Black men served in American forces even while slavery remained legal in much of the country. British proclamations offered freedom to some enslaved people who joined the British cause, but Gilman’s experience demonstrates that such promises did not protect every Black person who came under British control.

His story was preserved in a Revolutionary War pension file and later highlighted by the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution in its research on African American and American Indian Patriots. Although his grave has not been identified, his documented service ensures that his contribution to the Revolution need not disappear from history.

A Black Patriot in the Revolution

Much of Anthony Gilman’s early life remains uncertain. The sources presently identified do not establish a reliable date of birth, birthplace, parentage, or childhood residence. His life becomes visible through military records and pension documentation associated with the American Revolution.

The Daughters of the American Revolution includes Gilman among the African American Patriots whose service has been recovered through historical research. Its publication Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War draws attention to men and women whose contributions were frequently overlooked in traditional accounts of the struggle for independence.

Gilman’s experience was especially unusual because his pension account connected two seemingly opposing circumstances: service in the American army and subsequent enslavement by the British.

The circumstances of his birth and his legal status before enlistment should not be assumed. His later sale into slavery does not, by itself, establish whether he had been born free or enslaved. What is documented is that he served the American cause and was subsequently treated as property by his captors.

A Fifer in the Continental Army

According to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Anthony Gilman enlisted in a Massachusetts company in December 1775 and served as a fifer.

Military musicians were important members of eighteenth-century armies. Fifers played a small, high-pitched flute that could be heard above much of the noise of a marching column or military encampment. Working alongside drummers, they helped communicate orders, regulate marches, and organize the routines of military life.

A fifer’s responsibilities extended beyond ceremonial music. Calls sounded by fifes and drums helped soldiers recognize when to assemble, move, or perform particular duties. In an age before electronic communication, military music was a practical part of maintaining discipline and coordination.

Gilman’s enlistment came during the first year of the American Revolution. Massachusetts troops had already fought at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, and the American army was gradually developing into a more organized Continental force.

His service placed him within a military establishment that depended on men of different backgrounds, including African American soldiers, despite substantial disagreement among colonial and Continental authorities about Black enlistment.

The Battle of Harlem Heights

The National Archives identifies Anthony Gilman as a participant in the Battle of Harlem Heights, fought on September 16, 1776, in northern Manhattan.

The battle followed a difficult period for General George Washington’s army. British forces had defeated the Americans on Long Island and occupied New York City, forcing the Continental Army to withdraw northward.

At Harlem Heights, American forces confronted British troops in a series of engagements that resulted in the British withdrawing from the immediate field. The action helped restore American confidence after earlier defeats.

Gilman’s presence at Harlem Heights connects him to an important engagement of the 1776 New York campaign. The currently consulted summaries do not establish his precise position during the fighting or identify a particular action he personally performed on the battlefield.

The Battle of Monmouth

Gilman’s military service also included the Battle of Monmouth, fought in New Jersey on June 28, 1778.

By that summer, the Continental Army had emerged from its winter encampment at Valley Forge. British forces were withdrawing from Philadelphia toward New York, and Washington moved to engage their marching column.

The battle took place during intense summer heat. American and British troops fought for hours in one of the largest engagements of the Revolutionary War’s northern campaigns.

Gilman’s participation, identified by the National Archives, demonstrates that his service extended beyond a brief enlistment in the Revolution’s opening months. He was associated with the American army during multiple campaigns separated by nearly two years.

As with Harlem Heights, the surviving summaries do not specify Gilman’s individual actions during the battle. His documented participation should be recognized without inventing battlefield episodes.

Service with New Hampshire Troops

Anthony Gilman’s military record also connects him with Captain Nathaniel Hutchins’s company in Colonel Joseph Cilley’s New Hampshire regiment.

The DAR describes this service as occurring after Gilman’s escape. Surviving New Hampshire military records, however, establish that a soldier named Anthony Gilman was listed with Hutchins’s company during the war, including in a muster roll covering February through June 1780.

The published muster roll places Gilman among the privates rather than among the fifers, reflecting his recorded position in that company.

These records provide evidence that Gilman’s military career involved more than one role and more than one state military establishment.

They also underscore the need to examine the original pension declaration before assigning every episode to a precise year. If the 1781 capture date reported in later scholarship is correct, his New Hampshire service preceded that capture rather than following his escape.

What can be established is that Gilman served in the American military, participated in major engagements, and endured an experience of captivity and enslavement that later became part of his pension record.

Captured by the British

At some point during his Revolutionary War service, Anthony Gilman fell into British hands in the New York region.

A review of John U. Rees’s research on African American Continental soldiers places Gilman’s capture in 1781, while he was serving with New Hampshire troops during an operation against Loyalist raiders in the Bronx. The DAR’s shorter summary presents his capture and subsequent New Hampshire service in a different sequence.

These accounts agree on the central fact: Gilman was captured by the British while associated with the American military. The exact sequence of his enlistments, capture, and escape requires careful comparison with the full pension manuscript.

Ordinarily, captured soldiers might be held as prisoners of war and eventually exchanged. Gilman’s treatment took a different course.

His captors did not preserve his liberty as an American soldier. Instead, Gilman was sold into slavery.

Sold into Slavery

The Daughters of the American Revolution reports that British authorities sold Anthony Gilman to a man named John Falkenham.

This was an extraordinary reversal of circumstances. Gilman had served the American army, but his capture resulted in the loss of his personal liberty. His status as a soldier did not protect him from being treated as enslaved property.

The case exposes a contradiction in British wartime policy. British proclamations had offered freedom to certain enslaved people who escaped from Patriot owners and entered British service. Those promises, however, were conditional and did not amount to universal abolition or a guarantee of liberty for every Black person encountered by British forces.

Gilman had served in the American army rather than seeking British protection after leaving a Patriot enslaver. His captors treated him as someone who could be enslaved despite his military service.

The exact financial terms of his sale, the conditions under which he labored, and the full circumstances of his treatment by Falkenham are not established by the sources summarized here. Those details should not be reconstructed without documentary evidence.

Taken to Nova Scotia

Gilman’s captivity eventually carried him from New York to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, a British settlement on the Bay of Fundy.

During the Revolutionary War, Nova Scotia remained under British control and played an important role in the empire’s military and maritime operations along the northeastern coast of North America.

For Gilman, the move placed him far from the American military units with which he had served. He was no longer simply a prisoner waiting for a military exchange. He was a man being held in bondage.

The DAR summary states that he endured approximately a year of servitude before reaching Nova Scotia and escaping. Other historical summaries describe an overall captivity of roughly a year and a half. These durations may refer to different portions of the experience and should not be treated as a settled chronology without checking the original declaration.

The Escape to Freedom

At Annapolis Royal, Anthony Gilman succeeded in escaping from enslavement.

The available published accounts establish that he regained his freedom, but they do not provide enough verified detail to reconstruct his route, companions, methods of travel, or the precise date of his escape.

His escape nevertheless stands as one of the defining events of his life. After having served the American cause, been captured by the enemy, and sold into bondage, Gilman was able to recover his liberty.

His experience also challenges a simplified division between British emancipation and American slavery during the Revolution. Both sides operated within a world in which slavery existed, and individual Black people could experience very different treatment depending on military circumstances, local authorities, and personal status.

Gilman’s story is important precisely because it does not fit neatly into a single wartime narrative. He fought for independence, suffered enslavement at the hands of the enemy, and escaped from captivity.

The Contradictions of Liberty

Anthony Gilman’s experience illustrates one of the central contradictions of the American Revolution: a war fought in the language of liberty took place in a society where slavery remained deeply entrenched.

African American soldiers served in the Continental Army and state military units in a variety of capacities. Some were free men when they enlisted. Others were enslaved, and some gained freedom through military service or subsequent arrangements. Their experiences varied considerably from state to state and from one military unit to another.

Gilman was part of that broader history. His documented service as a fifer and soldier challenges accounts of the Revolutionary army that overlook the participation of Black Patriots.

His capture and enslavement also reveal that the dangers facing African American soldiers could extend beyond those encountered by their white comrades. In Gilman’s case, military defeat exposed him to the possibility of being treated as property.

The survival of his pension testimony gives modern historians a way to recover a story that might otherwise have been lost. It preserves the experience of a man who participated in the Revolution and whose personal liberty was violently taken away during the conflict.

Gilman’s place in American history rests not on a famous command or a political office but on the documented record of a soldier whose life reveals both the possibilities and the limitations of the Revolutionary struggle for freedom.

From His Account

Military Service

Conflict	American Revolutionary War
Allegiance	United States / American Patriots
Initial Enlistment	December 1775, according to DAR research
Initial Military Role	Fifer
Initial Service	Massachusetts company; precise initial company not established here
Later Recorded Rank	Private
New Hampshire Company	Captain Nathaniel Hutchins’s company
New Hampshire Regiment	Colonel Joseph Cilley’s regiment
Battle	Harlem Heights, September 16, 1776
Battle	Monmouth, June 28, 1778
New Hampshire Muster	Listed in a company roll covering February–June 1780
Capture	By British forces in New York; exact chronology disputed in published summaries
Captivity	Sold into slavery to John Falkenham
Place of Escape	Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia
Pension Record	National Archives Identifier 54674932

Later Life & Burial

Anthony Gilman survived his wartime captivity and lived long enough for his military service to be documented in a federal Revolutionary War pension file.

A published Massachusetts pension list for 1820 includes an Anthony Gilman recorded as a private associated with New Hampshire service. This entry is consistent with the New Hampshire military records, although the underlying pension documentation should be consulted before assigning an exact residence or additional biographical details.

The presently identified sources do not establish the date or place of Gilman’s death. Nor do they establish his occupation or the details of his household after military service.

His burial location remains unknown. No cemetery, grave marker, or Find a Grave memorial has been independently established as belonging to this Revolutionary War veteran.

That absence should not be mistaken for evidence that Gilman was forgotten by everyone who knew him. It means that a reliable connection between his pension record and a particular grave has not yet been documented in the sources consulted for this biography.

Further research in the complete pension file, pension payment records, Massachusetts and New Hampshire vital records, and early nineteenth-century local records may eventually establish where he lived during his final years and where he was buried.

For now, the strongest surviving memorial to Anthony Gilman is the record of his Revolutionary War service and his remarkable escape from enslavement.

Family & Descendants

Parents and Early Family

The names of Anthony Gilman’s parents have not been established from the pension and military records presently identified for this biography. His birthplace, birth date, and childhood household also remain unknown.

Although the surname Gilman appears in colonial and early American records, a shared surname is not sufficient evidence of a family relationship. Anthony should not be assigned to a particular Gilman household without a document identifying him as a son, brother, or other relative.

His military records identify him as an African American Patriot, but they do not establish whether he was born free or enslaved, nor do they identify his parents’ legal status. His subsequent enslavement by British captors does not resolve those questions.

Marriage and Household

No verified marriage record or spouse has been identified for Anthony Gilman in the sources used for this biography.

His Revolutionary War pension record may contain additional clues concerning his residence and household, but the published summaries consulted here do not establish the name of a wife or partner.

It is therefore not possible to state whether Gilman married before the Revolution, during the war, or in the decades following his escape from captivity.

This lack of documentation should not be interpreted as evidence that he remained unmarried. It means that a marriage has not yet been demonstrated through the records examined for this article.

Children and Later Generations

No children have been conclusively identified as the sons or daughters of Anthony Gilman, the African American Revolutionary War veteran described in this article.

Consequently, no verified grandchildren or later descendants can presently be assigned to him.

The absence of a documented family line does not establish that Gilman had no children. Rather, the surviving material assembled for this biography has not yet connected him to identifiable descendants.

Because the name Anthony Gilman may occur in records concerning other individuals, any proposed child or descendant would need to be connected to this veteran through evidence such as a probate record, marriage entry, household record, or another document establishing the relationship.

Challenges in Tracing His Family

Researching the family of an African American Revolutionary War veteran can present particular difficulties. Eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century records did not consistently document Black families with the same level of detail found in some white household records.

Enslavement could also separate relatives, interrupt the preservation of family records, and complicate the use of surnames. These general historical difficulties may be relevant to Gilman’s case, although no specific family separation before his military service has been established for him.

Gilman’s known movement between American military service, captivity in New York, enslavement, and escape from Nova Scotia further complicates efforts to trace his life through records from a single locality.

The strongest starting point for additional genealogical research is his complete Revolutionary War pension file, followed by the New Hampshire muster records and the Massachusetts pension lists associated with his name.

Town vital records, probate files, tax lists, church records, and early federal census records may eventually provide evidence of his household. Such records must be matched carefully to the veteran rather than assumed to concern him because they contain the same name.

A Family History Still to Be Recovered

Anthony Gilman’s military service, captivity, and escape are far better documented in the currently identified sources than his family relationships.

His parents remain unidentified. No wife or children have been verified, and a direct line of descendants has not been established.

These are gaps in the historical record, not proof that Gilman lived without family. Future examination of his pension manuscript and related local records may help recover the names of people who shared his life after the Revolution.

Until such evidence is located, his family history must remain open rather than be filled with speculative connections.

Original Sources & Historical Note