American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm

Barzillai Lew was born not far from Boston, in Dracut’s “Black North”, a black settlement established in 1712. Not long after Barzillai’s birth, his parents moved across the Nashua River to Pepperell, where they had three more children. In 1768, Barzillai Lew married Dinah Bowman, a pianist from Lexington whose freedom he brought from her owner, and with whom he’d have many children (all of whom became musicians). When the Revolution broke out, Lew was supporting his family as a cooper.

On May 6, 1775, Lew enlisted as a fifer and drummer in the 27th Massachusetts Regiment. Not long after that, Lew (along with soldier-poet Lemuel Haynes) was among the black men who participated in the raid on the British-held Forth Ticonderoga in upstate New York, on Lake Champlain. The taking of Fort Ticonderoga, under the dual leadership of Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen, was the first American victory of the war. A month later, Barzillai Lew was once again brave, in the fight that became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill (after the hill the Patriots originally thought would be the site of a big battle).

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Along with Peter Salem and Salem Poor, there were some twenty other black Patriots at the Battle of Bunker Hill, with soldier-fifer Barzillai Lew keeping American morale high by playing “There’s Nothing Makes the British Run Like Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

Officially a British victory, the battle was nevertheless a boost to the Patriots’ morale. It rallied more Americans to join the Patriots’ cause- as soldiers and as suppliers of goods and money.