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Juneteenth and Other Lesser Known African-American Historical Culture

Khalid Elhassan June 15, 2020 34 min

Colonel Tye - American Revolutionary War — Colonel Tye as portrayed in a PBS documentary. PBS

11. Blacks in the Civil War Between Patriots and Loyalists

Titus Cornelius – or Tye as he named himself after escaping slavery – had his first combat experience at the Battle of Monmouth, on June 28^th, 1778. During the battle, Tye distinguished himself by capturing a Patriot captain of the Monmouth militia, and returned with his captive to British-held New York City.

Having grown up in Monmouth County, Tye had intimate knowledge of the local geography. That made him well suited to the guerrilla warfare that wracked the region. While the Redcoats and the Continental Army fought each other in formal pitched battles, a nasty civil war was simultaneously being fought between Loyalist and Patriot militias and armed bands throughout much of the colonies.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.