Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1896 — A Forgotten Hero. [ARTICLE]

A Forgotten Hero.

Instances of individual heroism were not lacking among the colored races, both negro and Indian, during the war of the colonies for Independence. One of the most noted among the black men who fought against the British was Austin Dabney, a young mulatto living in Pike County, Georgia. Austin was a free man, and was known to the planters for his sobriety and industry even when a boy. He shouldered a musket and joined the army, working in the trenches and fighting bravely during three years. He was severely wounded in a skirmish in the winter of ’77, and was carried into the house of a planter named Harris, where he was kindly cared for and nursed back to health. As soon as he could walk he joined the army again and remained until the end of the war, when in recognition of his bravery a pension was granted him by the Government. The State of Georgia also gave him valuable land. Dabney tilled it so skillfully as to become a wealthy man. He had neither wife nor children. His benefactor, Harris, had died, leavinga helpless family, and the grateful negro gave all of his means and his life to their service. He supported them as long as he lived, sending the oldest boy to college and then to the law school. When at the end of three years young Harris came up for examination, Dabney stood up in the court-room trembling with anxiety. When the boy passed triumphantly and was welcomed as a member of the bar, the old negro burst into tears. He lived to a great age, and was honored throughout his native State, not only as a veteran who had fought bravely for his country, but as a man of ability and high integrity. In the records which Afro-Ameri-cans are now making, for their own encouragement, of the men of‘their race who have achieved success and distinction struggling against heavy odds, they should put the story of th? poor Georgian soldier, Austin Dabney Truth Is the root, but human sympathy is the flower of practical life.— Chapin.