sentences:  Three years later and facing acute manpower shortages, Washington approved a Rhode Island initiative to raise a battalion of African Americans.However, Washington also gave an order "to abolish the name and appearance of a Black Corps", and he thereby apparently helped to racially integrate the Army.Washington gave a cautious response to a 1779 proposal from his young aide John Laurens for the recruitment of 3,000 South Carolinian slaves who would be rewarded with emancipation.