8/16/2006

Watermen save Washington’s army
By Tom Range, Sr.

Among the state militia companies that flocked to join the Continental Army in the siege of Boston in late 1775 was the Marblehead Militia Regiment of Massachusetts under the command of Colonel John Glover.  The Marbleheaders, numbering over 1,000 men, mostly sailors and fishermen, joined with George Washington in the defense of New York City and Brooklyn Heights in the summer of 1776.  The men were uniformed in the blue jackets of sailors, white shirts, white breeches and caps.  A chronicler of the Battle of Brooklyn, the young captain Alexander Graydon of Pennsylvania, upon witnessing the arrival of the Massachusetts watermen, remarked: "Even in this regiment there were a number of Negroes, which to persons unaccustomed to such associations, had a disagreeable, degrading effect.”

By late August  230 years ago, General Washington faced a grim choice, whether to continue to fight the invading Redcoats on Brooklyn Heights or to withdraw his remaining forces to the temporary safety of New York City across the East River on Manhattan Island.  The general had fortified the Heights, blocking the passes through which the British could infiltrate the patriot positions.  All passes but one, the Jamaica Pass at the extreme left flank of the line.  The British poured a major force through the undefended pass and rolled up the Continentals, cutting off many from the shoreline and any hope of being evacuated.

The Battle of Brooklyn was General Washington’s first major engagement as commander in chief of the Continental Army.  He had been appointed after the Breed’s Hill/Bunker Hill engagement near Boston.  At Bunker Hill, in spite of the patriot forces having to withdraw from their fortifications due to lack of ammunition, the casualties inflicted upon the attacking British forces were so heavy that the patriots were considered the victors.  Washington had hoped that the British would attempt another frontal assault against his strong fortifications on Brooklyn Heights.  But the Redcoats had learned their lesson.  The British generals William Howe and Henry Clinton skirmished with the entrenched Continental force until the discovering of the unguarded Jamaica Pass allowed the Redcoats to penetrate the patriots and endanger Washington’s entire army.

At seven o’clock on the night of Thursday, August 29, the order was issued to evacuate Brooklyn.  It was a rainy night, which cut the visibility of the British troops in observing the patriots’ withdrawal.  By 11 p.m., a sudden shifting of the wind allowed a small armada of boats manned by Glover’s sailors to proceed over the river to New York.  The prowess of his men proved as crucial as the change in the wind.  Their boats loaded with troops, supplies, horses and cannon rode the water only inches below the gunnels, in pitch dark, with no running lights.  A seaman manning one of the boats would remember making 11 of the mile long crossings in the course of the night.

By dawn, much of the Continental Army had been evacuated.  But without the curtain of night to conceal them, the escape of the remainder was doomed.  Incredibly, as in the sudden shifting of the wind a few hours before, fate, luck, Providence, the hand of God, call it what you will, intervened.  Just at daybreak, a heavy fog settled in over the whole of Brooklyn, concealing everything as if it were still the dark of night.  Even with the sun up, the fog remained as dense as ever, while over on the New York side of the river there was no fog at all.

In the single night of August 29-30, Glover’s Marbleheaders had conveyed 9,000 troops across the river by seven a.m.  Not a life was lost.  The Continental Army would live to fight another day.  The Massachusetts watermen would serve Washington and the United States until the end of hostilities in 1783.

Colonel, later General, John Glover was born in 1732 in Salem, MA.  When he was 27 years old, he was appointed an ensign in the Marblehead Regiment and by 1775 had been promoted to Colonel in charge of the Marbleheaders.  He was ordered by General George Washington to procure, equip and man two small naval vessels, the forerunners of the Continental navy.

After the Battle of Brooklyn and the evacuation of the Continental troops, Glover served the army at Pell’s Point in Westchester County, NY in September 1776 and at Trenton in December.  Later in the Revolutionary war, he was stationed at West Point, served as a member of the court that tried the British spy major John Andre in 1780 and retired from the army in 1782.  He died at age 64 in 1797.


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