Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the RevolutionLeiter, Mary Theresa
History
Biographical Sketches of the Generals of the Continental Army of the Revolution
Leiter, Mary Theresa
United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Biography
John Glover, born in Salem, Massachusetts, on the 5th of November,
1732, joined the army under Washington in 1775, with a regiment of
a thousand men raised in the district about his native town. Being
composed almost entirely of Marblehead fishermen, it was known as
the “amphibious regiment,” and was one of the finest in the whole
Continental service. It was at first the Twenty-first, and after the
reorganization of the army the Fourteenth, Massachusetts Regiment. It
was this body of men, under the command of Glover, that manned the
boats and transported the entire main army in safety on the retreat
from Long Island in 1775, and that manned the boats and led the advance
when the commander-in-chief crossed the Delaware on that memorable
25th of December, 1776. When Congress, on the 21st of February, 1777,
conferred upon Glover the rank of brigadier-general, he would have
declined, fearing he could not discharge with credit the duties of
that position. Being reassured by Washington, however, he accepted,
and by his subsequent conduct justified that general’s estimate of
his abilities. He was a member of the André court of inquiry which
assembled on Sept. 29, 1780, at which Nathaniel Greene presided. He
remained in active service throughout the war, earning the good opinion
of all who knew him, and died at Marblehead on the 30th of January,
1797.
JOHN PATERSON.
John Paterson, born in New Britain, Connecticut, in 1744, graduated at
Yale College in 1762, taught school, practised law, and was justice
of the peace in his native town. Removing to Lenox, Massachusetts, he
was elected a member of the first Provincial Congress of that State,
which met at Salem in October, 1774; and of the second, whose place
of meeting was Cambridge, in February, 1775. Deeply interested in the
welfare of his country, he busied himself in enrolling and organizing a
regiment of minute-men, composed of eight months’ volunteers. Eighteen
hours after the news of the battle of Lexington reached them, this
regiment, armed and mostly in uniform, marched away to Boston, and
upon their arrival were employed in constructing the first American
redoubt on the lines about the city. In the battle which followed
they manned and gallantly defended this outwork. After the evacuation
of the city, Colonel Paterson was ordered to Canada, and after some
active service in the North joined Washington just in time to cross
the Delaware and take part in the battles of Trenton and Princeton.
Feb. 21, 1777, he was made brigadier-general, and being attached to
the Northern Department, was present at the surrender of Burgoyne,
and remained in service to the close of the war. In 1786, he aided in
quelling Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts; he was presiding judge of
Broome County, New York, and spent the last years of his life quietly
on his farm, dying on the 19th of July, 1808, at Lisle, now Whitney’s
Point, New York.
JAMES MITCHELL VARNUM.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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