Revolutionary Leader – Colonel John Glover & his Crucial Leadership in 1776

John Glover is justly the most famous and celebrated of Marblehead’s hundreds of Revolutionary servicemen due to his capable and resolute leadership of his intrepid and unflinching Continental Army regiment during the war’s first year and a half, through December 1776, while he was a Colonel. Although the numbers of his soldiers were somewhat in flux as hundreds would leave to serve as captains and crews on privateer vessels, nearly 600 men and teenaged boys served in the rebel Patriot army in June 1775. This talk will primarily discuss Colonel Glover’s time as commander of that so-called “Marblehead Regiment” (1775 – 76). But it will focus on the pivotal last four months of 1776 –– from the crucial evacuation of Long Island that saved Commander-in-Chief George Washington’s entire army of 9,000 men and equipment, to the pivotal December Crossing of the Delaware River in lashing sleet (and back again, in worsened conditions, with two grueling nine-mile marches in between), which saved the war effort itself.

Afterward, most of Col. Glover’s remaining men returned home, and would join their mates in privateering –– to Glover’s frustration, though a handful of stalwart officers stayed in the army with him. Colonel Glover was promoted to General in Feb. 1777, and served throughout the rest of the war’s 7 long years. He retired from service in 1782, as hostilities on the N. American continent finally ended.

Larry Sands is the captain of Glover’s Marblehead Regiment, a reenactment unit established in 1974. A member for over 35 years, he has filled all leadership roles and has participated in reenactments of every engagement in which the original regiment served.