The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware

Patrick K. O'Donnell details the history of the Marbleheaders and their role in the Revolutionary War. On August 29, 1776, after losing the Battle of Brooklyn, George Washington's Continental Army faced annihilation when trapped against the East River. The soldier-mariners from Marblehead, Massachusetts—one of the country's first diverse units comprising white, black, Hispanic, and Native American soldiers—executed an escape across the treacherous river to Manhattan, saving the army. Beginning nearly a decade before the war, Marbleheaders including Elbridge Gerry and Azor Orne helped break with Britain through governing, building alliances, seizing British ships, and establishing the origins of the US Navy. Led by John Glover, the Marblehead Regiment fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill and formed an elite Guard protecting George Washington. On Christmas night 1776, they conveyed 2,400 of Washington's men across the ice-filled Delaware River, enabling the surprise attack on Trenton that altered the war's course. O'Donnell's account draws on meticulous research to tell the previously untold story of this regiment and its members' contributions to American independence.