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.
James Mitchell Varnum, born in Dracut, Massachusetts, in 1748, graduated with a high reputation for scholarship in 1769, at the age of twenty, from Rhode Island College, now Brown University. He adopted the law as his profession, was admitted to the Bar, and rapidly acquired an extensive and lucrative practice. Reading the signs of the times aright, and feeling that soon there must be an appeal to arms, he joined the “Kentish Guards,” and in 1774 was made commander. Soon after the battle of Lexington, he entered the Continental service as colonel; and on the 21st of February, 1777, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general. With undoubted military ability, he enjoyed few opportunities of distinguishing himself, though assigned several important commands. He passed the winter of 1777–78 with Washington at Valley Forge, and in the spring proposed the raising of a battalion of negroes in Rhode Island; the State Legislature acceded, and passed an act giving absolute freedom to every slave who should enter the service and pass muster.
On the 5th of March, 1779, Varnum resigned his commission, there being a greater number of general officers than was required for the army; but soon after, he was elected major-general of the militia of his native State, retaining that position until his death. He was twice elected to Congress, and in 1788 removed to Marietta, Ohio, having been appointed one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territory. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Death put an end to his brief but brilliant career on the 10th of January, 1789.