The Indispensables: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware
Patrick K. O’Donnell
Atlantic Monthly Press (2021)
How a “band of brothers” at the right place and at the right time helped win the Revolutionary War
The best works of non-fiction tend to be research-driven and that is certainly true of this one. Check out Patrick K. O’Donnell’s annotated notes (Pages 361-402) but I hasten to add that his scholarship is presented within a narrative that is both lively and eloquent. Members of the Marblehead Brigade were “indispensable” to the eventual victory of the thirteen colonies against what was then the most powerful military force in the western world, if not throughout the entire planet.
Consider the fact that, in the winter of 1776, a pall of gloom and the prospect of capitulation hovered over the nascent United States.” In fact, “As Washington direly confided in a letter to his brother, ‘I think the game is pretty near up.'” According to O’Donnell, Washington staked the entire war on a desperate gamble: “engaging in some of the most difficult maneuvers of the Revolutionary War.” Specifically, “a night attack, an assault river crossing in the middle of a nor’easter, and a strike on the British controlled town of Trenton.” Washington turned to “the only group of men he knew had the strength and skill to deliver the army to Trenton — John Glover’s Marblehead Regiment. The indispensable men miraculously transported Washington and the bulk of his [severely diminished] army across the Delaware in the heart of the raging storm, without a casualty.”
On numerous occasions in months and years to come when the war would have been lost had it not been for “the SEAL-like operations and extraordinary battlefield achievements of this diverse, unsung group of men and their commander. They were primarily responsible for the development of the origins and foundation of both the American Navy and Marines. Marblehead ships’ captains smuggled or seized crucial supplies. When a virus threatened the Continental Army’s very existence, a “fighting surgeon” from Marblehead saved the troops with inoculations.
O’Donnell examines several dozen inflection points during the course of the Revolutionary War when the Marblehead patriots’ commitment, talents, skills, resources, and initiatives either helped to achieve an essential (albeit temporary) success or prevent what could have been a catastrophic failure. These are among the dozens of other passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest the scope of O’Donnell’s coverage:
o Prologue (Pages xi-xiii)
o Distinguished families in Marblehead, MA (7-13)
o Smallpox (26-32 and 343-344)
o Fort William and Henry raid (59-69)
o John Cochran (61-68)
o Salem confrontation (70-81)
o Black Horse Tavern (82-89 and 123-124)
o Battle of Bunker Hill (125-144)
o Battle of Breed’s Hill (128-130 and 141-142)
o John Glover and naval operations; procurement of gunpowder (151-160 and 162-163)
o Stephen Moylan (159-163 and 171-174)
o Continental Navy: Beverly (MA) and military maneuvers (185-193 and 204-212)
o Royal Navy and invasion of New York (213-221)
o Battle for Brooklyn (224-237)
o Kips Bay attack (246-257)
o Battle of Pell’s Point (264-271)
o Delaware Crossing (291-304)
o Battle of Trenton (305-318)
o Battle of Assunpink Creek (319-329)
o Battle of Princeton (330-337)
One final point: With all due respect to the quality of Patrick K. O’Donnell’s scholarship, I also want to commend him on his superb writing skills. Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to checkout his earlier book, Washington’s Immortals: The Untold Story of an Elite Regiment Who Changed the Course of the Revolution (also published by Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016) and Rick Atkinson’s The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy, 1, Henry Holt/Macmillan, 2020).