On this day 250 years ago at a council of war at his headquarters in the “Four Chimneys” house on Brooklyn Heights in New York, General Washington ordered the withdrawal of the Continental Army from Long Island to Manhattan under cover of darkness that evening. Beginning at 7:00 pm the experienced Massachusetts seamen of Col. John Glover’s Marblehead Regiment and Col. Israel Hutchinson’s Regiment began evacuating the 9500 men of the Continental Army on Long Island and its artillery, ammunition, horses, wagons, tents, baggage, equipment, supplies and provisions from Brooklyn using every boat that the Americans could find along the East River. The evacuation would take all night.

The Marblehead Regiment was one of the most respected units of the Continental Army. An officer from Pennsylvania later recollected the Marblehead regiment’s reinforcement of the defeated troops in Brooklyn

inspired no inconsiderable degree of confidence. The faces that had been saddened by the disasters of yesterday, assumed the gleam of approbation in the spectators occasionally greeting each other with the remark, that “these are the lads that might do something.”

He also observed that “[t]here was an appearance of discipline in this corps . . . . Though deficient, perhaps, in polish, it possessed an apparent aptitude for the purpose of its institution, and gave a confidence that [other regiments] were incompetent to inspire.”

Glover’s Regiment was also one of the most diverse in the Continental Army. The regiment’s muster rolls described one third of its members as having “dark complexion” and only one third with “light complexion” and was silent on the complexion of the remaining third. Many observers commented on the number of negroes in the regiment. Although the muster rolls are incomplete, the names of some of the African Americans in the regiment are known including: Manuel Soto, Romeo, Caesar Glover, Frentharo Manwell, Cato Prince, Boston Black, Aesop Hale, Scipio Dodge, Nathaniel Small, Caesar Raymond and Hannibal. African Americans were not the only people of color; Native Americans including Philip Mohegh also enlisted in the regiment. There were also several immigrants in the Marblehead Regiment including Francis Grater from Spain and Peter Dural from Guernsey in the Channel Islands of Great Britain. This diverse regiment was about to pull off one of the most remarkable escapes in United States military history.

Sources: Schecter at 156-62; O’Donnell, Patrick K., The Indispensibles: The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware, New York: Grove Press (2021) at 57-58, 182-84, 234-242

On this day 250 years ago in Watertown, the House of Representatives of Massachusetts recorded that

the treaty of alliance with the St. John’s and Michmack tribes of Indians ,  wherein they have engaged to take an active part in the present war , against our  unnatural enemies , has been duly ratified. Four of the Chiefs , that were here ,  have actually arrived at New York , and the residue have sailed to the River St.  John’s , under the direction of Major Shaw , to procure a number of companies  from those tribes , to join the Continental army , under his Excellency General  Washington, agreeable to his request; and we have reason to expect that a body of  them will speedily arrive here on the service; and are also persuaded , from their  friendly professions , while here , and the good temper they departed with, there  will be no danger from them to our eastern settlements.

Sources: Massachusetts Historical Society, Journals of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts 1776, Meriden, CT: Meriden-Stinehour Press (1985) at p. 74 accessed at https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015020055417&seq=92; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Allan_(colonel); https://archive.org/details/johnallanrevolut00brow/page/n3/mode/2up