The Marblehead Museum has acquired a rare piece of Revolutionary War history: A 1779 letter from Gen. George Washington to Gen. John Glover, responding to the Marblehead resident’s request to resign from the Continental Army.
The letter features Washington’s signature and came up for auction in October, an opportunity that Marblehead Museum Executive Director Lauren McCormack said the nonprofit pounced on.
“You just don’t see the caliber of a historic connection to Marblehead come up,” she told the Marblehead Current. “It was a couple of weeks of scrambling to bid on it.”
Glover’s Marblehead Regiment, a group of history re-enactors, made a donation to cover the $9,000 price tag to purchase it from Swann Auction Galleries.
“We have Glover’s desk, his ledgers and other documents in our collection,” said McCormack. “Now we have this letter.”
The letter came to Glover in the middle of the war, and Washington’s correspondence answered Glover’s request to resign following the death of his wife, Hannah, to attend to their eight children.
“I am sorry for the unfortunate occasion that urges you to leave the service; but as I cannot take the measure on myself of accepting your resignation, I have referred your letter to Congress,” Washington wrote to Glover. “\[S\]hould your resignation \[be\] accepted, it will be with that concern which I cannot help feeling on the loss of a good officer.”
As McCormack put it: “He is basically saying, ‘We can’t give you what you want – you’re so important.”
Washington forwarded Glover’s resignation request to the Continental Congress — which denied his resignation request but granted him leave to grieve. He would return later and serve until 1782.
Glover played a significant role in the American Revolutionary War, most famously leading the operation to ferry Washington’s army across the icy Delaware River on the way to the Battle of Trenton on Christmas night 1776.
His regiment, comprised of men from Marblehead, evacuated the Continental Army forces following their defeat in Brooklyn, allowing them to retreat intact to Manhattan. Glover’s regiment also fought courageously at the landing at Kips Bay and the Battle of Pell’s Point.
The crossing of the Delaware, conducted in secrecy and dangerously cold conditions on Christmas night 1776, led to Washington’s famous surprise attack victory against Hessian soldiers in Trenton, helping rejuvenate the colonials’ morale and alter the course of the war.
The Marblehead Museum will unveil the letter at a special event Jan. 27 at 3 p.m. in the museum’s J.O.J. Frost Gallery and Carolyn Lynch Education Center. The unveiling will be followed by Glover’s Regiment commemorating Glover’s life with a lantern-lit march to his burial site at Burial Hill.
The newly acquired Washington letter will be on permanent display when the Marblehead Museum reopens March 1, joining another Washington piece already showcased nearby.
The second Washington letter hangs in Abbot Hall’s Select Board Room, penned shortly after the president made an impromptu stop to meet with Marblehead residents in the autumn of 1789. Washington insisted on visiting the town during his inaugural New England tour before continuing to Salem. He had taken office as the first president just six months prior.
The Marblehead Museum is located at 170 Washington St. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays March through May; and Tuesdays-Saturdays June through December.
