While everyone's heard of Washington crossing the Delaware from history class, very little attention is paid to the man who actually made it happen: Colonel John Glover.  Being from Marblehead, it's rather difficult to escape him and his legacy--I briefly attended Glover School, had a dinner at the General Glover House restauraunt in neighboring Swampscott, and once toured the old destroyer USS Glover--and was surprised to learn just how practical and sensible he was in relation to the more well-known Hamilton and Knox: he deliberately remained a colonel while the rest of Washington's command staff were generals, partially due to being abrasive ("What this army needs is more private soldiers, not more generals!" he declares when Washington remarks on this), wore his own clothes instead of a uniform, and wouldn't stand for any sort of foolishness when it came to his first specialty of seamanship.