Nobody Men: Neutrality, Loyalties, and Family in the American Revolution

The story of colonists who were neither loyalists nor patriots during the American Revolution, told through the experiences of one transatlantic family

At least one-third of the colonial population were neutrals during the American Revolution, yet they have rarely featured in narratives that shape our ideas about the conflict. By following a single transatlantic family, the Crugers, historian Travis Glasson puts neutrals--the ＂nobody men＂--at the center of this tumultuous period’s history.

Like most neutrals, the Crugers prioritized peace above any specific constitutional arrangement and sought ways out of the military struggle. The Crugers were prominent among prewar defenders of colonial rights, and their experiences once the shooting started, in places including New York, the island of St. Croix, and London, reveal the complex dilemmas that confronted those in the middle during the violent upheaval. The Crugers’ dealings with each other--and with a cast of boldfaced names including Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Edmund Burke, John Wilkes, Lord North, and George Washington--illuminate how some people looked to chart alternate courses through perilous waters. Based on extensive research in the United States and Britain, Nobody Men humanizes what it meant to live through revolutionary civil war and recovers little-known but essential histories of how new nations formed as an older empire broke apart.

Travis Glasson is associate professor of history at Temple University. He is the author of Mastering Christianity: Missionary Anglicanism and Slavery in the Atlantic World.