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"It was Sunday morning early in the year 1776. In the church where Pastor Muhlenberg preached, it was a regular service for his congregation, but a quite different affair for Muhlenberg himself. Muhlenberg's text for the day was Ecclesiastes 3 where it explains, 'To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven; a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted...'"

"Coming to the end of his sermon, Peter Muhlenberg turned to his congregation and said, 'In the language of the holy writ, there was a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away.' As those assembled looked on, Pastor Muhlenberg declared, 'There is a time to fight, and that time is now coming!' Muhlenberg then proceeded to remove his robes revealing, to the shock of his congregation, a military uniform."

"Marching to the back of the church he declared, 'Who among you is with me?' On that day 300 men from his church stood up and joined Peter Muhlenberg. They eventually became the 8th Virginia Brigade fighting for liberty."

"Frederick Muhlenberg, Peter's brother, was against Peter's level of involvement in the war. Peter responded to Frederick writing, 'I am a Clergyman it is true, but I am a member of the Society as well as the poorest Layman, and my Liberty is as dear to me as any man, shall I then sit still and enjoy myself at Home when the best Blood of the Covenant is spilling? ...So far am I from thinking that I act wrong, I am convinced it is my duty to do so and duly I owe to God and my country."

Next time you get a chance to read "Drums Along the Mohawk" the ELCA minister of the Scandinavian and Dutch Lutheran community at the Old Yellow Church in/near/Canajoharie ~ is a direct ancestor of mine.

He left nothing behind written in English or German, just his Baptismal notes in what seems to be Swedish. He had a good dozen male children of age to serve, and they all did so ~ the white ones, the Indian ones ~ all on the American side ~ mostly as scouts ~ the toughest jobs.

Note, the writer wrote about real people in the Revolution on the New York frontier, but he didn't use a single real name, nor did he leave behind a cross reference list.