There were, of course, atrocities during the war—German, Austrian, Italian, British, Serbian, French. All war is an atrocity, but the hate was fanned and the murder kept going by the steady press campaigns of mendacity in every country, and here in Britain we were subjected to more than our fair share of it.
Washington’s Bodyguard.
Washington’s Bodyguard.—At the outbreak of the war of independence Herkimer, Muhlenberg and Schlatter gathered the Germans in the Mohawk Valley and the Virginia Valley together and organized them into companies for service. Baron von Ottendorff, another German soldier, recruited and drilled the famous Armand Legion. And when Washington’s first bodyguard was suspected of treasonable sentiments and plans it was dismissed and a new bodyguard, consisting almost entirely of Germans, was formed. This new bodyguard was supported by a troop of cavalry consisting entirely of Germans,under the command of Major Barth von Heer, one of Frederick the Great’s finest cavalry officers. This troop stood by Washington during the entire war, and twelve of them escorted him to Mt. Vernon when he retired.—(“The European War of 1914,” by Prof. John W. Burgess, Chap. IV, p. 115.)
Washington’s Tribute.
Washington’s Tribute.—The Philadelphia German Lutherans held a memorial service on May 27, 1917, made doubly impressive at Zion’s Church, by the circulation of a letter written to the congregation by George Washington, in reply to congratulations on his first election as President of the United States. The letter concludes with the following words:
From the excellent character for dilligence, sobriety and virtue which the Germans in general, who are settled in America have ever maintained, I cannot forbear felicitating myself on receiving from respectable a number of them such strong assurance of their affection for my person, confidence in my integrity, and real zeal to support me in my endeavors for promoting the welfare of our common country.
Similar expressions are contained in a letter written by Jefferson, which see elsewhere. The church to whose congregation Washington’s letter was addressed, is the most historic church in the northern part of the United States, since it was built in 1742, under the direction of the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America, Heinrich M. Muhlenberg, father of General Muhlenberg, of Revolutionary fame. For 178 years the service has been conducted in the German language.
Weiser, Conrad.
Weiser, Conrad.—Along with Franz Daniel Pastorius, Jacob Leisler and John Peter Zenger, the name of Conrad Weiser deserves to be commemorated as one of the outstanding figures of early American history, for no man of his period exercised such influence with the Indians or did so much to promote the peaceful development of the settlements by insuring the friendship of the Six Nations. The following sketch of this famous character in American history is taken from “Eminent Americans” by Benson J. Lossing:
“One of the most noted agents of communication between the white men and the Indians was Conrad Weiser, a native of Germany, who came to America in early life and settled with his father in the present Schoharie County, N. Y., in 1713. They left England in 1712 and were seventeen months on the voyage. Young Weiser became a great favorite with the Iroquois Indians in the Schoharie and Mohawk valleys, with whom he spent much of his life.Late in 1714 the elder Weiser and about thirty other families who had settled in Schoharie, becoming dissatisfied with attempts to tax them, set out for Tulpehocken in Pennsylvania, by way of the Susquehanna River, and settledthere. But young Weiser was enamoured of the free life of the savage. He was naturalized by them and became thoroughly versed in the language of the whole Six Nations, as the Iroquois Confederacy in New York was called. He became confidential interpreter and messenger for the Province of Pennsylvania among the Indians and assisted at many important treaties. The governor of Virginia commissioned him to visit the grand council at Onondago in 1737 and with only a Dutchman and three Indians he traversed the trackless forest for 500 miles for that purpose. He went on a similar mission from Philadelphia to Shamokin (Sunbury) in 1744. At Reading he established an Indian agency and trading post. When the French on the frontier made hostile demonstrations in 1755 he was commissioned a colonel of a volunteer regiment from Berks County, and in 1758 he attended the great gathering of Indian chiefs in council with white commissioners at Easton. Such was the affection of the Indians for Weiser that for many years after his death they were in the habit of visiting his grave and strewing flowers upon it. Mr. Weiser’s daughter married Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, D. D., the founder of the Luthern Church in America.”