Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 5
The teacher describes farms of “non-associators” being repeatedly plundered by both Continental and British foragers during the war, sometimes with receipts and sometimes without. How does this reality complicate romantic Christian storytelling about the Revolution, and what does it do to our instinct to equate one side in a conflict with “God’s cause”?
Another way to ask: How does the plundering of "non-associators" by both sides complicate a heroic Christian story of the Revolution? How should it warn us against assuming one side in a conflict is automatically "God’s side"?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
The transcript complicates romantic storytelling by showing that ordinary, peace-minded Christians were harmed by both sides, not protected by “the good guys.” It challenges the instinct to treat one side as automatically aligned with God’s cause, because war pressures often crush the vulnerable regardless of slogans.
- The speaker says the “rich farms of the Germans, especially those of the non-associators…were often visited…by foragers from the army and militia seeking horses and proven.”
- He explicitly notes this was “by both the Continental Army and the British Army.”
- A wedding meal at Michael Bauer’s home was disrupted; soldiers “ate and ate,” then took turkeys and chickens and left with “a wagonload of plunder.”
- He emphasizes repetition: “that happened over and over and over to the farmers. Both sides taking things.”
- Even when a receipt was given, loss was still loss: sometimes “they gave a receipt and sometimes they did not,” and sometimes goods “disappeared in the middle of the night.”