John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 2053

A reader writes, "A review of the names listed in the Revolutionary War Minutemen Battalion of Culpeper County, Virginia, did not reveal very many German names of the greater Germanna community in Culpeper at the time.  Is there a reason for the exclusion?"

My comments are not directed specifically toward the Culpeper Minutemen, as I am not that knowledgeable about them.  I even suspect that some of the things that have been written about these men are not correct.  For my comments, I will base them more on the Culpeper Classes, where I have studied them more.  The Revolutionary War was not popular with the Germans.  They found it hard to understand what the fuss was all about.  They generally had left oppressive principalities where land was hard to obtain and achieving an economic well being was not easy.  The Germans were inclined to believe that the English in America did not understand how well they had it.  Among the English, a large percentage of them were not enthusiastic about the war.  It was a way to get killed.  (Perhaps the biggest complaint of the Germans was that they had to support the English Church with their tax money.)

Of the 104 Classes in the Culpeper Classes in which one man was drafted from each Class, let’s look at the reaction among the drafted men.  Twelve of the men refused to serve.  Another twelve of the men absconded.  But these numbers do not tell the whole story.  The members of several Classes decided, before the random selection of a man in their Class was made, to hire a substitute for their Class.  Even more commonly, the man selected would hire a substitute to take his place.  For example, in Class 76, the draft named John Blankenbaker as the selection, but he hired his brother-in-law, Lewis Nonnamacher, to take his place.

Also, in the selections we have these German names:

For anyone wanting to study the Culpeper Classes, in which there are the names of more than 1400 men from old Culpeper County, I have published a book which is the best source of information on the Classes.  It is even better than the original lists at the Virginia State Library or any of the other published lists, some of which have several errors in them.  See my web page , or the Germanna Foundation’s list of publications for more information.  (Look for "The Culpeper Classes".)
(22 Feb 05)