It’s the week of our 250th anniversary. While many look at the founding fathers and some consider the founding mothers, the heroic children are the ones most overlooked. My book Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front includes several children.

Jonas Cattle, seventeen years old, was pivital in the Battle of Red Bank in New Jersey. Captured by the Hessians the night before the battle he overheard the plans of the coming attack while pretending to sleep. The next morning they released him, not knowing he was the fastest runner in the colonies. He ran the nearly ten miles to Fort Mercer. The fort was on the property of the Whitall family. He told Colonel Greene the plans, They had time to turn all the cannons around to face the direction the soldiers would be marching. Colonel Von Dunlap marched up and stated they should surrender. Green declined, the killed Dunlap, and within thirty minutes won the battle. Every year there’es a run that follows the path Jonas ran.

Young Mary Redmond, a child, told her mother, “I believe I can get letters to the soldiers and back again.” Her mother asked, “Why child, how can you do that?”

Mary Redmond carried out her idea. She knew Billy who came to town to the market to buy supplies for General George Washington and his men to take back to Valley Forge. She played with him and they secretly passed messages while playing tag, slipping letters to him while he slid letters to her from the lining in his jacket. Her father was a loyalist while her mother and she secretly remained patriots. She shouted up her chimney for General Gates after Burgoyne surrendered.

These are a few examples of children who bravely helped the war effort. One more was Sybil Ludington that people write about her role in alerting her father’s men during the night. She rode horseback and used a long stick to knock and doors and told the men to muster at her father’s home because the British burned Danbury. She did much more than the one ride. She helped her father and spies that came through their area. He father, Colonel Ludington, served in George Washington’s secret service. She also saved her father’s life a number of times.

As parents, be sure to share stories of faith and patriotism. Encourage children with stories of brave children from the past.

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I’m Karen Whiting, author of 34+ Christian books with three more for tweens releasing in 2027.

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