John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was an American soldier, clergyman and legislator.
Background
John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg was born on October 1, 1746, at Trappe, Pennsylvania, United States to Pennsylvania German parents Anna Maria and Henry Muhlenberg. He was sent, together with his brothers, Frederick Augustus and Gotthilf Henry Ernst in 1763 to Halle.
Education
Muhlenberg was educated in Latin at the Francke Foundations. He left school in 1767 to start as a sales assistant in Lübeck, but returned that same year to Pennsylvania.
Career
When the director of that institution apprenticed him to a grocer, he ran away, returning to America as a member of the Royal American Regiment of Foot. Obtaining his discharge, he studied for the ministry and served as his father's assistant at several churches.
Mühlenberg later went to England and was ordained an Episcopal clergyman. At the outbreak of the American Revolution he quit the pulpit to command a regiment of Shenandoah Valley volunteers of German extraction. By the end of the war he was a major general, with an outstanding record of service at Brandywine, Valley Forge, Monmouth, Stony Point, and Yorktown.
His popularity led him into a political career, and he served three terms in Congress, affiliating himself for the most part with the Democratic-Republicans.