I thought I knew everything about my American heritage. I knew my paternal grandmother was a Daughter of the American Revolution (DAR), but not the details. I just found out that the ancestor was Franz Christian Hootman. When he was 16 he was kidnapped by the Prince of Hess and sold to King George the third of England to fight the colonists of America. His father was a wealthy man and could have rescued his son but didn't. One rumor is that it was over a "dispute regarding a girl." Christian initially refused to join the troops and was given thirty lashes for three consecutive days. He finally consented to join up, but not before telling his father, "I'll go, but I will never fire a gun against the Americans and I will never return to the Fatherland. On December 25, 1776 he was struck by a gun carriage and suffered a fractured leg. During the early morning, General Washington and his Continentals crossed the Delaware and captured Christian. The Americans treated him so well that he decided to reenlist after three months but will the Virginian regiment where he was a drummer boy until the end of the war. He received 600 acres in the headwaters of Buffalo Creek, West Virginia for services in the Revolutionary War, Virginia Regiment. Some of his descendants moved to Ashland, Ohio, where my grandmother was born. I've seen this picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware many times. Never did I imagine that an ancestor played a small role in this turning point in American history.