This is an excerpt from a textbook I'm reading for history this year and I thought it was a funny story, it is ironic how the Presbyterians in essence had "protestant" relics:
“...Storm the city of Quebec, and take control of Canada. This was to be the first major offensive of the Revolutionary War...why Canada, of all places? ... Yankees steeped in the Protestant faith had little trouble drumming up the motivation to invade the stronghold of Catholicism on their northern border... One army chaplain spoke for many when he wrote in his diary: “Had pleasing views of the glorious day of universal peace and spread of the gospel through this vast extended country, which has been for ages the dwelling of Satan, and reign of Antichrist.”...on the Sabbath, Jeremiah Greenman and his fellow volunteers went to meeting under arms. Marching with flags flying into the First Presbyterian Church, they formed two lines and presented their guns. The preacher, after walking through the lines to the rolling of drums, told the soldiers what Moses said to the Lord, “If thy spirit go not with us, carry us not up hence.” The men were moved. After the service, some of the officers convinced the sexton to open the tomb of George Whitefield, the famous revivalist of the Great Awakening, which lay within the church. Whitefield’s body had decomposed in the five years since his death, but some of his clothes remained intact. The inspired zealots cut his collar and wristbands into small pieces which they used as relics to ensure success for their mission” – Ray Raphael “A People’s History of the American Revolution” p. 69-70
long story short, America loses. Moral of the story: get Catholic relics next time :)
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