Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg – Colonel, United States Army, Member of Congress

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Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg, who was interred in Arlington National Cemetery in January 1980, was the great-great grandson of Major General John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, whose statue is in the Rotunda of the Capital, Washington, D. C. He was also a U. S. Congressman.

John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg’s brother was Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, Speaker of the first and third House of Representatives, and the first signer of the Bill of Rights. He was my great uncle Fred Muhlenberg’s great-great uncle.  It is the other way around on most websites, and was wrong on his obituary.  I have many books on the Muhlenbergs, up to me and my family, with detailed genealogy going back to the 1600’s in Germany, an earlier if necessary.  I thought it was relevant to clear this up, even thoughmost other people would not notice it.

MUHLENBERG, FREDERICK A.

Captain, U.S. Army
314th Infantry Regiment, 79th Division, A.E.F.
Date of Action: September 26 – 30, 1918
General Orders No. 37, W.D., 1919
Home Town: Reading, Pennsylvania

Citation

The Distinguished Service Cross is presented to Frederick A. Muhlenberg, Captain, U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in action near Nantillois, France, September 26 – 30, 1918.

As regimental adjutant Captain Muhlenberg displayed the utmost disregard for personal danger in assisting his regimental commander in maintaining liaison with the front lines. After being painfully wounded and gassed by a bursting gas shell, this officer refused to be evacuated, but remained on duty, carrying orders to the front line and bringing back valuable information, until he was ordered to the rear.

Courtesy of the U.S. House of Representatives

house

He was the great-great-grandson of Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg and the great-great-grandnephew of John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, a Representative from Pennsylvania; He was born in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania, September 25, 1887 and attended the public schools. He graduated from Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) College, M.S., 1908, and from the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, B.S., 1912.

During the First World War he served as Captain of the Three Hundred and Fourteenth Infantry from September 1917 to March 1919; during his service, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Purple Heart with Palm, the Legion d’Honneur, and the Croix de Guerre.

Following the war, he became engaged as an architect at Reading, Pennsyvlania, in 1920; he was a city councilman of Reading, Pennsylvania, 1934-1938; Republican county chairman in 1935 and 1936; served as a Lieutenant Colonel and later as a Colonel in the Corps of Engineers, United States Army, from December 1940 to March 1946 and was awarded the Legion of Merit.

He was elected as a Republican to the Eightieth Congress (January 3, 1947-January 3, 1949) and was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1948 to the Eighty-first Congress. He then resumed the practice of architecture in Reading, Pennsylvania.

He was the Chairman, State Art Commission 1952-1963 and the County Planning Commission, 1958-1972, and resided in Wernersville, Pennsylvania, until his death in Reading, Pennsylvania., January 19, 1980.

He was buried with full military honors in in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

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