Excuse me, dear Locke1689, but the lads were. Young. My gx5 grandfather was 16 or 17 and fought and Alexander Hamilton and a bunch of college boys left Columbia (then King's College) to fight under Washington. And some chap who signed the Constitution named Dayton was age 26. A whole bunch of them were young.

> Excuse me, dear Locke1689, but the lads were. Young.

If you're setting the benchmark as the signers of the US Constitution, I disagree with this assertion. For the sake of argument, let's also include the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which is IMO a much more idealistic--and traitorous thing from the perspective of the crown.

Of the 40 signers of the constitution about 8 were below the minimum age requirements of US President (35) [1] with an average age of about 44. Of the 66 signers of the Declaration of Independence, about 7 were below the minimum age requirements [2]. The rest were at or above 35, and there were many men in their 60s and 70s. These numbers are not exact as I'm going off quick calculations and a spreadsheet drafted in a couple minutes.

[1] http://hercules.gcsu.edu/~hedmonds/U.S.%20Constitution/Const...

[2] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_signer...

Edit: Missed one and bumped the signer count.