Revolutionary War and James Burden

I've begun thinking about my ancestors in the Revolutionary War. In two lines on my mother's side the records have been a bit easier to locate and the stories less shrouded in anecdotal nonsense. But on my father's side it has been much harder. There is a very hard dead end at my 6th great grandfather - years worth of genealogists have not been able to discover his parentage, proof of his birth, marriages, etc. He is said to have fought in the Virginia militia during the Revolution, but I have yet to find records of this. Plus the name is generic, so records I find are not necessarily about him.

Today while looking I came upon a number of letters to the pension office about  a John Burdin, who could be his son. They talk about a man of such a "weak and ignorant" nature that his mates in the military tricked him in to desertion by telling him his time was up. Or they tricked him by telling him after he'd left that he still had another year left. The whole series of letters are quite funny, and I wish that stories of James's wholly stupid son had survived and gone in to the books. These are the interesting bits of genealogy! Not just lists of facts or the info to get you a DAR membership.
Granted, I still don't know if this is who I think it is, and it will take more digging, but it's interesting nonetheless. It will always be the STORIES that keep me searching the family tree bramble bush.