Under the Crescent Moon with the XI Corps in the Civil War, Volume 1: From the Defenses of Washington to Chancellorsville, 1862-1863

By James Pula

The XI Corps served in the Army of the Potomac for just twelve months (September 1862-August 1863), during which it played a pivotal role in the critical battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Thereafter, the corps hastened westward to reinforce a Union army in besieged Chattanooga, and marched through brutal December weather without adequate clothing, shoes, or provisions to help rescue a second Northern army under siege in Knoxville, Tennessee. Despite its sacrifices in the Eastern campaigns and successes in Tennessee, the reputation of the XI Corps is one of cowardice and failure. James S. Pula sets the record straight in his two-volume study Under the Crescent Moon: The XI Corps in the American Civil War, 1862-1864. Under the Crescent Moon (a reference to the crescent badge assigned to the corps) is the first study of this misunderstood organization. The first volume, From the Defenses of Washington to Chancellorsville, opens with the organization of the corps and a lively description of the men in the ranks, the officers who led them, the regiments forming it, and the German immigrants who comprised a sizable portion of the corps. Once this foundation is set, the narrative flows briskly through the winter of 1862-63 on the way to the first major campaign at Chancellorsville. Although the brunt of Stonewall Jackson’s flank attack fell upon the men of the XI Corps, the manner in which they fought and many other details of that misunderstood struggle are fully examined here for the first time, and at a depth no other study has attempted. Pula’s extraordinary research and penetrating analysis offers a fresh interpretation of the Chancellorsville defeat while challenging long-held myths about that fateful field. The second volume, From Gettysburg to Victory, offers seven chapters on the XI Corps at Gettysburg, followed by a rich exploration of the corps’ participation in the fighting around Chattanooga, the grueling journey into Eastern Tennessee in the dead of winter, and its role in the Knoxville Campaign. Once the corps’ two divisions are broken up in early 1864 to serve elsewhere, Pula follows their experiences through to the war’s successful conclusion. Under the Crescent Moon draws extensively on primary sources and allows the participants to speak directly to readers. The result is a comprehensive personalized portrait of the men who fought in the “unlucky” XI Corps, from the difficulties it faced to the accomplishments it earned. As the author demonstrates time and again, the men of the XI Corps were good soldiers unworthy of the stigma that has haunted them to this day. This long overdue study will stand as the definitive history of the XI Corps.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781611213386

James Pula

James S. Pula is a Professor of History at Purdue University Northwest and the editor-in-chief of Gettysburg Magazine. Dr. Pula is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including For Liberty and Justice: A Biography of Brig. Gen. Włodzimierz B. Krzyżanowski and The Sigel Regiment: A History of the 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865, winner of the Gambrinus Prize in History from the Milwaukee County Historical Society.

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Introduction

FOR MORE THAN A

century and a half, the reputation of those who served in the Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps has been ridiculed and abused, the men’s service denigrated, and their accomplishments denied. Their comrades-in-arms in the Army of the Potomac never fully accepted them as a part of their army, much less as equals. And because a large minority of the men were of German heritage, the racial prejudices of the day further contributed to labeling an entire unit in derisive terms. These attitudes have been carried forward by modern writers who continue to portray the corps, and particularly its German contingent, as prone to running away or panic-stricken whenever they met the enemy on the field of combat. Everyone who served in that corps, as well as their descendants, and indeed a whole ethnic group, have been stigmatized.

Negative portrayals of the conduct of the XI Corps at Chancellorsville are legion. Edward J. Stackpole’s Chancellorsville: Lee’s Greatest Battle, William Swinton’s Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac (which largely ignores the XI Corps’ struggle), Alfred Pleasonton’s self-serving article in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, and John Bigelow’s The Campaign of Chancellorsville are but a few of the early examples. Similar slights are included in the work of some of the recognized classics of Gettysburg historiography including Stackpole’s They Met at Gettysburg, Glenn Tucker’s High Tide at Gettysburg, and the esteemed Edwin B. Coddington’s The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command. More recently, negative portrayals have continued to be promulgated in Stephen W. Sears’s Gettysburg and Scott Bowden’s and Bill Ward’s Last Chance for Victory: Robert E. Lee and the Gettysburg Campaign.

For our best understanding of the war we turn not to the multitude of latter-day interpretations, Richard Harwell wrote in The War They Fought, but to the past itself. To research this story I have taken Harwell’s advice and gone back to the beginning. It is my intent to recreate the history of the XI Corps based on primary sources and existing historical data to re-evaluate these persisting stereotypes, and replace them with a more accurate interpretation of what actually transpired. In the process I intend to present a more complete picture of who the men of the XI Corps were and what they accomplished. Secondary sources are used mostly for background information. Thus, I have endeavored to have the participants speak for themselves as much as possible.

At times this approach may lead to seeming contradictions, but one person’s impressions and experiences do not necessarily have to coincide precisely with another’s. One man might remember that he and those around him ran, while another in the same regiment might recall standing fast under the proverbial hail of musketry. It may simply be that the two were at different points in the line and that some companies collapsed while others held out, or that the former veteran mainly remembers escaping from the fire while the latter remembers the fight itself. There are any number of reasons why memories may not exactly coincide. One observer may have been with a supply train while another was on the firing line. For memoirs written after the events, new information obtained from the comments of others or reading about the battles in books and newspapers could act to shape memory; or there may be a conscious or unconscious effort to portray one’s part in the great events in as positive a light as possible. While retaining these differences—as well as the occasional fractured grammar and non-conventional spellings of the witnesses—I have tried to present as accurate an overall picture as possible, making the necessary judgments as to which conflicting accounts might be closer to the truth based on other evidence or logic.

In reconstructing events I have attempted to focus on sequences rather than specific times, since trying to determine precisely when events happened yields only frustration. Because times were not standardized, and men’s watches (if they had them) were not often synchronized, comparing times between more than one person is equally problematic. The best that can be done is to estimate exact times when necessary and to rely on other observations to determine sequences. This, is my approach: to use as many primary sources as possible and to make judgments on disagreements based on the weight of evidence.

My hope is that this volume will contribute to the serious literature on the Civil War by bringing to life a prominent element of that conflict that has thus far been largely overlooked or misinterpreted, and by correcting the persistent myths that have come down to us about the XI Corps and its members.

Any historical work that involves research would not be possible without the assistance of dedicated librarians, archivists, and other researchers. I should like to offer my most sincere appreciation to Richard J. Sommers of the U.S. Military History Institute; John Heiser of the Gettysburg National Military Park; Benjamin Neely and Lauren Roedner of the Adams County Historical Society; Patricia Virgil, Director, and Sara Lawrence, Assistant Librarian, at the Buffalo & Erie County Historical Society; Irene Q. Powell, Mount St. Mary’s University; Denise P. Gallo, Provincial Archivist of the Daughters of Charity; Andrew H. Rea of the John T. Richardson Library at DePaul University; Katherine Robinson and Cheryl Knodle of the Purdue University Interlibrary Loan Office; Josephine L. Harper, Reference Curator of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Robert G. Carroon, Curator of Research Collections, Milwaukee County Historical Society; James J. Sullivan, Curator of the Military Museum of the State of New York; James Gandy of the New York State Military Museum in Saratoga, New York; Adele Chwalek of the Mullen Library at The Catholic University of America; Desirée Butterfield-Nagy, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University of Maine; Melanie Yolles of the Manuscript and Archives Division of the New York Public Library; Jaime Bourassa, Molly Kodner and Dennis Northcott at the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center; Betsy Hedler, Ohio History Connection; Tom Neel, Ohio Genealogical Society; Matt Burr, Firelands Historical Society; and Lorie A. Vanchena, Max Kade Center for German-American Studies, University of Kansas.

My appreciation also extends to the staffs of the following institutions that were both accommodating and supportive of my research: Bowdoin College Library and Archives; Bridgeport (Connecticut) Historical Society; Cincinnati Historical Society; the Dunkelman and Winey Collection at St. Bonaventure University; the Library of Congress; Massachusetts Historical Society; Milwaukee County Historical Society; Milwaukee Public Library; Milwaukee Turners Foundation; National Archives and Records Administration; New York Public Library; New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs; New York State Library & Archives; New York State Military Archives; Newberry Library; New-York Historical Society; Ohio Historical Society; Oneida County (New York) Historical Society; Oshkosh (Wisconsin) Historical Museum; Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago; State Historical Society of Wisconsin; Urban Archives at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Washington County (Wisconsin) Historical Society; the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan; and the Wisconsin Veterans Museum.

Thanks also go to various people whose efforts have contributed to my research including, in alphabetical order: Steve Ball, Eric Benjaminson, Frank Bergmann, Stanley R. Burleson, Mary Kay Clarke, Bret Coulson, W. L. Damkoehler, Stuart R. Dempsey, John DuBois, Mark Dunkelman, Robert T. Ewens, Mary A. Geiger, Donnabelle Gerhardt, Joseph H. Gillis, Allen Guelzo, Steven Gunther, Richard H. Haviland, Eliot Held, Robert J. Kadlec, Peggy Keck, George H. Kenny, Thomas A. Kuhn, William M. Lamers, John C. Leitzmann, Earl McElfresh, Betty Ann McNeil, Kenneth Medley, Robert D. Medley, Steven Miske, Dennis R. Moore, Alexander G. Morehouse, J. E. Morley, Margaret Paulus, Florence M. Petterson, Joseph Piekarczyk, Sr., Cheryl A. Pula, Libbie Romigh, James Roth, Charles Rothlauf, D. JoAnn Schiefelbein, Russell Scott, Erv Seeger, Lucy Storch, John F. Stover, Karl E. Sundstrom, Michael E. Telzrow, John A. Trestor, Fred Turk, Seth Vogelman, Alfred Wickesberg, and Joseph W. Wieczerzak.

Finally, but by no means least, I wish to express my appreciation to Mark Dunkelman for his very helpful comments on my original manuscript and to my publisher Savas Beatie, and specifically Managing Director Theodore P. Savas, Editorial Director Steven Smith, Marketing Director Sarah Keeney, and Production Manager Lee Merideth for their assistance, good humor, and forbearance during the preparation of this work.

To all of the above, my sincere thanks. Each provided evidence, encouragement, or expertise that contributed to whatever success this volume might enjoy.

James S. Pula

Purdue University Northwest

Chapter 1

To Uphold the National Honor

The Creation of the XI Corps

A DEEP SENSE OF DEPRESSION

mingled with growing apprehension throughout the nation’s capital during the first days of September 1862. There had been another massive bloodletting in Virginia along the banks of Bull Run, site of the first major engagement of the war the previous year. The news appeared worse with every new dispatch. General John Pope’s army was in full retreat back toward Washington. Casualty reports were appalling. Morale fell to a new low. Rumors were circulating that Gen. George McClellan, commanding the Army of the Potomac, had been less than diligent in responding to orders to send reinforcements to Pope’s embattled troops. Fingers began to point at Gen. Fitz John Porter, among others, for refusing assistance to his fellow soldiers engaged in mortal combat. In the streets, people feared the possibility of a Confederate attack on the city. Some government offices even began to pack their papers for possible evacuation.

In the White House, President Lincoln was despondent, troubled by the stunning new loss, the most recent in a long series of setbacks suffered by the national armies in the east that summer. He also felt the weight of a critical decision the new defeat thrust upon him. The Army of the Potomac was still arriving back in Washington from the York Peninsula in Virginia, where McClellan’s command had suffered defeat in its grand campaign to capture Richmond. Some of the president’s cabinet lobbied strongly for McClellan’s removal, especially in light of his lethargy in aiding Pope. On the other hand, Pope’s Army of Virginia had also been defeated, and others among the president’s advisors pushed for his removal. One thing was clear—the two armies should be combined into a single force. But under whose command? It was an agonizing decision, especially since Lincoln had little confidence left in McClellan’s ability to lead troops in the field; but of the two, McClellan had proven his worth as an organizer, and his troops were devotedly attached to him. What was needed in this crisis was someone who could quickly organize the two disparate forces, first to defend the capital, and then to take the battle once again to the Confederates. Reluctantly, the president decided that under the circumstances he had no option but to relieve Pope in favor of McClellan.¹

To effect the consolidation of the two forces, the Adjutant General’s Office issued General Orders No. 129 on September 12, dissolving the Army of Virginia. Its troops were transferred into the Army of the Potomac, retaining the organizational structures from their previous command. General Irwin McDowell’s III Corps, Army of Virginia, had originally been built around the I Corps, Army of the Potomac, which had been sent to western Virginia to oppose Gen. Thomas Stonewall Jackson’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley and was later incorporated into Pope’s army when it was formed. Because of its previous history, under General Orders No. 129 it resumed its prior designation as the I Corps in the Army of the Potomac. The other two Army of Virginia units, General Franz Sigel’s I Corps and General Nathaniel Banks’ II Corps, became respectively the XI and XII Corps, Army of the Potomac. The paper transfer was easy. The emotional transfer would prove more difficult.

The soldiers of the new I Corps were generally happy to be back under McClellan’s command, and were accepted by their former comrades as returning brothers. The transition was not as smooth for the other two commands, who many under McClellan viewed as interlopers, units who were part of a rival command under a general who had challenged their own for control of the Federal armies in the east. The McClellan faction especially never considered the two new corps to really be a part of the Army of the Potomac, believing that they had not seen combat equivalent to that experienced by the rest of the army on the Peninsula. The uneasiness of the merger would continue to undermine trust and would eventually fuel a serious division in the army and its command structure.

The commander of the Army of the Potomac’s new XI Corps, Franz Sigel, was an interesting character in an army that had no shortage of colorful personalities. Fancying a military life, he enrolled as a cadet in the Karlsruhe Military Academy in his native Baden, Germany, entering the army of the Grand Duke of Baden upon graduation among the upper portion of his class in 1843. Yet, Sigel’s mind ranged beyond the military, excelling in languages, history, mathematics, and science as well. Highly esteemed by his superiors for his accomplishments in the army, his inquiring mind nevertheless led him to question the rigid political system of his native land. His growing support for the more liberal political philosophies then gaining currency among European intellectuals drew him into their orbit. In 1847 his beliefs, coupled with his own increasingly rigid sense of personal honor, led him to stand up for a young officer who he believed was being wrongly treated by a superior. A duel ensued in which Sigel, though wounded himself, killed the offending officer, gaining for himself both imprisonment and unbounded praise from his comrades. With any hope of further promotion dashed by the incident, Sigel resigned his commission to return to civilian life.²

Franz Sigel was perhaps the most important German leader in America when he was named first commanding officer of the XI Corps. National Archives

Sigel had only just enrolled in the law program at the University of Heidelberg when the liberal revolutions of 1848 erupted. Inspired by the radical idealism of the Springtime of Nations, he immediately left school to offer his services to the insurgent cause. Rushing to join the popular leader Friedrich Hecker in Mannheim, Sigel raised a Freikorps for the insurrectionist army, and quickly became Hecker’s close friend and trusted colleague. Yet, the martial ardor of the young idealists could not match the practiced professionalism of the Prussian army. Defeated at every turn, the revolutionaries were forced to flee, with Hecker and Sigel escaping to Switzerland. While Hecker continued on to the United States, Sigel remained in Europe to continue promoting political change.³

When a new revolt broke out in Baden in 1849 its leaders appealed to Sigel to assume leadership of the movement. He complied, taking command of the assembling republican troops which eventually included Freikorps under the command of Alexander Schimmelpfennig and Ludwig Blenker, both of whom, along with Hecker, would play prominent roles in the American Civil War. Despite a spirited resistance, in the end Sigel’s troops were no match for the training and experience of the Hessian and Prussian armies. Wounded in the fighting, Sigel continued to play a role among the revolt’s leadership and, following its final defeat, once again escaped to Switzerland where he flirted with participation in other revolutionary movements, including Lajos Kossuth’s rising in Hungary. Journeying eventually to Paris where he reunited with some of his German revolutionary comrades, when the Prussian government pressured the French to turn over the erstwhile republicans he and several others decided to leave for England. By 1852, convinced that it was only a matter of time before the Prussians caught up with him, at age 27 he decided to cross the ocean to America.⁴

Arriving in New York, Sigel found that his revolutionary exploits, covered in some detail and with no little amount of adulation by the German American press, made him an instant celebrity. Plunging immediately into active participation in German American affairs, he was particularly drawn to the New York Turnverein, a gymnastics club that doubled as a political group. Thanks in part to his popularity as a revolutionary, and also to the fact that he was conversant in English, Sigel rose quickly in the organization, serving a term as its president. Two years after his arrival he joined the 5th New York State Militia, rising to major and being tapped as an instructor in tactics and an organizer for other units. Deeply opposed to slavery, as were the other Forty-Eighters who found themselves in exile, he became active in local politics as a Whig, but switched to the new Republican Party during its first presidential campaign in 1856.⁵

The following year Sigel moved to St. Louis to accept a professorship at the Deutsches Institut and once again became active in local political and militia affairs. A strong supporter of the Republican ticket in 1860, Sigel’s star rose among Germans and native-born Americans alike with Lincoln’s victory. By the end of the campaign he was one of a handful of prominent leaders of the German-American community who wielded influence on the national scene. When the secession crisis unfolded, Sigel complemented his words with action. At the head of the 3rd Missouri Volunteer Infantry he played a prominent role in the capture of the rebel base at Camp Jackson, saving the vital St. Louis arsenal for the United States. Once St. Louis was secured, Sigel took part in Gen. Nathaniel Lyon’s campaign in southwest Missouri, seeing action at Carthage, Wilson’s Creek, Springfield, and Pea Ridge. His conduct in the latter engagement earned him promotion to the rank of major general. Germans flocked to join him from the surrounding states, eager to be able to say I fights mit Sigel, which became a proud boast of those who helped to prevent Missouri’s secession.⁶

Sigel’s success in the west led the Secretary of War to order him to report for duty to Washington, D.C. Following the Union disasters on the Peninsula and in the Shenandoah Valley in the summer of 1862, Lincoln’s administration was about to reorganize the war effort in the east. Sigel’s western reputation, along with his popularity among the immigrant community, were viewed as positives at a time when a major new recruiting effort would have to be undertaken to replenish the army’s losses. He arrived in Washington at the beginning of June. On the 26th of that month President Lincoln created the Army of Virginia out of the disparate formations that had opposed the Confederates under Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley. Command of the army went to another westerner, Gen. John Pope, who immediately alienated much of his new command with a bombastic statement that appeared to denigrate their previous efforts while extolling the accomplishments of the western armies. It was not a good beginning.⁷

In the reorganization, the new army’s infantry was divided into three corps. When Gen. John C. Frémont refused to serve under Pope, who had been his subordinate in the west, Sigel replaced Frémont as commander of the Mountain Department, whose 12,000 troops became the I Corps of the Army of Virginia. Gen. Nathaniel Banks was assigned command of the II Corps numbering some 9,000, while Gen. Irvin McDowell led the III Corps of about 18,500, and Gen. Robert H. Milroy commanded an independent brigade. Both Banks and McDowell had already tasted stinging defeat at the hands of the Confederates, the former in the Shenandoah Valley and the latter at First Bull Run. Frémont’s troops had also suffered defeat at the hands of Jackson in the Valley, but both Pope and Sigel were considered successful candidates to whip their commands into shape, protect the Valley, and screen Washington while the Army of the Potomac was pursuing Gen. George McClellan’s offensive on the Virginia Peninsula.

Julius Stahel was a veteran of the Hungarian Uprising of 1848 National Archives

In its first campaign, Sigel’s corps marched and fought well. On the opening day of the Second Battle of Bull Run one of his divisions wrested control of a portion of a railroad embankment from Stonewall Jackson’s veterans who were using it as a defensive fortification. Only the failure of reinforcements to arrive in time to exploit the initial success halted the advance. On the battle’s second day, when Gen. James Longstreet’s Confederates launched a devastating assault on Pope’s open left flank, Sigel’s corps quickly responded by feeding in reinforcements to stop that assault. When Pope determined, against Sigel’s advice, to retire from the battlefield that evening, the German’s troops were the last to leave. Yet in the end the bloody fighting was still another in a lengthening list of Federal defeats in the east. Lincoln had little choice but to consolidate the two armies under a single command.

Sigel’s new XI Corps contained three divisions. The first went to Brig. Gen. Julius Stahel. A Hungarian by birth, whose original name was Gyula Számwald, he was an associate of the noted publisher and bookseller Gusztáv Emich. When the Hungarian Revolution broke out in 1848 he joined the uprising as a lieutenant and adjutant to British-born Gen. Richard Guyon under Lajos Kossuth. He was decorated for bravery in action at the Battle of Branyiszkó where he was seriously wounded. Escaping to Berlin following the defeat, he eventually emigrated to London before leaving for the United States in 1859.

Settling in New York City he began using the name Stahel while working as an assistant editor for the New York Illustrated News and for the German-language newspaper Deutsche Illustrierte Familienblätter. He cooperated with Ludwig Blenker to recruit the 8th New York, becoming its lieutenant colonel.

After fighting at First Bull Run, where his regiment formed part of the federal rear guard during its retreat, he was promoted to colonel in April 1862 and led a brigade during the campaign in the Shenandoah Valley that year. He was confirmed as brigadier general in November 1862.⁸

Colonel Leopold von Gilsa led Stahel’s first brigade. An officer in the Prussian army, he defected to the revolutionary forces in Schleswig-Holstein in 1848. Forced to flee after the defeat, he settled in New York where he supported himself playing the piano in Bowery saloons. Appointed colonel of the 41st New York on the outbreak of the war, he earned distinction at Cross Keys in the Shenandoah Valley where he suffered a painful wound when a ball passed through his right thigh damaging a nerve which left him with a lingering disability for the rest of his life. Stahel described him as a thorough brave and efficient officer, always at his post and zealous in the performance of the most arduous duties.⁹

Von Gilsa’s brigade consisted of four regiments under veteran officers whose soldiers were predominantly of German ancestry: the 8th New York (First German Rifles) under Col. Felix Salm-Salm; 41st New York (DeKalb Regiment) led Lt. Col. Ernst W. von Holmstedt; 45th New York (Fifth German Rifles) under Col. Edward C. Wratislaw; and 27th Pennsylvania, recruited in the Philadelphia area with most of its members of German extraction, headed by Col. Adolphus Buschbeck. They were an experienced group.

Col. Salm-Salm, a graduate of the military school in Berlin, served in the Prussian army during the First Schleswig War and in the Austrian army during the Austro-Sardinian War in 1859. Though possessed of an impressive military record, he readily flaunted his title of prince and had not abandoned his commission to fight in any of the revolutionary causes, thus creating some friction between him and the many Forty-Eighters in the XI Corps. Von Holmstedt had been an officer in Saxon service before migrating to the U.S. where he fought under Winfield Scott in the Mexican War. Wratislaw had been Ludwik Mieroslawski’s adjutant during the Baden revolution, while Buschbeck was a former Prussian officer who had been a professor in a military academy in Potsdam.¹⁰

The 73rd Ohio forms ranks in a Chillicothe street before heading off to war. Steve Ball

Col. Nathaniel C. McLean led Stahel’s second brigade. McLean was born into a political family, his father, John McLean, being a leading Republican and, as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, the most vocal dissenter from the infamous Dred Scott decision. Nathaniel earned a law degree at Harvard and set up practice as an attorney in Cincinnati in 1838. Appointed colonel of the 75th Ohio at the outbreak of the war, he fought in the initial campaigns in western Virginia. Styling themselves the Ohio Brigade, the command included the 25th Ohio (Col. William P. Richardson), 55th Ohio (Col. John C. Lee), 73rd Ohio (Col. Orland Smith), and 75th Ohio (Major Robert Reily). The regiments were all veterans of the fighting in the Mountain Department and at Second Bull Run. The 25th recruited in Belmont, Monroe, Sandusky, Morgan, Noble, and Lucas counties, but included men from all over the state. It mustered in at Camp Chase in Columbus. The 55th mustered at Norwalk from among similar stock, while the 73rd formed at Camp Logan near Chillicothe, having been recruited in the seven surrounding counties. The 75th mustered in at Camp John McLean in Cincinnati, recruiting in the city and surrounding counties.¹¹

Adolph von Steinwehr received professional training at the Brunswick Military Academy. National Archives

For the most part all four Ohio regiments were comprised mainly of farmers, mechanics, bookkeepers, clerks, and teachers. None of the officers had significant prior military experience. Richardson was a prosecuting attorney in Monroe County, although he had served as a private in the 3rd Ohio Regiment during the Mexican War. Lee was a practicing attorney in Tiffin, Ohio. Smith, a native of Maine, moved to Ohio in 1852 to accept an administrative position with the Marietta and Cincinnati Railroad, serving also as a lieutenant in the local Chillicothe Greys militia company. Reily owned a silk importing business that elevated him to the category of the wealthy. He was credited with founding the village of Wyoming, Ohio, of which he served as mayor when he left for war.¹²

Command of the Second Division went to Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr. The scion of a family rich in the traditions of military service, this grandfather held the rank of general in the Prussian army and fought against Napoleon Bonaparte, while his father served in the armed forces of the Duchy of Brunswick where Baron Adolph Wilhelm August Friedrich von Steinwehr was born in 1822. The younger Steinwehr attended the Brunswick Military Academy, graduating in 1841 with a lieutenant’s commission. In 1847 he secured a leave of absence to visit the United States where his pursuits met with mixed results. Though unsuccessful in attempts to secure a commission in the American army, he succeeded in winning the hand of an Alabama damsel. With his new wife he returned to Brunswick in 1849, but after five years the couple returned to the United States to settle in Connecticut where they became acquainted with Harriet Beecher Stowe whose son Frederick would later serve on Steinwehr’s staff. Because of his military background and German heritage he was appointed colonel of the German 29th New York Volunteer Infantry which he organized in 1861. He soon led a brigade in Gen. Ludwig Blenker’s division.¹³

Von Steinwehr’s command initially had only a single brigade commanded by Col. Gustavus A. Mühleck, a native of Württemberg. His troops included the 29th New York (Astor Rifles or First German Infantry), 68th New York, and 73rd Pennsylvania. All three of the regiments contained mostly men of German ancestry and all had served in the Shenandoah Valley and the Second Bull Run Campaign. Originally organized by von Steinwehr as a two-year regiment, the 29th enrolled mostly Germans, but also included men from Austria, Belgium, Bohemia, France, Holland, Poland, and Switzerland. Its colonel, Klemens Soest (Söst), had been wounded at Second Bull Run. The 68th was known locally in New York City as the Second German Rifles, although its original colonel, Robert Betge, referred to it as the Cameron Rifles in deference to then Secretary of War Simon Cameron. As the name suggests, it was comprised mostly of men of German heritage recruited in New York City and the surrounding areas of New Jersey and nearby Pennsylvania, with a few recruits from as far away as Maryland.¹⁴

After Betge resigned and the 68th’s lieutenant colonel, Johann Kleefish, was mortally wounded at Second Bull Run, Col. Gotthilf von Bourry d’Ivernois was brought in from outside the regiment to assume command. A veteran of the Austrian army and the Second Italian War of Independence, he had previously served as a captain on the staff of Gen. Ludwig Blenker. Organized by Col. John A. Koltes who was killed at Second Bull Run, the 73rd Pennsylvania was led by Lt. Col. William Moore, and enrolled largely men of German heritage, particularly members of local German rifle groups from the Philadelphia area.¹⁵ A second brigade was added once new regiments began arriving in October, leading to minor revisions in the September structure.

Assigned to head of the Third Division was Sigel’s fellow revolutionary from the German insurgency, Carl Schurz. A native of the small village of Liblar, he received his secondary education in nearby Cologne before entering the University of Bonn. There he came under the influence of a young professor, Johann Gottfried Kinkel, immersed in the growing romanticism of German liberalism that would eventually lead to the Springtime of Nations. The arrival of word of the French uprising against Louis Philippe in February 1848 immediately energized the young student. When his mentor, waving a huge black, red, and gold flag, the colors of liberal Germany, delivered a stirring patriotic speech which made him the hero of the occasion, Schurz quickly joined Kinkel as an author of the democratic movement’s political platform and as the editor of their journal, the Bonner Zeitung. An important player in the revolutionary forces, Kinkel’s biographer described Schurz as a spirited and tireless youth whose searching, keen intellect surpassed even Kinkel’s own.¹⁶

Deeply involved in the political aspects of the movement, Schurz also enlisted in the revolutionary forces and participated in two engagements, suffering a superficial wound in one of them. Dispatched on a mission to Fortress Rastatt, Schurz was there when the bastion was surrounded by Prussian forces who eventually forced its capitulation. Aware that his capture might lead to a speedy execution, Schurz, accompanied by two comrades and assisted by local supporters, managed to slip out of the encircled stronghold. His mentor was not so lucky. Arrested, sentenced to life in prison, Kinkel was consigned to a cell in Berlin’s Spandau Prison. Unwilling to abandon his former professor to his fate, Schurz used a cousin’s passport to boldly sneak into Berlin under this false identity, make contact with liberal supporters, and carry out a daring rescue that freed Kinkel and won for his rescuer lasting fame among the revolutionaries.¹⁷

Carl Schurz was a prominent revolutionary, German-American political leader, and correspondent with President Lincoln. National Archives

Escaping to Switzerland, Schurz soon moved to Paris to continue his political activities with the other revolutionaries who gathered there, but was expelled as an undesirable in 1851. Following a year in England he migrated to the United States in 1852, eventually settling in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1854 on the invitation of his uncle, Jacob Jüssen. With a reputation as an influential orator in both German and English, his strong anti-slavery principles quickly drew him to the nascent Republican Party founded in that state the same year he arrived. This placed him at odds with the more conservative previous German immigration and Milwaukee’s three German-language newspapers which supported the Democratic Party as an alternative to the Whigs who were tainted with the anti-immigrant sentiments of the Know-Nothing movement. It also placed him at odds with the majority of Germans who saw in him a rival of their hero, Franz Sigel.¹⁸

To promote their cause, German Republicans in Wisconsin established the newspaper Korsar under the editorship of the radical Bernhard Domschcke who state historian Richard N. Current described as a youthful Forty-Eighter who had just arrived in the city and had immediately distinguished himself by the virulence of his attacks on both the Roman Catholic Church and what he called the ‘Democratic Church.’ With his influence quickly spreading through the German press to nearby Midwestern states, Schurz’s vigorous, eloquent oratory also won for him a budding reputation among the state’s non-Germans. He campaigned for Republican presidential candidate John C. Frémont in 1856, which further spread his name beyond the borders of Wisconsin. Largely in an attempt to lure German votes, the Republicans placed him on their 1857 ticket as a candidate for lieutenant governor.¹⁹ Although unsuccessful, this increased his prominence among Republicans, Germans, and the general public, as did his journey to Illinois in 1858 to speak on behalf of Abraham Lincoln, who was contesting that state’s U.S. Senate seat with Democrat Stephen A. Douglas.

By 1860 Schurz’s prominence brought chairmanship of the Wisconsin delegation to the Republican national convention in Chicago where he served as a member of the national executive committee, seconded the nomination of William H. Seward for president, and, when it became evident that Abraham Lincoln would emerge as the nominee, seconded the motion to make his selection unanimous.²⁰

Schurz was selected as a member of the committee sent to formally apprise Lincoln of his nomination. During the ensuing election campaign he tirelessly crisscrossed the northern states covering an estimated 22,000 miles speaking on behalf of Lincoln, his eloquence and the charm and power of his masterly oratory as effective when speaking in English before a general audience as it was when addressing German gatherings in his native language. The most famous of his celebrated oratorical accomplishments was the Doom of Slavery speech he delivered in St. Louis. In his first visit to that slaveholding state he portrayed the national debate as nothing less than a struggle for the future of the nation, a future that would gradually, but assuredly, lead to a loss of freedom for all if slavery was not abolished.²¹

As a reward for his contributions to the Republican victory, Lincoln named Schurz the U.S. Minister to Spain, yet he shortly became frustrated with his distance from the political developments at home. In January 1862 he returned to accept a brigadier generalship despite his near complete lack of any military training.²² Inheriting what had been Blenker’s division, his command appeared uniquely appropriate to Schurz’s own experiences.

Brig. Gen. Alexander Schimmelfennig, who had by this time shortened his name by deleting the middle p, led his first brigade. He had served as an officer in the 29th Von Horn Infantry Regiment and the 16th Freiherr von Sparr Infantry Regiment of the Prussian army. Like so many idealistic Germans he sided with the revolutionaries, fought in Schlewsig-Holstein, and was prominent as a leader of forces resisting the advance of the Prussian army into Baden where he was twice wounded including a serious knee injury. Sentenced to death for treason, with the collapse of the revolution he fled to Switzerland, moved on to Paris where he affiliated with fellow exiles from the revolts, then migrated to the United States in 1853. Settling in Philadelphia, he supported himself as a draughtsman and engineer, as well as engaging in literary work including publication of his The War Between Russia and Turkey which predicted the outbreak of the Crimean War.

Immediately on the outbreak of the Civil War, Schimmelfennig was appointed colonel of the 74th Pennsylvania, a German regiment recruited initially in the Pittsburgh area and western counties of the state. His brigade included his own 74th Pennsylvania led by Major Franz Blessing, the 61st Ohio under Lt. Col. Stephen McGroarty, and the 8th West Virginia commanded by Capt. Hedgman Slack. The 74th enrolled immigrants and their sons from all over the German states, Alsace, Austria, and Switzerland who represented a wide swath of backgrounds from revolutionaries to farmers, professionals to craftsmen, the educated as well as those who lacked formal study.²³

Often labeled an Irish regiment, the 61st Ohio was really a very heterogeneous unit. Containing men from virtually every county in Ohio, as well as some from Indiana and Kentucky, it numbered among its ranks Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Germans, Scots, Irish, and soldiers from a variety of other ethnic stock. Assembling at Camp Chase in Columbus, its colonel, a native of Ireland, was a successful attorney and merchant in Cincinnati. Slack was born in Kanawha County, Virginia. Both he and his brother joined the Union army as soon as the war broke out, but neither appears to have had any prior military experience.²⁴

Schurz’s second brigade went to Col. Wlodzimierz B. Krzyzanowski, a Pole who grew up in the Prussian-occupied partition of Poland, joined the revolutionary conspiracy led by Ludwik Mieroslawski in 1846, and was sentenced to a term in prison in absentia following the failure of a planned rebellion against the occupying powers. Escaping to Hamburg, Krzyzanowski took ship for the United States, where he worked as an engineer, married an American,