.65 M6 \v The German Element in Two Great Crises of American History 1776—1861 By REV. J. F. MEYER, Minister of the Independent Protestant Church, Columbus, Ohio. Proceeds from the sale of this pamphlet will be devoted to the relief of widows and orphans of the fallen soldiers of the German and Austrian armies. PRICE, 10 CENTS. .qs MOTTO. Nobody can discern today how much those of English and how much these of German race have contributed to Ameri- can life and to the progress of the land. Their work has be- come a unit, and it would be a happy development for the national soul, indeed, if at last their ideals would form a unit, too. The outer frame-work of the national life has been com- pleted, but the spirit of the country would only gain if the traditional Anglo-Saxon culture also absorbed more and more the German faith in discipline of the will and in the over- personal value of the ideal goods. — Miinsterberg. Copyright, 1915, by J. F. Meyer PREFACE The author of this little pamphlet does not claim to have made any new contribution to the subject herein treated. He is not a professional historian and has done very little in the way of original research. He has depended very largely upon the work of those who are historians by calling especially upon Dr. Bernhardt Faust, author of a great work on "The German Element in America," to whom he hereby wishes to acknowledge his great indebtedness. Indeed, the author frankly acknowledges that he has not only borrowed much of his matter from Dr. Faust, but in some cases has even given his "ipsissima verba." But since it is part of the author's aim in publishing this pamphlet, to popularize some of the historical knowledge to be gained by a perusal of Faust's great work, and to call atten- tion to it, these occasional plagiarisms will surely be par- doned. But the discerning reader will also find much new mate- rial not found in Faust, in these two little essays. Some of this may be found in the ordinary histories of the periods treated hy Bancroft, Fiske and Ehocles. Some of it the author culled from the pages of German periodicals and puhlications. Just a very little of it may also be considered new or original mate- rial due to original research by the author. The author has also made use of two historical novels which throw light on the periods treated. The first is "In the Valley," by Harold Frederic, which deals with the Revo- lution, and the other is Winston Churchill's "Crisis," which deals with the Civil War. In the afterword to the latter, Churchill says: "Nor can the German element in St. Louis be ignored. The part played by this people in the Civil War is a matter of history." For the history of the part played hy the Germans in St. Louis during the Civil War, the author also feels specially indebted to Snead's "The Fight for Missouri." The author does not expect to reap either fame or money by the publication of this pamphlet, His chief reward will probably be criticism. He did not rush into print inadvisedly, but only from a sense of duty and in accordance with the de- sire of many friends. There are times when many Americans are inclined to 1 think and speak as if this were an Anglo-Saxon nation, and to forget the services rendered and the contribution made to our national life, by people of other racial stocks. The present is such a time. The pamphlet is therefore not without the qual- ity of timeliness. The essay on "The German Element in America During the Revolutionary War," was compiled from Faust and other sources, at the request of friends, whose interest in the sub- ject had been aroused and who desired information. It was first read before the Sarah Hull Chapter, D. A. R., in Newton, Mass., in 1911, in the presence of the regents of most of the chapters of that order in Massachusetts. It was afterwards repeated before the Paul Revere Chapter, D. A. R., in Boston, the Cambridge (Mass.) Ministers' Association, the Brookline Historical Society, and other patriotic, historical and religious organizations in Massachusetts and Connecticut. None of its statements were questioned at that time. The date of the essay's composition shows that it is purely historical and therefore truly neutral in spirit. 0CI.A41O243 AUG 26 1916 The German Element in America Dur- ing the Revolutionary War AT the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the total popu- lation of the Thirteen Colonies, according to an estimate made by the Continental Congress, was 2,243,000 people. This estimate, however, is generally considered too large. Bancroft estimates the total white population of the Colonies in 1775 at 2,100,000. According to a very conservative estimate, the number of Germans in America at this time was about 225,000, more than one-tenth of the entire population. Of his number fully 110,000 lived in Pennsylvania, where the Germans numbered more than one-third of the population. (See Note, page 18.) The Germans in America, almost to a man, were patriots and champions of independence. This fact undoubtedly had a decided influence upon the outcome of the struggle. The social conditions of the Germans in the Colonies forced them as a necessary consequence, into the Democratic party, or the party of independence. They were not members of families that had been in favor at court for generations ; they were not owners of estates that were gifts of the crown ; they had no national sentiments of loyalty binding them to a British prince. They were men who had hewn their own farms out of the wild forest, had maintained their independence against its savage inhabitants, and now claimed as their own the soil on which their battles had been won. This state of affairs is well brought out in Harold Fred- eric's novel, entitled "In the Valley," the scene of which is laid in revolutionary times, among the early Dutch and Ger- man settlers in the upper Mohawk Valley, when he makes one of the German characters in the book say: "We Germans are not like the rest. Our fathers and mothers remember their sufferings in the old country, kept ragged, and hungry and wretched in such a way as my negroes do not dream of, all that some scoundrel baron might have gilding on his carriage, and that the elector might enjoy himself in his palace. They were beaten, hanged, robbed of their daughters, worked to death, frozen by the cold in their nakedness, dragged off into the armies to be sold to any prince who could pay for their blood and broken bones. The French who overran the Palati- nate were bad enough; the native rulers were even more to 3 be hated. The exiles of our race have not forgotten this; they have told it all to us, their children and grandchildren horn here in this valley. "We have made a new home for ourselves over here, and we owe no one but God anything for it. If they try to make here another aristocracy over us, then we will die first before we will submit." At the beginning of the Revolution, most of the Germans were settled on the frontier, their settlements extending from the valley of the Mohawk in New York, through Pennsylvania, Western Maryland, and the great Valley of- Virginia, to the German settlement of Ebenezer in northern Georgia. Frontiersmen gained from their mode of life a degree of independence which often set them in opposition to the policies of the seaboard. The conservative Eastern settlements were better satisfied with the status quo ; the frontiersmen looked beyond, aspired to new conditions, and were ready to make a bold venture. The frontier turned the balance toward independence. According to John Adams, nearly one-third of the whole population of the Colonies at the outbreak of the "Revolutionary "War were Tories or Loyalists. The people of New York and Pennsylvania were very equally divided between the Tory and the Democratic parties, and the influence of the large German element in these states, undoubtedly contributed a great deal towards carrying them both for independence, just as, at a later crisis in the nation's life, it was the German element which held the great State of Missouri for the Union. Tn Georgia the Loyalists were in the maiority, and for a time contemplated separating Georgia from the general move- ment of the Colonies towards independence. Here again it was the German element which saved the state for the patriot cause and a German by the name of John Adam Treutlen was the revolutionary governor of Georgia. Even after the beginning of the Avar, the Tory or Loyalist partv, though always of course in the minority, often devel- oped considerable strength. Thus in December. 1776. when "Washington was retreating across New Jersev before superior British forces under Howe, and when even his wonderful resourcefulness barely sufficed to save his little army from annihilation, what do we see? Although the legislature of New Jersev was doing all it could, we read that the second officer of the Monmouth Bat- talion refused to take the oath of the state: Charles "Read, its colonel, submitted to the enemy; the chief iustiee of the state wavered in his lovaltv; and Samuel Tucker, who had been president of the constituent convention of New Jersey, chair- man of its committee of safety, treasurer, and judge of its 4 supreme court, signed the pledge of fidelity of the British. From Philadelphia, Joseph Galloway went over to Howe; so did Andrew Allen, who had been a member of the Continental Congress, and two of his brothers, all confident of being soon restored to their former fortunes and political importance. Even John Dickinson, for two or three mouths longer refused to accept from Delaware an appointment to the United States Congress. Among such lukewarm supporters of the Revolution, you will seldom or never find a German name, and on the' con- trary, when Washington won the battle of Trenton, the praeses of the German Lutheran churches in Pennsylvania and New Jersey announced the glorious tidings to the congregations under his charge in the words: "But the Lord of Hosts heard the cry of the distressed, and sent an angel for their deliv- erance," and thanksgivings were offered in all the German churches. One of the interesting details concerning the military his- .tory of the Revolution is that Washington's bodyguard was largely made up of Germans. There had been Tories, or at least suspects, in the first bodyguard appointed, and plots were revealed by which the person of the commander-in-chief was to be seized. On the advice of Washington's private sec- retary and adjutant, Reed, who Avas himself of German de- scent, a troop was formed consisting entirely of Germans upon whose loyalty the general could depend, 'it was called the [ndependent Troop of Horse and placed under the command ol Aiajor Yon Heer, another German. Von Heer recruited his men in the Pennsylvania German counties of Berks and Lan- caster. They began to serve in the spring of 1778. and were honorably discharged at the end of the war, twelve of them who had served longer than any other soldiers in the Conti- nental Army, having the honor of escorting the commander-in- chief to his home in Mt. Vernon. One of the most interesting and romantic figures in the Revolutionary War was the German American, Peter Muhlen- berg. He was the son of the Rev. Heinrich Melchior Muhlen- berg, the founder and patriarch of the Lutheran Church in America. His mother was the daughter of Conrad Weiser a German frontiersman, famous as an Indian fighter in the Mo- hawk valley. Peter was destined by his father for the min- istry, and was sent to Halle to be educated. In 1772 he aecepted a call to the Lutheran church at Woodstock, in the Shenandoah valley. His frank and manly bearing made friends within the congregation and without. An intimacy arose be- tween Muhlenberg and Patrick Henry, with Avhom he laid dee]) plana of sedition, ne also became intimate with Col. George Washington, with whom he often shot bucks in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Peter Muhlenberg was made the chairman of the com- mittee of safety and correspondence in Dunmore Co., Va., in which Woodstock is located. In the state's convention of 1774 at Williamsburg, and in the next session at Richmond in March, 1775, he supported Patrick Henry eloquently and gave assurance of the support of his large constituency of German settlers in the Valley of Virginia. When Patrick Henry renewed his motion of arming the province of Virginia, it was Peter Muhlenberg who seconded him. When the war began, Muhlenberg was placed in com- mand of the 8th Virginia regiment, This was at the request of Patrick Henry and George Washington. Two other Ger- man-Americans, Abraham Bowman and Peter Helfenstein, served respectively as his lieutenant-colonel and major. Quite typical and characteristic of Peter Muhlenberg was the romantic way in which he took farewell of his congrega- tion. The news that the popular young minister was to preach his last sermon brought crowds of hearers from far and near, filling not only the church but also the church-yard roundabout. It was in January, 1776, when the atmosphere was charged and electric with potentialities. At the close of his sermon, the minister spoke of the duties which we owe to our country, saying, with a fervor born of conviction, that "there is a. time for praying and preaching, but also a time for battle, and that such a time had now come." As soon as he had pronounced the benediction, he threw aside his cler- ical robe, and behold, instead of a Lutheran minister in his black talar, there stood revealed a colonel of the Continental Army in full uniform. As he slowly descended from the pul- pit, the whole congregation burst forth into singing that grand old German choral: "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," while outside the church the drums were beaten for the mustering of soldiers in the cause of freedom. Enthusiasm blazed up, carrying men away to a step before which they had long hesi- tated and trembled. Three hundred recruits were at once taken into the regiment of Muhlenberg, and on the following day the numbers were increased to over four hundred. The regiment of Muhlenberg was first used in South Caro- lina and then brought north. On February 21, 1777, Congress raised Col. Muhlenberg to the rank of a brigadier general in command of the 1st, 5th, 9th and 13th Virginia regiments. The brigades of Muhlen- berg and of Weedon formed General Greene's division, dis- tinguished for bravery and discipline in the battles of Brandy- wine and Gcrmantown. 6 It was Muhlenberg's brigade which covered the retreat of the American Army after the battle of Brandywine and prevented its annihilation by Cornwallis. The same brigade also divided the right wing of the enemy at the battle of Ger- mantown, the errors of that unfortunate battle being made in other quarters. Miihlenberg's regiment was also at Valley Forge during the winter and subsequently sustained its good reputation at the battle of Monmouth. A quaint and interesting character among Germans of revolutionary times was Christopher Ludwig. He was of a different type from Muhlenberg, in origin, social position and education, but one with him touching motive and enthusiasm. Christopher Ludwig was a representative of that sturdy, middle-class element among the Germans which has fre- quently inspired admiration for its old-fashioned virtue and power, though it may sometimes cause amusement by its foreign smack. Ludwig lived in Philadelphia, where he ag- gressively championed the revolution from the very first. When Gov. Mifflin made a motion that a collection be taken for the purchase of arms and ammunition and several voices were heard in opposition, Ludwig arose, and said in badly accented but very plain English: "Mr. President, I am of course only a poor ginger-bread baker, but write me down for two hundred pounds." Ludwig 's move closed the debate and carried the proposition unanimously. In May, 1777, Congress appointed Ludwig superintendent and director of baking for the entire army, for ever since 1754 he had practiced in Philadelphia the trade of a baker, which he had learned in his native city of Giessen. He was required by the Continental authorities to furnish one hundred pounds of bread for every one hundred pounds of flour. But he said « "No! Christopher Ludwig does not wish to get rich by the war. He has enough already. Out of one hundred pounds of flour, one gets one hundred and thirty-five pounds of bread and so many will I give." The added water, of course, in- creases the weight of the flour when it is baked into bread. The legislators of that period were ignorant of this simple fact of which any housekeeper could have informed them. Ludwig 's predecessors, who were grafters of an early date, had given themselves the benefit of this ignorance. But the Dutch gingerbread baker was too honest and patriotic for that. Ludwig 's behavior in this matter compares favorably even with that of Gen. Greene, who, while at the head of the quartermaster department, did not scruple to enter into a most secret partnership with the head of he commissary de- partment in order to increase the profits which he derived by furnishing supplies to the army. 7 One of Ludwig 's notable achievements was the prompt execution of Washington's order, immediately after the sur- render of Yorktown, to bake bread for the army of Corn- wallis. Ludwig baked six thousand pounds of bread in one day. Dr. Benjamin Rush thought Ludwig worthy of a biog- raphy by his own distinguished pen. His "Life of Ludwick" was printed in Philadelphia in 1801, and reprinted in 1831. The occupation of Philadelphia by the British inflicted heavy losses upon Ludwig, and also upon many others, whom the British authorities denounced as "notorious rebels," among which were numerous Germans. Among these German patriots and rebels was Heinrieh Miller, then serving as printer of Congress, whose printing press and property were confiscated. The British also robbed the house of Jacob Schreiner, a German' member of the revo- lutionary committee, and destroyed the sugar refinery of David Schaffer. They plundered the house of Rev. Michael Schlatter, who had shown the greatest sympathy for the cause of the patriots from the very beginning and was even thee serving as a chaplain in the revolutionary army. They also damaged the property of the following German patriots: Keppele, Kuhn, Hogner, Zantzinger, Bartsch, Sprogel, Eekert, Graff, Gressler and Knorr, most of whom were well-to-do mer- chants of Philadelphia. The German settlers in the Mohawk Valley rendered a most signal and important service to the revolutionary cause, by their defeat of the army of St. Leger, which frustrated the ambitious plans of General Burgoyne. In the middle of June, 1777, General Burgoyne began his march from Canada. He wished to cut off New England from the rest of the Colonies, by establishing a line from Lake Champlain down the Hudson to New York. He was to be aided by a British expedition coming up the Hudson from New York. At the same time, Col. St. Leger was to come from the westward, joining Burgoyne at Albany, after having sub- dued the whole of the Mohawk Valley and robbed its German farms of their rich harvests, which were to supply Burgoyne 's army with food. St. Leger left Montreal about the end of July. One-half of his force consisted of Hessian Chasseurs, skilled marksmen recruited in Germany from the gamekeeper or forester class, who were among the hired troops which England employed against the Colonists. Joseph Brant, the famous Indian chief, was expected to meet them at Oswego with an Indian force ; and also Col. Clans with a command of Missisagues or Hurons from the far 8 West. The rest of the force was composed of British Regulars and Canadian Volunteers. On the third of August St. Leger arrived in the neighbor- hood of the present city of Rome. The German farmers and settlers of the Mohawk Valley, however, advanced to meet him in battle array under the command of Nicholas Herkimer, and inflicted such severe losses upon him in the battle of Oriskany that he was compelled to retreat. General Herkimer himself died from wounds received in the battle. George Washington himself has said: "It was Herkimer who first relieved the gloomy scene of the northern campaign. The pure-minded hero of the Mohawk Valley served from love of country and not for reward. He did not want a Con- tinental command nor Continental money." In proportion to the number of men engaged the battle of Oriskany was the bloodiest battle of the whole war. A tremendous thunderstorm raged just before and during the battle. This made it impossible for either side to use their old- fashioned flintlocks. The two armies came together in a nar- row defile, and the battle was fought out with cold steel in a terrible hand-to-hand conflict, like some of the great battles of antiquity. No prisoners were taken and there were few wounded. All who were lost by either side were slain. But the German farmers proved themselves a match and more than a match, at this dread work, for British Regulars, Canadian Volunteers, savage Indians and Hanau Chasseurs. Thus Lexington and Concord were not the only fields where the embattled farmers stood and resisted British Regu- lars, or fired the shot heard round the world, nor were these embattled farmers alway of Anglo-Saxon race. And the praise of these sturdy heroes found an echo in distant Germany, where the veteran poet Klopstock beheld in the American War the inspiration of humanity and the dawn of an approaching great day. He loved the terrible spirit which emboldened the peoples to grow conscious of their power. With proud joy he calls to mind that, among the citizens of the young republic, there were also many Ger- mans who gloriously fulfilled their duty in the war of free- dom. "By the rivers of America, light beams forth to the nations, and in part from Germans," he sang. Nicholas Herkimer, like nearly all of his officers and men, was German. The correct and original spelling of his name was Ilerckheimer. His little army, consisting of 8,000 men, nearly all German, with which Ik 1 defeated St. Leger's force of 16,000, was divided into four regiments, respectively com- manded by Cols. Ebenezer Cox, Peter Bellinger, Jacob Klock and Priedrich Visscher. Three out of the four colonels being German. 9 hi his novel, entitled "In the Valley," Harold Frederick makes his hero write of this battle of Oriskany, at which he was one of the combatants, as follows: "To my way of think- ing, the} r , i. e. the Germans and Dutch of New York, have ever since been unduly modest about this truly remarkable achieve- ment. As I wrote long ago, we of New York have chosen to make money, and to allow our neighbors to make histories. Thus it happens that the great decisive struggle of the whole long war for independence — the conflict which in fact made America free — is suffered to pass into the records as a mere frontier skirmish. Yet, if one will but think, it is as clear as daylight that Oriskany was the turning-point of the war. The Palatine Germans, who had been originally colonized on the upper Mohawk by the English, to serve as a shield against savagery for their own Atlantic settlements, reared a barrier of their own flesh and bones, there at Oriskany, over which St. Leger and Johnson strove in vain to pass. That failure settled everything. The essential feature of Burgoyne's plan had been that this force, which we so roughly stopped and turned back at the forest defile, should victoriously sweep down our valley, raising the Tory gentry as they progressed and join him at Albany. If that had been done, he would have held the whole Hudson, separating the rest of the Colonies from New England, and having it in his power to subdue and punish, first the Yankees, and then the others at his leisure. ' ' Oriskany prevented this ! Coming as it did, at the darkest hour of Washington's trials and the Colonies' despond- ency, it altered the face of things as gloriously as does the southern sun rising swiftly upon the heels of night. Bur- goyne's expected allies never reached him; he was compelled in consequence to surrender — and from that day there was no doubt who would in the long run triumph. "Therefore, I say, all honor and glory, to the rude, un- lettered, great-souled yeomen of the Mohawk Valley, who braved death in the wild-wood gulch at Oriskany that Con- gress and the free Colonies might live." Most people have heard the legend of Moll Pitcher, but few are aware that Moll was a young woman of Pennsylvania- German extraction, whose real name was Maria Ludwig. She was an interesting individual, reminding one of the .M;iiketenderin in Schiller's Wallenstein's Lager. About the time of the beginning of the war she married William Hess, a German like herself. Her husband became a gunner in an artillery company, and Molly returned to service. She got news that her husband had been severely wounded, where- upon she started out immediately to find him. She nursed him when found, and after that, for seven years, she accompanied 10 him from battlefield to battlefield. She was utterly fearless, brought water aud food to the soldiers, and helped carry away the wouuded aud care for them. "Here comes Molly with her pitcher" was a refreshing sound iu the heat of battle, that made her known throughout the army as Moll Pitcher. When her husband was wounded, at the battle of Mon- mouth, and no assistance seemed available for serving the can- non, she herself set about putting the piece in order and load- ing it, while those about her were in doubt whether to stand or to retreat. It was a trying moment, but the company held out until sustained by reinforcements. Washington himself witnessed the act, praised the woman, and in reward raised her husband to the rank of sergeant. This may seem a strange way to reward the woman — by pro- moting her husband — but probably Willie Hess is not the only man who has owed his promotion and success to his wife. After the war, Molly and her husband settled at Carlisle, having served throughout the war. Congress gave her the rank of a brevet captain, and allowed her an annual pension of forty dollars, which she received until her death. Some people say Moll Pitcher is a myth, but I don't believe that Con- gress would pension a myth. The struggle for liberty in America attracted many foreign volunteers, among whom were many Germans. Of all the dis- tinguished foreigners who aided the American cause, none did more real service than the German Baron Von Steuben, the drillmaster of the American forces. In the words of Alexander Hamilton: "Steuben bene- fitted the country of his adoption by introducing into the army a regular formation and exact discipline, and by establishing a spirit of order and economy in the interior administration of the regiments. At the time when Steuben took hold the American Army was at its very lowest ebb, not only through lack of supplies and equipment, but also through the absence of discipline and military spirit. Through desertion and disease the original force of seventeen thousand had dwindled down to a little more than five thousand men who could be called out for duty. Even these were poorly armed and clothed in rags. Yet there were capabilities in these men which the trained eye of Steu- ben recognized. After the intriguing and incapable Conway had been re- moved from the inspector-generalship, Steuben received a free hand in drilling ami schooling the army. Events soon proved the excellence and thoroughness of his work in the spring campaign of 1778, when Washington 11 could get his whole army under arms and ready to march in fifteen minutes, and when Lafayette, seeing himself outnum- bered and cut off from the main body of the army, was able to save his men by an orderly retreat, owing to the training they had received under Steuben. At the battle of Monmouth, it was the sound of Steuben's familiar voice which rallied the broken columns of the traitor- ous Lee, and made them wheel into line under a heavy fire as calmly and as precisely as if the battlefield had been a parade ground. The economies of the service resulting from Steuben's work were enormous. Instead of having to count upon an annual loss of from five to eight thousand muskets, the war office could enter upon its records that in one year of Steuben's inspectorship only three muskets were missing and even these were accounted for. At Yorktown, Steuben was the only American officer who had ever been present at a siege and his services were of great value. He was in command of a division and fortune willed that his division should be in the trenches when the first over- tures for surrender were made. He had the privilege there- fore, so highly prized by all superior officers, of being in com- mand when the enemy's flag was lowered. No one was more deserving of the distinction than Steuben, the schoolmaster of the American Army, and no one in the military service of the Colonies, after Washington and Greene, deserves to rank so high as Steuben. One of the fighting generals of German nationality in the revolutionary forces was John Kalb. He is frequently, though erroneously, described as the Baron de Kalb, the son of a Dutch nobleman. The truth is that he was not a baron, lie was not Dutch and his name was not De Kalb, but plain, honest German John Kalb, born in Huttendorf in 1721 of poor Pranconian peasants. By his own native ability and energy he was able to rise in life. Two years before the Revolution lie had been employed by the government of France to inspect the condition of the American Colonies. After his return he married the daughter of a Dutch millionaire — there were no daughters of American millionaires for foreigners to marry in these days. He occu- pied an assured position of influence and comfort in Europe and was happy in his wife and children, nevertheless he offered his services and finally gave his life for the cause of freedom in America. lie came to America in 1777 with Lafayette, was appointed a major-general, and was considered the most experienced, calculating and cautious of all the foreign officers in the Ameri- can service. 12 n 1,mj Kab was despatched to South Carolina in com- mand oi the Delaware and Maryland troops. II, lost his life in the battle oi Camden, m which the American forces were ^ etea * ed 5 owing to the incompetency ami incapacity of Gen- «-.;al bates, who once tried by intrigue to supplant George W ashington as the head of the army follow^'Aft d T' 1Pt T P °n^ al V S part J1J this battl * * ^ wt./ °- 1VSt "V ;,t, ' s s arm y ll; " 1 ,, "" 11 dispersed and routed, the division which Kail, commanded continued ng m action and never did men show greater courage than these men oi Maryland and Delaware " The horse of Kalb had been killed under him and he had been badly wounded, yet he continued to fight on foot At last, u, the hop,. f victory he led a charge, drove back the division under Rawdon, took fifty prisoners and won Id not believe but that he was about to gain the day. when CornwaUis poured against hnn a fresh party of dragoons and infantry Even then he did not yield until disabled by many wounds I he vudory eost the British about five hundred of their best at 1 ''" F T Z V ^f l Tl r° tG Mari0n ' " is ^* l t0 » de teat. Except one hundred Continental soldiers whom a Col <.ist conducted through almost impassible swamps, through which the British cavalry could not follow, every American corps was dispersed. Kail, lingered lor three days and died Al,,,i he i C0l '- GLS V V f ei T ed t0 Was also a German, and the Maryland regiment which formed the heart of Kalb's division wltlfM^ 7 aCt i° n k WaS com P° sed of German settlers from Western Maryland: the same stock which later gave to the nation Winfield Scott Schley. g ° e General George Weedon was another German officer in the Revolutionary Army. His real name was Gerhard von der Wieden and he was born in Hanover in Germany. He had already served in the French and Indian war as lieutenant m the Royal American Regiment, which was composed entirely of Pennsylvania Germans. J F™Ztl\ the F T Ch an ? Ilulian War was over he settled at lede^ksburg Va., so largely populated by Germans, and when the Revolution broke out, he became lieutenant-colonel of the 3rd Va Militia, colonel of the 1st Va. Continental, and finally ml,,, brigadier-general, taking a leading part in the battles of Brandywme and Germantown. He left the service Oi a time then in 1780 re-entered it under Muhlenberg and commanded the Virginia militia before Gloucester Point at the siege of Yorktown. T^ Al l°t her ^ ! ;,,, "' a " 0fficer was Heinrich Emmanuel Lutterloh, major of the guard of the Duke of Brunswick. Tmt- terloii s work was especially appreciated by Washington who in 1780 made hhn quartermaster-general of the army, in which capacity Lutterloh served to the end of the war. It is rather significant that three such responsible positions in the .Revolutionary Army, as that of inspector-general, quar- termaster-general, and superintendent of bakers, should all have been filled by Germans: for these three positions were held respectively by Steuben, Lutterloh and Ludwig, all Ger- mans. Priedrich Heinrich von Weissenfels was an officer in the British Army in New York, but as soon as the Revolution broke out he offered his services to Washington and served with distinction throughout the year. John Paul Schott was another. He was a young man of fine culture, who came to America intending to enter the Eng- lish service. But being deeply impressed by the spirit and serious purpose of the patriots he changed his mind. He made the acquaintance of 'Washington under most romantic circum- stances, and entered the Continental service. He served his chosen cause with great devotion and proved a most valuable officer. At a time when Washington had great difficulty in retain- ing any soldiers whatever about him, most of them being short term men whose period of service was over, and when the English forces were constantly being increased by mercenaries from the continent, Washington sent Schott to the German districts of Pennsylvania, where the latter recruited an inde- pendent German troop of dragoons. This troop was officered entirely by Germans and even the military commands were given by Germans. The Order of the Cincinnati, which was formed by officers engaged upon the patriot side during the Revolution, had a large number of Germans among its membership. For the state of New York alone, the roll of the Cincinnati includes the names of fifteen officers of the highest rank. In "Der Deutsche Pioneer," Kapp gives a list of the Ger- man officers in the first thirteen Pennsylvania regiments. Hun- dreds of names of German officers and subalterns are there given. The Germans in the South also rendered distinguished service to the revolutionary cause. When Lafayette and De Kalb first lauded in Charleston, S. C, they took up their quarters with Major Hiiger, a distin- guished German citizen of that place. The German citizens of Charleston also organized the Ger- man Fusileers, who were commanded by Lieutenant Michael Kalteisen, and who saw distinguished service at the storming of the fortress of Savannah in 1779, by Col. Laurens. In spite 14 of the spelling of his name, it has been claimed on good au- thority that Col. Laurens was also of German descent, the original form of his name being probably Lorenz. At the battle of King's Mountain or Cowpens, Oct. 29, 1781, which did so much towards reviving the hopes of the patriots in the South, Col. Hambright, of German descent, and in all probability representing a southern branch of the Penn- sylvania family of the same name, rendered distinguished ser- vice. Many of the sharpshooters who served under General Da- niel Morgan were Germans gathered from the Valley of the Virginia and the frontier settlements of the Carolinas. Six of these formed the celebrated Dutch Mess. They messed together during the entire war and survived all their severe campaigns. The first troops to arrive at the siege of Boston to assist the New Englanders in their revolt were Germans from Penn- sylvania. They arrived there on the 18th day of July, 1775, only thirty-two days after Congress had called the citizens to arms. The first soldiers to go to New England from the South were Germans from Virginia. They marched to Boston, a dis- tance of 600 miles, over rough roads in fifty-four days. These Pennsylvania and Virginia Germans were better armed than the New England citizen soldiers. "When Washington saw them march into his camp in Cambridge he sprang from his horse to shake their hands, while tears of gratitude moistened his eyes. It was the bravery of the Pennsylvania Riflemen, a Ger- man regiment commanded by John Peter Koechlin, that earned for the Battle of Long Island the name of the "Thermopylae of the American Revolution." "These men," writes an Ameri- can historian, "stood their ground until as many as seventy- nine men in one company had been killed and the rest of the army had completed its retreat. Long Island was the Ther- mopylae of the Revolution, and the Pennsylvania Germans were the Spartans." Of great financial aid to the revolutionary cause, was Arnold Henry Dohrmann, a German merchant located in Lis- bon. He served as the patron of American sailors and fre- quently supported and befriended American privateersmen who were stranded on the Continent. By selling weapons and munitions of Avar to American cruisers, which he sometimes accomplished on the high seas by means of his own ships, he exposed himself to the hostility of the British government, who finally succeeded in inducing the court of Lisbon to banish Dohrmann from the country. Dohrmann was also instrumental in negotiating several loans for the United States from Dutch 15 bankers in Amsterdam, at a time when the Colonies were in sore need of money and found it hard to obtain credit any- where. Dohrmann was born in Hamburg. In 1787 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States and his great services were officially recognized by Congress. Some whole regiments among the French auxiliary troops under Rochambeau also were composed entirely of German soldiers and officered by Germans. The regiment called the Royal Allemand de Deux Pouts, for instance, was the Royal German regiment of Zweibriicken. The colonel and com- mander of the regiment was Prince Christian of Zweibriicken- Birkenfeld; the lieutenant-colonel was Prince William von Zweibriieken-Birkenf eld ; the major was Freiherr Eberhard von Esebeck, and the captain's name was Haake. This regiment served in America from 3780 to 1783. The name Zweibriicken literally means Two-Bridges, hence the French name of the town is Deux-Ponts. It gets its name from two beautiful bridges which span the river flowing through it. It happens that many of the early settlers in Central Ohio, and especially in Columbus, where the author of this pamphlet now lives, came from this very town of Zweibriicken. I have often seen the picture of the town and its two bridges. And one bright old German lady, who is my near neighbor, who was born in Zweibriicken, and is now over eighty-eight years old, seventy-eight of which she has spent in Columbus, dis- tinctly remembers having seen the above-mentioned Freiherr von Esebeck in his old age in Zweibriicken, and having had him pointed out to her as one of the German officers who fought in the war in America. Some of the other regiments among these French auxiliary troops were composed either entirely or partly of German sol- diers. Knowing which were the German regiments among the French troops, and which were the Germans in the Colonial Army, it becomes manifest that the German soldier also ren- dered conspicuous service in the final campaign which culmi- nated in the siege and capture of Yorktown. The only sortie which was made during the siege, namely that of Tarleton at Gloucester, was beaten back by the legion of Armand ; about 1,200 militia under the German-American general, Weedon, and the men under the Dnke of Lauzun, altogether between three and four thousand men, most of whom must have been Ger- mans. The enemy was defeated at all points and Tarleton es- caped capture with difficulty. When the second parallel of trenches was drawn about the city of Yorktown, two redoubts stood in the way. At the cap- 16 ture of one of these redoubts, according to a well-founded tra- dition, the military commands on both sides of the line were given in the German language. The attacking party consisted of the German soldiers in the French service, while the defend- ers were the Hessians in the English service. It was another case of Germane righting against Germans, as unfortunately they have done only two often in history, previous to the found- ing of the modern German empire by Otto von Bismarck. The first man who entered the redoubt was Captain Henry Kalb, a cousin of the German-American general, John Kail), who fell at the battle of Camden. The important service rendered by General von Stenben at the siege of Yorktown has already been mentioned. His brigade occupied the post of honor in the trenches when the crisis came and Cornwallis made his first overtures looking to- wards surrender. This brigade consisted of three regiments — Wayne's Penn- sylvania regiment, Muhlenberg's Virginians and Gist's Mary- landers. Two of the three colonels were Germans and most of the troops were Germans. Thus we see that at the beginning of the Revolution the Germans in America were unanimously and enthusiastically in favor of independence. Two years before the Declaration of Independence was proclaimed the German citizens of Pennsyl- vania began to advocate publicly the absolute and uncondi- tional separation from England, and as British oppression be- came more and more intolerable, the Germans were the very first to rise in opposition. As the dissatisfaction grew, even the king of England asked to be informed as to two matters: First, whether the Germans in America favored an independent government; and second, if many of them had been soldiers before emigrating. Both questions were answered in the af- firmative. Wherever possible the Germans threw the whole weight of their influence against that of the Tory or Loyalist element, so strong in some of the Colonies, and in three instances at least, namely New York, Pennsylvania and Georgia, this was the deciding factor in determining the allegiance of the Colony in question. During the progress of the Avar the Germans furnished their full quota, and more than their full quota of men and officers to the Revolutionary Army. They rendered valuable service to the cause in many ways and were ever among the most persevering and determined patriots. And at the end of the war, the last resistance of the enemy was overcome, his last sortie was driven back and the last re- doubt was taken by German troops, and the enemy's first ovcr- 17 tures of surrender were made to a German general, to General von Steuben, the schoolmaster of the American army. And according to John Fiske, the great news of the glo- rious victory at Yorktown was first announced in Philadelphia in this wise: Early on a dark morning of the fourth week in October, an honest old German slowly pacing the streets of Philadel- phia on his nightwatch, began shouting: "Basht dree o'gleek und C'ornwallis ist gecaptured. " Light sleepers sprang out of bed and threw open their windows. Washington's courier laid the dispatches before Congress in the forenoon of the same day, and after dinner a service of prayer and thanksgiving was held in the old German Lutheran Church of Philadelphia, then the largest auditorium in the city. What the program was I do not know, but all things considered, they could not have done anything more appropriate than to sing that grand old German choral: "Nun danket alle Gott." "There might never have been a united colonial rebellion, nor any United States of America, but for the patriotism of the Germans of the Colonies," says one writer. From one point of view at least, the triumph of the Ameri- can Revolution may be considered as the first great victory of the German element over British influence in America. NOTE — Creveeoeur, the celebrated traveler, himself a Frenchman, has left on record his impression of some of these pre-revolutionary Germans in his "Letters of an American Farmer." He says: "The honest Germans have been wiser in general, than almost all other Euro- peans. They hire themselves out to some of their wealthy landsmen, and in that apprenticeship learn everything that is necessary. They attentively consider the prosperous industry of others, which imprints in their minds a strong desire of possessing the same advantages. This forcible idea never quits them, they launch forth, and by dint of so- briety, rigid parsimony, and the most persevering industry, they com- monly succeed. Their astonishment at their first arrival from Germany is very great — it is to them a dream; the contrast must be powerful indeed; they observe their countrymen flourishing in every place; they travel through whole counties where not a word of English is spoken; and in the names and the language of the people, they retrace Ger- many. They have been an useful acquisition to this continent, and to Pennsylvania in particular; to them it owes a large share of its pros- perity; to their mechanical knowledge and patience it owes the finest mills in all America, the best teams of horses and many other ad- vantages. Their recollection of their former poverty ami slavery never leaves them as long as they live. From whence the difference arises I do not know, but out of every dozen families of emigrants of each country, generally seven Scotch will succeed, nine German, and four Irish." 18 The German Element in America Dur- ing the Civil War THE debt of America to the German element for services ren- dered during the Civil War is by no means slight. Just as in the Revolutionary 'War, the German element in America proved to be a very derisive factor, and helped to win the day for independence, so in our great Civil War, the German ele- ment was no. slight factor in deciding the issue and thus help- ing preserve the L'nion. This appears in the first place from the great number of Germans who enlisted in the Union armies. The limitations of space forbid me to give an analysis of the figures here, but the statement which has been often made, that over two hundred thousand Germans served in the Northern armies, is not at all exaggerated. This means counting only those who were born in Germany. Were we to include among the number of Germans fight- ing for the Union, all those who were born in America of Ger- man parents, the* number would swell to nearly three times that figure, or between five and six hundred thousand men. But even this large number would not include the descend- ants of the Germans who came to the United States in the eighteenth century or before. We must not lose sight of the fact that the first German immigration to the United States occurred in 1683. In proportion to their numbers, as statistics show, American citizens of German birth even furnished more than their fair share of volunteers. The Germans, proportionately speaking, surpassed both the native American as well as the Irish ele- ment, which justly enjoys such a high reputation for its mar- tial spirit, in the number of volunteers they furnished during the Civil War. If this is a test, they were not only every whit as patriotic as the nativistic American element, but even more so. It was the German element which held the great state of Missouri for the Union. If it had not been for the staunch loyalty and the determined stand taken by the Germans of the state, Missouri would probably have joined the ranks of secession. This alone was a service of incalculable value. Missouri 19 was the largest of the border states. It had a population of nearly a million. Its population and its resources were greater by far than those of any of the Cotton States, who were the first to secede. It occupied a strategical position, giving to those who held it command and control of long stretches of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. If this great state had joined the Confederacy, who knows what a great influence this may have had upon other border states, and who knows whether the final outcome of the conflict might not have been other than it was. That it did not was due largely to its great Ger- man population. A large per cent, of the native Americans of the state were Southern sympathizers. Some of them were outright Seces- sionists. Others took the ground that no state had the right to secede, but that if any states did secede, the federal govern- ment had no right to restore them to the Union by coercion, and if the Washington government did attempt this, then Mis- souri would fight side by side with her sister states of the South. At the preceding presidential election, Lincoln had re- ceived in the entire state, barely seventeen thousand of the one hundred and seventy-five thousand votes that were cast, and these were mostly German votes. In "The Crisis," by Winston Churchill, Col. Carvel speaks derisively of the Republican party as "The Black Republican party, made up of old fools and young anarchists, of Dutch- men and nigger-worshippers." The state government was in the hands of the Secession- ists. The newspapers of the state favored secession. The only loyal papers of influence were the Missouri Democrat, and the two German papers published in St. Louis, "Der Anzeiger des Westens" and "Die Westliebe Post." The editor of one of the latter, Bernays by name, was entrusted by the loyal citi- zens of the state with a confidential mission to President Lin- coln. The United States arsenal in St. Louis had been well sup- plied with arms and ammunition of every kind, by Buchanan's secretary of war, a Southern sympathizer, expecting that the Secessionists would take them. Such was the state of affairs in Missouri just before the war. But the German Turners all over the state organized bands of volunteers and military companies. At first these were called the "Wide Awakes," but afterwards the "Home Guards." One such company was called in German "Die Schwarze Jager," which their opponents maliciously rendered into English by the word "Blackguards." The Secessionists also organized and called themselves the 20 Minute Men. The regular state militia was already a1 tin' command of Jackson, the secessionist governor. At this time the Germans numbered about one-half the population of St. Louis. They Jived in South St. Louis, which was almost a German city in itself. In Winston Churchill's "Crisis," the author makes the young German, Carl Richter, say to Stephen Brice: "A for- eigner! Call me not a foreigner — we Germans will show whether or not we are foreigners, when the lime comes. My friend, one-half of this city is German and it is they who will save it if danger arises. You must come with me one night to South St. Louis that you may know us. Then you will per- haps not think of us as foreign swill, but as patriots who love our new Vaterland even as you love it. You must come to our Turner Halls, where we are drilling against the time when the Union shall have need of us." In the further course of the story, Kichter's boast was justified and his prophecy was fullfilled by the Germans of St. Louis. Richter himself died in the battle of Wilson's Creek, where the brave Lyon fell. But what is true in the story, was also true in history. The German Home Guards soon squelched and overawed the Min- ute Men. By command of General Lyon, they took possession of the U. S. arsenal, garrisoned it and prevented it from falling into the hands of the Secessionists. They also captured Camp Jackson, a militia and training camp which the Secessionists had formed just outside of St. Louis, and made prisoners of all the Minute Men who were encamped there. They marched on Jefferson City, the capital of the state, drove out the Seces- sionist state government, occupied the city, and put a sign over the door of the state capitol, which read: "Hier wird Deutsch gesprochen" (German spoken here). A harmless joke, which might well be permitted them in view of the in- valuable service which they rendered to the Union cause. After the garrisoning of the arsenal, five regiments of German troops were regularly formed. Four of the five colonels commanding these regiments were German. Their names were Bornstein, Sigel, Schuttner and Salomon. They all played a' conspicuous part in the subsequent fighting by which Missouri was held for the Union. To show the intense patriotism and determined spirit of these Germans of Missouri, I may mention* here, that on the sixth day of February, following the election of Lincoln, the German Turners of St. Louis passed a series of resolutions to the effect: "That they would never depart from their rights and duties as citizens of the United States, and that neither the legislative convention, nor any other body, not even the 21 majority of the people of the state of Missouri, had the right to wrest from them their citizens' rights, nor to separate them from the Union." They even resolved that, if the state of Missouri should secede, a provincial government should be erected for the county of St. Louis, which should remain faithful to the Union, and which should be defended by them with their property and their blood. The Germans in America not only furnished their full quota and more than their full quota of men to the Union armies, but also many of the ablest officers who were needed to lead that great host. Among the officers of higher rank during the Civil War, there were no less than eighteen men of German birth, who attained to the rank of a general officer, namely eleven briga- dier generals and seven major generals. Here is the roll of honor : General Adolf Engelmaim died the death of a hero, fight- ing gloriously for the cause of his adopted country, at Shiloh. General Ludwig Blenker protected the rear of the Union army in its flight from Bull Run, with his German troops. At the beginning of the war he organized a German regiment known as the 8th New York, whose colonel he became. General Friedrich Hecker, the patriarch of Belleville, fought bravely in the East and in the 'West. General Carl Eberhard Salomon, of whom we have already spoken, helped save Missouri for the Union. He was one of a remarkable family of three brothers, all born in Germany. One brother, Edward Salomon, was the war governor of Wis- consin. Another brother, Friedrich Salomon, organized the Ninth Wisconsin German regiment, and for distinguished ser- vice in Arkansas and the Southwest, against Generals Kirby Smith and Price, was made brigadier general and brevet major general. General Alexander Schimmelpfennig served with distinc- tion at Gettysburg and afterwards was destined to be the first Union officer to enter the city of Charleston, S. C, the original home of secession, at the head of his troops. General Max Weber fell at the battle of Antietam, just as he seemed about to pierce the center of the rebel army, by conducting a brilliant and successful advance. General Heinrich Bohlen, a man of wealth and great abili- ty, had seen service in half a dozen wars. He sacrificed his life for the unity and future greatness of the United States of America, in the fighting along the Rappahannock in Vir- ginia. General August Moor Avon many laurels in the Shenan- doah Valley. 22 General Hugo Wangelin fought victoriously at Pea Ridge, Atlanta, Ringgold and Lookout Mountain. General Adolf von Steinwehr rendered important services at Gettysburg and Chattanooga. Major General Franz Sigel, the victor of Pea Ridge, an- other of the men who helped save Missouri for the Union. Major General Julius Stahel, the hero of Shiloh. Major General Carl Schurz, statesman and soldier, well known to the general reading public by his brilliant remi- niscences. Major General Peter Joseph Osterhaus helped take Vicks- burg, Chattanooga, Atlanta and Savannah. Major General August Kautz advanced from the rank of a private soldier to that of a major general and was one of the most brilliant cavalry leaders in the Union Army. Major General Gottfried Weitzel commanded the army of the James and was the first Union general to enter the con- quered Confederate capital of Richmond. General August Willich, the victor of Bowling Green, helped save Kentucky for the Union. Willich was born in Braunsberg in Prussia, and as a young man had served as an officer in the Prussia army. Although he participated in the revolutionary movements of 1848, there was a tradition that he was himself a scion of the royal family of Prussia; that the blood of the Hohenzollern flowed in his veins and revealed itself in his features, which showed a striking resemblance to the Hohenzollern physiognomy. His military bearing and skill as a leader and organizer lent credit to the tradition. Willich organized the Ninth Ohio regiment. It was com- posed entirely of Germans. It was recruited in Cincinnati, though many Germans from Columbus and other places en- listed m it. All the officers, except the colonel, at first, were Germans. The military commands were given in the German language. The regiment was organized on the Prussian model, adopting the discipline, drill and regulations in vogue in the Prussian army at that time. Willich 's business partner, McCook, was chosen as colonel. This was done because the regiment expected to receive more favors and greater oppor- tunities of service with an American colonel, than with a German colonel. The only other regiment on exactly the same footing as tins was the 32d Indiana. After the war Willich lived