Fascinating and detailed memoirs of Carl Schurz whose political and military career spanned seminal events in Germany and the American Civil War.
Carl Schurz (March 2, 1829 – May 14, 1906) was a German revolutionary and an American statesman, journalist, and reformer.... After serving as a Union general in the American Civil War, he helped found the short-lived Liberal Republican Party and became a prominent advocate of civil service reform....
Born in the Kingdom of Prussia's Rhine Province, Schurz fought for democratic reforms in the German revolutions of 1848–1849 as a member of the academic fraternity association Deutsche Burschenschaft...Like many other "Forty-Eighters", he then migrated to the United States, settling in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1852. After being admitted to the Wisconsin bar, he established a legal practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He also became a strong advocate for the anti-slavery movement and joined the newly organized Republican Party, unsuccessfully running for Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin. After briefly representing the United States as Minister (ambassador) to Spain, Schurz served as a general in the American Civil War, fighting in the Battle of Gettysburg and other major battles.
After the war, Schurz established a newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri, and won election to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first German-born American elected to that body. Breaking with Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, Schurz helped establish the Liberal Republican Party. The party advocated civil service reform, sound money, low tariffs, low taxes, an end to railroad grants, and opposed Grant's efforts to protect African-American civil rights in the Southern United States during Reconstruction. Schurz chaired the 1872 Liberal Republican convention, which nominated a ticket that unsuccessfully challenged President Grant in the 1872 presidential election.