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In his Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill Harry W Pfanz on page 26 in referring to the pre-Civil War life of Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz he states, “They settled in Wisconsin, where Schurz sampled the life of a Latin farmer.” Can someone tell me the meaning of “Latin farmer”?
Michael, I looked through the Oxford English Dictionary but there was no entry for "Latin farmer" as such. However, one of the definitions was "one who reads Latin." So I am going to hazard a guess that it is similar to a gentleman farmer.
I have one more book to look in, when I get home from work.
<font color="0000ff"><font face="times new roman,times,roman">LATIN FARMERS. Highly educated German refugees from the 1848 revolutions who, although conversant in Latin and Greek, became farmers in the US through necessity. (Ella) Lonn (in <u>Foreigners in the Union Army and Navy</u>,) described them as 'a class of Germans who... did not disdain to plow their own fields as they meditated on the philosophy of Kant or recalled passages of Goethe, and who sought their recreation in choral societies...' It was they who for many years provided the leadership of the German element in the US. Several became Civil War generals, for example, Carl Schurz and Adolph Wilhelm Von Steinwehr.</font></font>
After the crushing of the infant German republic by reactionary monarchist forces, many free thinking German liberals fled to America and quickly adapted to American liberties, such as were denied them in Europe. Catton says 'the country inherited something rich and strange' from these liberal exiles from Germany, though it was something it was not sure what to do with. With the heightening of regional tensions, the Germans immediately took up the cause of Union and Abolition, the idea of slavery being an abomination to them. The Germans who had settled in Southern areas, particularly Texas, reacted the same way and were steadfast Unionists.
The greatest Civil War figure of the Germans, whom Boatner does not mention, is Franz Sigel. Sigel was a Prussian Military Academy trained officer who, after serving in the German Army, joined the revolution and served as Minister of War in the German republic. He conducted the final republican operations in the field before being forced to flee with the last of the revolutionaries, finally ending up in St. Louis as director of schools. He immediately rallied Germans to the Union cause with the outbreak of hostilities and the German Missourians were a primary factor in holding the state in the Union. Sigel served the Union cause as a general and a prominent rallying point for the Germans, 'I fights mit Sigel' being the German rallying cry. Although he left a somewhat jaded record as a field general, I believe his contributions to not be adequately honored. There was much bias against the Germans, many of whom spoke unintelligible English or none at all. There was also professional jealousy among the professional Army officers to the 'foreign' trained Sigel, primarily by Henry Halleck, who was early identified as the model of the 'best and brightest' of American West Point professionalism. It was the early Western commander John Fremont, who distrusted the American professional types and who liked Europeans, who placed Sigel in an early prominent position, to the credit of the Union. Though Lincoln supported Sigel (as well as Blenker, Schurz, and the German officers) throughout the war, much of the profession bias stuck through the war. A measure of Sigel can be taken in the writings of his opponents, who as a rule were very wary of the German commander, respected his training and handling of troops in the field, and held him in a higher regard than his native compatriots.
__________________ 'It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag'
Sigle's field operations, at least west of the Mississippi, seemed to consist of retreat in the face of the enemy. Ie. the battles of Wilson's Creek and Pea Ridge.
General Sigel did in fact have a talent for withdrawal. It did also provoke reaction to him in the war.
March 17, 1864, General Grant held at Spotsylvania by Lee, to General Halleck,
<font color="119911">'Cannot General Sigel go up Shenandoah Valley to Staunton?'</font>
Halleck to Grant,
<font color="119911">(Sigle is) already in full retreat. ...If you expect anything from him you will be mistaken. He will do nothing but run. He never did anything else.'</font>
Sigel had been repulsed at New Market and was regrouping around Strasburg, preparatory to giving the thing another go. It was not to be, however, as shortly thereafter, Sigel was superceded by David Hunter and sent back with his German troops to Martinsburg along the Potomac River to guard the Baltimore & Ohio.
Sigel, like Banks in Louisiana and Butler on the James Peninsula, was not Grant's man; while Grant and Halleck were discussing the issue of command of the Shenandoah column, Lincoln short-circuited the process by appointing Sigel head of the Dept. of West Virginia, in which department this advance would take place. The matter thus passed out of the generals' hands, at least for the time being, as even Grant had to let political dogs lie. In the end, all three generals came under the knife. Halleck's comments here are most telling.
Here is a curiosity about the Battle of New Market, where General Breckinridge's scratch army held up and pushed back Sigel's advance. This is the battle where the VMI cadets gained great glory by their impetuous charge and seizure of a key Union battery. Sigel, attempting to throw units forward into the flank of these cadets and restore the position, could not make the troops advance, instead they withdrew. Only on the retreat, while lamenting this unfortunate turn of events, did Sigel become aware that he had been giving orders under fire in German. The West Virginia boys he had been trying to move, quite naturally, thought he was off his duff, hence leading them to consider the better part of valor...
__________________ 'It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag'
Ed,
I know it isn't funny. If I was there at the time I am sure it'd not be an occasion to laugh. That said, I had a good chuckle. I think I'd have decided to retreat until my commander regained his english too if I had been there.
YMOS
tommy
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