- Joined
- Apr 1, 1999
- Location
- Martinsburg, WV
From: Confederate Veteran, Volume 26, Issue 8, Published August 1918.
Yes, his father, Richard Meade, was stationed in Cadiz, Spain as a United States Naval Agent at the time of his birth.hmm... As a note, Meade was born in Spain, but of an American family. (I can relate... I was born in Texas, but of an Ohio family...)
I hadn't realized that naval officer Richard W. Meade, Sr. was his brother until looking this up! Thanks for posting.
I believe it would be either Osterhaus or Sigel, but I need to check.So who would be the highest ranking military officer that was born outside of North America to non-American parents?
I'm betting this list is not exhaustive.
This was a source of frustration within immigrant communites. They contributed a quarter of Union troops, but many felt they got a fraction of the generals.Not really a long list when you consider how many US generals there were.
The claim was pretty frequently made that the Union army consisted primarily of "the sweepings of the Five Points."I'm wondering about the reason The Confederate Veteran printed this list. Looking at the August 1918 issue, it stands alone, with no attached article or commentary, within the "Historical Department, U.D.C." section. Was it inspired, perhaps, by the strong anti-immigrant sensibilities of the times -- particularly with the then-flourishing manifestation of the KKK? It might serve as an example of just how "foreign" the Yankee invaders were (are).
From what little I have seen, the CV seems, on the whole, remarkably (and admirably) free of content reflecting the preoccupations of that 20th century version of the Klan; though it occasionally praises the efforts of the original KKK as the perceived "heroic defenders of the southern people." Still, this list seems a bit out of the ordinary.
I believe it would be either Osterhaus or Sigel, but I need to check.
According to this Wikipedia article, it was Osterhaus ... Oops, here Wikipedia says it was Sigel ...
Thank you for explaining that!And it is correct on both accounts. Osterhaus was the highest-ranking from Prussia. Carl Schurz, while technically outranking him with a far senior date of rank, didn´t regularly command a corps. And Sigel, being from Baden, was the highest-ranking and most senior German overall.
Albin Franz (Francisco, Franciszek) Schöpf (Schoepf) was born 1822 in Podgorze, Galizia (now Poland), then Austria, as the son of a German-Austrian surveyor and a Pole.