Adam Hammer

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Adam Hammer (1818 - 1878) was instrumental in rallying German immigrants to the Union cause in Missouri. He was an associate of Franz Sigel.


Adam Hammer was born in Mingolsheim, in the Grandduchy of Baden. While he was studying medicine in Heidelberg part of his family (he had ten siblings) emigrated to the United States. Adam Hammer then served as a military surgeon in a grandducal regiment of dragoons (1842 – 1845). He settled in Mannheim where he opened a surgery, joined a left-oriented political club. He did some pioneering achievements in the field of surgery. Hammer was the first doctor in Mannheim and the third in the whole of Germany to undertake an operation on a patient sedated with a sulfur-based anesthesia. In 1847 he joined the liberal faction in the Swiss civil war (“Sonderbundskrieg”) and served in his capacity as military surgeon. In 1848 he joined the revolutionaries in the German revolution.
He became captain in a freecorps in Mannheim and aide-de-camp of Franz Sigel. Hammer agitated for the dissolution of the German monarchies and had to flee. He went (via France and England) to the USA, where he settled in St. Louis. There he opened a surgery, lectured medicine at a college and worked in a hospital. In the year 1853, Hammer returned briefly to Europe in order to perfect his medical skills. First, he went to Paris. Here he obtained a doctorate in medicine, and then moved to Würzburg to join the medical faculty of its university
in his time in St. Louis, together with two of his brothers he founded a brewery, he had to sold it afterwards. The brewery later became the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association.
In 1854 Hammer joined the Republican party, 1860 he was a delegate at the Republican convent in Chicago.
In April 1861 he joined the 4th​ Missouri Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Union) in the capacity of Lieutenant-Cononel. He recognized that he could contribute a lot more by serving in the role he had always excelled. From June 1862 right till the end of the war he worked as a brigade surgeon for the Union Army with the rank of Major. At the same time he also directed the Marine Hospital and the Refugee Hospital in St. Louis. Of all the recorded 51 amputations he did, only two patients died as a consequence of the operation. In his field Hammer was top class.
After the war hammer worked again as a surgeon in St.Louis, he lectured medicine and at some time was deeply involved in a quarrel among the „Medical Society of St. Louis. In 1876 he went to Vienna, at the time focal point for medical inventions.
Adam Hammer died at the 4th​ of August 1878 during a spa stay in the Black Forest (southwestern Germany).​
 
There aren´t that many good pictures of Adam Hammer. Attached is an early one.

Adam Hammer.jpg
 
Thank you for posting this thread. Adam Hammer sound like an interesting person. I am not sure i have ever heard of his so I learned something reading your thread. German immigrants that came to the United State because of the German revolution were an interesting group.
 
Very interesting post. A lot of 48 ers came to the States. It seems like Cincinnati and St. Louis particularly attracted a lot of them.
 
The regiment he served with in his home country was "Dragonerregiment von Freystedt Nr. 2". Apart from a short period as a captain in a urban freecorps ("Bürgerwehr") his role in the revolution of 1848 was political. It seems that he had no ambition to assume a role he wasn´t prepared for (very unlike to Franz Sigel in my point of view).
 
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