Colonel Prince Felix Salm Salm (USV)

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Corporal
Joined
Aug 27, 2016
Location
Hangzhou, China (Wisconsin, USA)
190128 Felix Salm Salm.jpg


Prince Felix Constantin Alexander Johann Nepomuk of Salm-Salm

Felix Constantin Alexander Johann Nepomuk of Salm-Salm was born at Anholt Castle, the Residenz of the former Principality of Salm, in the Prussian Province of Westphalia on 25 Decemeber 1828. He was the third and youngest son of Prince Florentin, the formerly reigning Prince of Salm-Salm.

Felix grew up training to be a soldier at a cadet-school in Berlin and became an officer in the Prussian 11th Hussar Regiment in 1846. He participated in the First Schleswig War between Germany and Denmark. He served in the Austrian Army during the Austro-Sardinian War of 1859. His erratic lifestyle alienated his family, and he developed substantial gambling debts as well as several scandals and duels which finally forced him to emigrate to the United States.

In 1861, he offered his services to the Union Army in the American Civil War. He was given a colonel’s commission and assigned to the staff of Brigadier General Louis Blenker. He met Agnes Leclerc Joy at a reception given by President Abraham Lincoln. In August 1862, he and Agnes would enter a morganatic marriage (also known as a left-handed marriage, a marriage between two people of unequal social rank where royal titles and privileges would not be extended to the spouse). Agnes accompanied Felix on the battlefield. He took command of the 8th New York during the winter.

In June 1864, he took command of the 68th New York serving under Brig. Gen. James B. Steedman in Tennessee and Georgia. Towards the end of the war, he commanded the post at Atlanta. He was mustered out of the volunteer service on 30 November 1865. He was appointed brevet brigadier general after the war.

Salm-Salm then offered his services to the Habsburg’s Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. He was in an unusual position as most Americans who moved to Mexico after the war had fought for the Confederacy. By the summer of 1866, he was appointed colonel and became the Emperor’s aide-de-camp and chief of household. He was captured at Querétaro along with the emperor but not before he made a brave charge with his hussar cavalry in an attempt to save Maximillian from the surrounding Mexican Republican army under Benito Juárez. Together with the Emperor and his highest-ranking generals, he was sentenced to death by firing squad. Thanks to the tireless efforts of his wife, he was pardoned by Juárez and released in December 1867.

He returned to Europe and re-entered the Prussian Army as major in the 4th Guards Grenadiers regiment. He was killed at Saint-Privat-la-Montagne during the Battle of Gravelotte in the Franco-Prussian War on 18 August 1870.

190128 Felix Salm Salm comparison.jpg
 
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Interestingly enough, I was just reading about this man in American Scoundrel. Apparently he and his wife were friends of Dan Sickles and used to spend time together at the White House with the Lincolns early in the war.
 
It appears to be an Austrian or Austrian-style saber the Prince is wearing.
 
Ha, I believe I read American Scoundrel as well (its about Sickle's right?). I seem to remember Salm Salm's interactions with Lincoln when he visited the Army of the Potomac with Hooker. But then so many of those stories blend together from all the books I've read about The Army of the Potomac and a book solely about the Chancellorsville Campaign. Sickles, Hooker, Butterfield, Salm Salm, they certainly come up a lot in that first half of 1863.
 
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