Joseph R. Reinhart - Yankee Dutchmen Under Fire: Civil War Letters from the 82nd Illinois Infantry

Yankee Dutchmen under Fire

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Yankee Dutchmen under Fire: Civil War Letters from the 82nd Illinois Infantry

Translated and Edited by Joseph R. Reinhart

Yankee
Dutchmen under
Fire

Civil War Letters from the

82nd Illinois Infantry

TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY

Joseph R. Reinhart

THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Kent, Ohio

2013 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012048729

ISBN 978-1-60635-176-5

Manufactured in the United States of America

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Yankee Dutchmen under fire : Civil War letters from the 82nd Illinois Infantry / translated and edited by Joseph R. Reinhart.

p. cm. (Civil War in the North)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60635-176-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)

1. United States. Army. Illinois Infantry Regiment, 82nd (18621865) 2. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Personal narratives. 3. IllinoisHistoryCivil War, 18611865Regimental histories. 4. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Regimental histories. 5. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Participation, German American. 6. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Participation, German. 7. United StatesHistoryCivil War, 18611865Participation, Jewish.

I. Reinhart, Joseph R., editor of compilation.

E505.582nd.Y36

973.7473092dc23

2012048729

17 16 15 14 13 5 4 3 2 1

To my brothers Greg and Paul and my sister Judy.
Greg served in the United States Army in Vietnam and
Paul served in the Kentucky Air National Guard.
Thanks for your service to our country.

Many persons and institutions have been involved in the preparation of this book and deserve recognition and thanks.

I owe special thanks to the Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill., for preserving on microfilm copies of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung for the Civil War years and making them available to researchers. Many of the letters in this work were discovered in copies of such microfilm. The library also furnished a typed English translation of Pvt. Max Schlunds diary. Special thanks is also due to the Thomas Jefferson Library at the University of MissouriSt. Louis, where I obtained copies of the letters of Rudolph Mller and other information located in the Friedrich Hecker Papers archived there. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, granted me access to both microfilm copies of several German American newspapers, the diary of Friedrich August Braeutigam, and other documents. The United States Army Military History Institute provided copies of the letters of Friedrich P. Kappelmann. Benjamin Stephen, Giles Hoyt, and Liesel Knudson provided invaluable, prompt, and critical assistance in translating certain problematic parts of the letters and are due my sincere appreciation.

I am grateful to Dick Skidmore, who has edited a journal and a collection of letters in his own right, for his careful reading of a near final copy of the manuscript and providing important criticism and recommendations. Eric Benjaminson also read and criticized a near-final draft of the manuscript and deserves thanks for his suggestions. My thanks to Scott Hartwig, Chief Historian at the Gettysburg National Military National Military Park, for critiquing the Gettysburg chapter and making several critical suggestions for changes. Mark A. Moore, author and mapmaker, also deserves thanks for his close review of the Final Battles chapter and for furnishing a detailed map of the Battle of Bentonville. Nonetheless, any errors in this work are solely my responsibility.

My thanks to those who provided photos: Frances L. Luebke, Chicago History Museum, Missouri History Museum (St. Louis); and Jerome Hunt.

I also want to thank the librarians, archivists, and others at the Bellarmine University Library (Louisville, Ky.), Belleville (Ill.) Public Library, Chicago Public Library, Chicago History Museum, Danville (Ill.) Public Library, Filson Historical Society (Louisville), Hennepin County Library-Minneapolis, Illinois State Archives, Louisville Free Public Library, Manatee County (Fla.) Public Library System, Missouri History Museum, Library and Research Center (St. Louis), Morrison-Talbott Library (Waterloo, Ill.), National Archives, New College Library (Sarasota, Florida), Sarasota County (Fla.) Public Library, University of Kentucky, W. T. Young Library, University of Louisville, Ekstrom Library, University of Miami Library, University of South Florida Library, and the United States Army Military History Institute (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.).

I also extend thanks to Christian B. Keller, who loaned me his microfilm copies of the Illinois Staats-Zeitung, Marilyn Lotz, Tom Lowry, Richard M. McMurry, Mike and Vicki Peake, Dennis Suttles, Kari Stacy, Lee White, John S. Gray, Andrea Mehrlnder, Hank Meves, and Melissa Petersen.

Finally, I want to thank my wife Virginia for her love, and her patience and understanding while I spent untold hours immersed in translating and editing the letters in this work.

The editor translated the following letters, except where noted, from German into English. The goal of the translation was to convey the meaning the letter writer intended and therefore is not an exact word-for-word translation.

For clarity and the convenience of the reader, some original German sentences were divided into separate sentences in English, and some punctuation marks were added or deleted. Also some paragraphs were combined or divided. When the meaning of a word or phrase was unclear, letters and/or words were added using square brackets, and misspelled names or misidentified persons were corrected using square brackets. Illegible words in the correspondence are identified by a question mark or text in square brackets. German words or phrases italicized in the original printed text are italicized. Italics are also used to indicate instances where the letter writer used an English word or provided an explanation of an English word or the German equivalent. Newspaper names have also been italicized. The original spellings of places and names have been retained.