Part 13

In Gnadenhütten was born July 4, 1773, the first white child in Ohio, John Ludwig Roth; the second child was Johanna Maria Heckewelder, April 16, 1781, at Schoenbrunn, and the third was Christian David Seusemann, at Salem, May 30, 1781. The Communities, largely composed of baptized Indians, in 1775 numbered 414 persons, and their record of industry and peaceful development is preserved in Zeisberger’s diary, now in the archives of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio at Cincinnati.

The peaceful settlements excited the jealousy of powerful interests, and the British Commissioners, McKee and Elliot, and the renegade, Simon Girty, reported to the commander at Detroit that Zeisberger and his companions were American spies. The German settlers and their Indian converts were carried to Sandusky in 1781, where they suffered great privations until permitted, after winter had come, to send back 150 of their Indian wards--all of whom spoke the German language--to gather what of their planting remained in the fields. But a number of lawless American bordermen under Col. David Williamson, acting on a false report that the peaceful Indians had been concerned in a raid, surprised the men in the fields and after disarming them by a trick, murdered men, women and children in cold blood. The details, as related by Eickhoff (“In der Neuen Heimath,” Steiger, New York, 1885, and by Col. Roosevelt in “The Winning of the West”) are among the most ghastly on record and make the blood run cold. Some of these slain had German fathers and all were peaceful, industrious and well-behaved natives who had learned to sing Christian hymns and German songs in their humble meeting houses.

Independent of these communities, the first settlement of Ohio at Marietta was the work of New Englanders, in April, 1788; but the second, that of Columbia, was under the direction of a German Revolutionary officer, Major Benjamin Steitz, the name being later changed by his descendants to Stites.

Space is lacking for fuller details regarding the great share of the Germans in settling the Middle West and West. German names predominate in the history of early border warfare in the fights with the French and the Indians; the Germans were among the most conspicuous of the pioneers, as they continued to be for generations in settling the Far West and Northwest, the great number of Indian massacres culminating in that of New Ulm in 1862, in which German settlers again formed the outposts of American civilization.

One thing is notable in the annals of our early history, the striking fact that the frontier settlements in Pennsylvania and the West and also the Northwest teemed with Germans, and that every Indian massacre and every border fight with the French, before the Revolution as well as after, brings into prominence German names. In the defense of the borders against Indians and French, forts were built by the German settlers above Harrisburg, at the forks of the Schuylkill, on the Lehigh and on the Upper Delaware. They bore the brunt of the Tulpehocken massacre in 1755, just after Braddock’s defeat; the barbarities perpetrated in Northampton county in 1756, and the attack on the settlements near Reading in 1763. Against these forays the Germans under Schneider and Hiester made stout resistance. As early as 1711 a German battalion, mainly natives of the Palatinate, was part of the force, a thousand strong, which was to take part in the expedition against Quebec.

Berks, Bucks, Lancaster, York and Northampton were then the Pennsylvania frontier counties, and from them came the men who filled the German regiments and battalions in the Revolutionary War. In the South, Law’s Mississippi scheme brought more than 17,000 Germans from the Palatinate, who made settlements throughout what was then the French colony. Theirs was a life of hardship and constant battle with the Indians.

In 1773 Frankfort and Louisville, Kentucky, were settled by Germans, the former by immigrants from North Carolina, and led to “Lord Dinsmore’s war” in which they fought the Indians and gained a foothold.

In 1777 Col. Shepherd (Schaefer), a Pennsylvania German, successfully defended Wheeling from a large Indian force. In the operations under Gen. Irvine, to avenge the massacre of the Moravian settlers in Ohio, his adjutant, Col. Rose, was a German, Baron Gustave von Rosenthal.

At the outbreak of the Old French War (1756-1763), the British government, under an act of Parliament, organized the Royal American regiment for service in the Colonies. It was to consist of four battalions of one thousand men each. Fifty of the officers were to be foreign Protestants, while the enlisted men were to be raised principally from among the German settlers in America. The immediate commander, General Bouquet, was a Swiss by birth, an English officer by adoption, and a Pennsylvanian by naturalization. This last distinction was conferred on him as a reward for his services in his campaign in the western part of Pennsylvania, where he and his Germans atoned for the injuries that resulted from Braddock’s defeat in the same border region.

The German settlers were ardent American patriots before and during the Revolution. In 1775, says Rosengarten, the vestries of the German Lutheran and Reformed churches at Philadelphia sent a pamphlet of forty pages to the Germans of New York and North Carolina, stating that the Germans in the near and remote parts of Pennsylvania have distinguished themselves by forming not only a militia, but a select corps of sharp shooters, ready to march wherever they are required, while those who cannot do military service are willing to contribute according to their ability. They urged the Germans of other colonies to give their sympathy to the common cause, to carry out the measures taken by Congress, and to rise in arms against the oppression and despotism of the English Government. The volunteers in Pennsylvania were called “Associators” and the Germans among them had their headquarters at the Lutheran schoolhouse in Philadelphia. In 1750 the German settlers in Pennsylvania were estimated at nearly 100,000 out of a total population of 270,000, and in 1790 at 144,600.

The Springfield (Mass.) “Republican,” although an outspoken pro-British paper, since the outbreak of the war paid deserved tribute to the share of the German settlers in the early history of the Republic, rebuking the spirit of envy and detraction evinced in certain quarters, by saying that those who hold these belittling views can have no knowledge of the history of the Palatines who settled the Mohawk Valley. Anyone having a cursory acquaintance with the elementary text books of American history, the paper thinks, must recall the massacre of Wyoming and the Cherry Valley. Neither in New York, nor in Pennsylvania nor in the South did the Germans evade the dangers and hardships of the wilderness. It is not generally known how large a share they had in the settling of the West. They poured into Ohio from the Mohawk Valley as well as from Pennsylvania. On the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky they vied with Daniel Boone in fighting the Indians--Steiner and the German Pole, Sandusky, preceded Boone in Kentucky. One of the most famous among the pioneers was the “tall Dutchman,” George Yeager (Jaeger), who was killed by Indians in 1775, continues the “Republican.” In the valleys of Virginia there were more German pioneers than any other nationality. Along the whole border line from Maine to Georgia they occupied the most advanced positions in the enemy’s territory, and their large families included more younger sons who went forth to look for new lands than of all others. A Kentucky observer declared at the close of the eighteenth century that of every twelve families, nine Germans, seven Scotchmen and four Irishmen succeeded when all others failed.

Michael Fink and his companions were the first to descend the Mississippi on a trading expedition to New Orleans, where the officials in 1782 had never heard of their starting point, Pittsburg. Germans again--Rosenvelt, Becker and Heinrich--were the first to descend the Ohio in a steamboat in 1811. (Rosengarten.)

“In our Colonial Period almost the entire western border of our country was occupied by Germans,” writes Prof. Burgess. “It fell to them, therefore, to defend, in first instance, the colonists from the attack of the French and the Indians. They formed what was known in those times as the Regiment of Royal Americans, a brigade rather than a regiment, numbering some 4,000 men, and the bands led by Nicholas Herkimer and Conrad Weiser.”

=Germany and England During the Civil War.=--The attitude of England during the Civil War contrasted strangely with that of the German States, and this attitude is rather clearly shown by the “Investment Weekly,” of New York, for June 21, 1917, though not intended as a reproach to England. In the course of an article, headed “Bond Market of the Civil War,” the “Investment Weekly” says:

Another difference is that the United States until recently had been the greatest neutral nation in the world, whereas then Great Britain was the greatest neutral nation. Still a third difference is that whereas Great Britain was able to borrow freely from us even before we entered the war, our government during the Civil War was unable to obtain any help from Great Britain. In March, 1863, an attempt was made to negotiate a loan of $10,000,000 there, but the negotiations utterly failed.

The significance of this paragraph will appear from reflection on the state of distress prevailing in 1863, a period when the outlook for the success of the Union was veiled in gloom, and many of the most stout-hearted trembled for the outcome. England was sending fully-equipped and English-manned warships over to aid the Confederacy; the “Alabama” and the “Florida” were sinking our ships and sweeping American commerce from the seas. Justin McCarthy, in “The Cruise of the ‘Alabama’” (“A History of Our Own Times,” II, Chap. XLIV), says:

The “Alabama” had got to sea; her cruise of nearly two years began. She went upon her destroying course with the cheers of English sympathizers and the rapturous tirades of English newspapers glorifying her. Every misfortune that befell an American merchantman was received in this country with a roar of delight.

At that time England was on the eve of entering the war on the side of the South, and only the news of General Grant’s decisive victory at Vicksburg and Lee’s defeat at Gettysburg brought the House of Commons to a more sober reflection.

McCarthy shows that a motion for the recognition of the Southern Confederacy, which Minister Adams had said would mean a war with the Northern States, was already in process of passing in the House of Commons, for he writes:

The motion was never pressed to a division; for during its progress there came at one moment the news that General Grant had taken Vicksburg, on the Mississippi, and that General Meade had defeated General Lee, at Gettysburg, and put an end to all thought of a Southern invasion.... There was no more said in this country about the recognition of the Southern Confederation, and the Emperor of the French was thenceforth free to follow out his plans as far as he could, and alone.

It was during these dismal hours of trembling hope that Germany proved herself the friend of the Union. Whereas England would not loan the Lincoln administration $10,000,000, six times that amount was forthcoming from Germany.

When in 1870 a disposition developed here to supply France with arms against Germany, some heated debates took place in the Senate, in which events of 1861-65 were naturally brought up for review, and it is interesting to quote from the debates of that period as reported in the “Globe Congressional Record,” 3rd Session, 41st Congress. Part II. From pp. 953-955:

Mr. Stewart, Senator from Nevada: “Allow me to call the attention of the Senator from Tennessee to the fact, which he must recollect, of the amount of our bonds that were taken in Germany at the time we needed that they should be taken, and =when they were prohibited from the Exchange in London and from the Bourse in Paris, and not allowed to be on the markets there at all= on account of the state of public opinion there, =while Germany alone came in and took five or $600,000,000 at a time when we needed money more than anything else, to sustain our credit=. That is a fact showing sympathy, certainly.”

Senator Pomeroy, of Kansas, quoted on p. 954, said:

They (the Germans) sent us men; they recruited our armies with men; they helped to save the life of this nation. Though the French were our ancient allies, the Germans have been our modern allies.

And well did Senator Charles Sumner put it when he declared in the United States Senate, (“Congressional Record,” 3rd Session, 41st Congress, Page 956): “We owe infinitely to Germany.”

A formal acknowledgement of our debt to Germany during the most critical stage of our history was made by Secretary of State William H. Seward through the American Minister at Berlin, in May, 1863, as follows:

You will not hesitate to express assurance of the constant good will of the United States toward the king and the people who have dealt with us in good faith and great friendship during the severe trials through which we have been passing.

At the close of the war, the Prussian deputies, some 260 in number, on April 26, 1865, submitted an address to the American Minister in Berlin, in which the following language occurs:

Living among us you are witness of the heartfelt sympathy which this people have ever preserved for the people of the United States during the long and severe conflict. You are aware that Germany has looked with pride and joy on the thousands of her sons, who, in this struggle, have arrayed themselves on the side of law and justice. You have seen with what joy the victories of the Union have been hailed and how confident our faith in the final triumph of the great cause of the restoration of the Union in all its greatness has ever been, even in the midst of adversity.

While there is a strong tendency in certain directions to ignore or obscure the facts of American history by imputing some vaguely unpatriotic motive to those who prefer to see the United States travel the same conservative path which has made it the dominating power of the world, after 140 years of devotion to the patriotic standards established by the founders of the Republic, it shall not deter us from calling attention to the testimony of a great American, James G. Blane, by quoting certain passages from his book, “Twenty Years in Congress,” which leave no doubt what his attitude would be to-day. The quotations are taken from Vol. II, p. 447:

From the government of England, terming itself liberal with Lord Palmerston at its head, Earl Russel as Foreign Secretary, Mr. Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Duke of Argyll as Lord Privy Seal, and Earl Cranville as Lord President of the Council, not one friendly word was sent across the Atlantic. A formal neutrality was declared by government officials, while its spirit was daily violated. If the Republic had been a dependency of Great Britain, like Canada or Australia, engaged in civil strife, it could not have been more steadily subjected to review, to criticism, and to the menace of discipline. The proclamations of President Lincoln, the decisions of Federal Courts, the orders issued by commanders of the Union armies, were frequently brought to the attention of Parliament, as if America were in some way accountable to the judgment of England. Harsh comment came from leading British statesmen; while the most ribald defamers of the United States met with cheers from a majority of the House of Commons and indulged in the bitterest denunciation of a friendly government without rebuke from the Ministerial benches.

(Vol. II, Chap. 20): March 7, 1862, Lord Robert Cecil, in discussing the blockade of the southern coast, said: “The plain matter of fact is, as every one who watches the current of history must know, that the =Northern States of America never can be our sure friends=, for this simple reason: not merely because the newspapers write at each other, or that there are prejudices on each side, but because we are rivals, rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to the same position. We both aspire to the government of the seas. We are both manufacturing people, and in every port, as well as at every court, we are rivals to each other.”

March 26, 1863, Mr. Laird of Birkenhead: “The institutions of the United States are =of no value whatever=, and have reduced the very name of liberty to an utter absurdity.” He was loudly cheered for saying this.

April, 1863, Mr. Roebuck declared: “That the whole conduct of the people of the North is such as proves them not only unfit for the government of themselves, but unfit for the courtesies and the community of the civilized world.”

Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of England, asserted that: “As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can =to prevent the reconstruction of the Union=.”--“I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Union should not take place.”

February 5, 1863, Lord Malmesbury spoke disdainfully of treating with so extraordinary a body as the government of the United States, and referred to the horrors of the war--“=horrors unparalleled even in the wars of barbarous nations=.”

England confidently believed that the North would suffer a crushing defeat, and the same opinion was held by the French government. Napoleon the Third felt absolutely confident that the South would triumph. (See “France’s Friendship for the United States.”)

The London “Times” in 1862 voiced English sentiment against the Union in a manner that has been paralleled only by its denunciations of Germany at the present time. It said:

“To bully the weak, to triumph over the helpless, to trample on every law of country and customs, wilfully to violate the most sacred interests of human nature--to defy as long as danger does not appear, and as soon as real peril shows itself, to sneak aside and run away--these are the virtues of the race which presumes to announce itself as the leader of civilization and the prophet of human progress in these latter days.”

A clear statement of the English Parliament’s attitude toward the United States in the Civil War is contained in the autobiography of Sir William Gregory, K. C. M. G. (Member of Parliament and one-time Governor of Ceylon), edited by Lady Gregory (London, 1894), pp. 214-6: “The feeling of the upper classes undoubtedly predominated in favor of the South, so much so that when I said in a speech that the adherents of the North in the House of Commons might all be driven home in one omnibus, the remark was received with much cheering.”

Among those who invested in the Confederate bonds were many Members of Parliament and editors of London newspapers. Prominent among them was Gladstone. “Donahoe’s Magazine,” April, 1867, published a list of prominent investors in Confederate bonds, which shows that 29 persons lost a total of $4,490,000 in such investments. The list follows:

Lbs. Sir Henry de Hington, Bart 180,000 Isaac Campbell & Co. 150,000 Thomas Sterling Begley 140,000 Marquis of Bath 50,000 James Spence 50,000 Beresford Hope 50,000 George Edward Seymour 40,000 Charles Joice & Co. 40,000 Messrs. Ferace 30,000 Alexander Colie & Co. 20,000 Fleetwood, Polen, Wilson & Schuster, Directors of Union Bank of London, together 20,000 W. S. Lindsay 20,000 Sir Coutts Lindsay, Bart 20,000 John Laced, M. P. from Birkenhead 20,000 M. B. Sampson, Editor of Times 15,000 John Thadeus Delane, Editor of Times 10,000 Lady Georgianna Time, Sister of Lord Westmoreland 10,000 J. S. Gillet, Director of the Bank of England 10,000 D. Forbes Campbell 8,000 George Peacock, M. P. 5,000 Lord Warncliff 5,000 W. H. Gregory, M. P. 4,000 W. J. Rideout, London Morning Post 4,000 Edward Ackroyd 1,000 Lord Campbell 1,000 Lord Donoughmore 1,000 Lord Richard Grosvenor Hon. Evelyn Ashley, Priv. Sec. to Lord Palmerston 500 Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone 20,000 -------- Total Losses £898,000

The present holders of these bonds have never despaired of being able some day to collect the amounts from the United States Treasury, and it will only need a closer alliance between the United States and Great Britain, as proposed by the advocates of an Anglo-Saxon amalgamation, to bring these claims to the front.

=Germans in Civil War.=--Four authors have dealt exhaustively with the subject of the German-born soldiers in the Union army. They are Wilhelm Kaufmann in his valuable work, “The Germans in the American Civil War” (R. Oldenbourg, Berlin and Munich, 1911), J. G. Rosengarten, “The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States” (J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1890), Frederic Phister, “Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States” (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1883) and B. A. Gould, “Investigations in the Statistics of American Soldiers” (New York, 1869).

The first three are more or less founded on the latter, but in Kaufmann, particularly, many errors of computation on the part of Gould are shown up which increase the number credited to the German participants in the Civil War. Rosengarten is particularly valuable as reference in regard to the share of the Germans in the Revolutionary War. According to Gould, more Germans served in the Union army than any other foreigners. This is substantiated by all the writers. Kaufmann proves that the colossal total of 216,000 native-born Germans fought in the Union army. In addition the army included 300,000 sons of German-born parents and 234,000 Germans of remoter extraction. Besides the Germans fighting in the ranks, Kaufmann holds that the roster of generals and other high officers of the Union army contained more names of German than of any foreign nationality. He also calls attention to the fact that a large number of German aristocrats, including such eminent names as von Steuben, Count Zeppelin, von Sedlitz, von Wedel, von Schwerin, and one German prince (Prinz zu Salm-Salm) took the field in behalf of the Union. Prince Salm-Salm was accompanied by his wife who performed valuable service as a nurse.