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Albrecht 103 9. Corporal Wilhelm Albrecht Wilhelm Albrecht was twenty-seven years old when he left Hamburg in early July 1861, on board the sailing ship Louis Napoleon. After an unusually long voyage, he landed in New York at the end of August and enlisted almost immediately in the Union army. It is quite possible that he had planned to join the army even before he left Europe: a barber by trade but apparently not by vocation, he had already served for longer than the required period in the Mecklenburg-Schwerin army, some 3,500 strong, and had become a sergeant. His letters certainly indicate that he was familiar with the craft of war and at times even relished it.1 His almost exclusively German American artillery unit was deployed in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, and during the entire war the unit lost a total of eighteen men (no officers)—seven killed by the enemy and eleven by disease.2 Albrecht grew up in Schwerin as the son of a master tailor, and it is highly unlikely that he had any secondary education, although his writing style, spelling, and handwriting indicate that he might have had some. At home in Schwerin, he left six brothers and sisters, all but one of them younger than he was. His letters are addressed to his siblings; in 1861 his parents were no longer alive.3 [May 1863] [salutation missing] Since I can’t give you a detailed account of my brief but eventful time here in America, this excerpt from my diary may give you at least a superficial impression [93 ll.: sea voyage]. When we had entered Long Island Sound, a steamboat soon arrived which brought us quickly into New York harbor, and half an hour later we had landed in Castle Garden, a reception building for immigrants. After I had gotten my bearings a bit I looked around for a good opportunity, and there was no lack of that at the time, for as soon as you set foot in the country the recruiters come at you from all sides. Since source note: Albrecht is one of the unusual cases where the discrepancy between the degree of formal education and the quality of language is remarkable. This barber and soldier is most unlikely to have received more than an elementary education, but his German is that of a university graduate. In his regular and very tiny handwriting, he uses language that is not only impeccable in every respect but also highly sophisticated in terms of allusions and nuances—although his rather complicated and lengthy sentence constructions do not make for easy reading. 1. HPL, June 5, 1861; NYPL, August 27, 1861. He is clearly the same ‘‘noncommissioned officer Albrecht’’ listed in the Schwerin address books of 1859 and 1860 and the ‘‘Sergeant Albrecht’’ of the 1861 edition, residing at Werderstraße 135. 2. At first Baty B, 1 Batn, N.Y. LArt (also called Brickel’s 1 Batn German LArt), after March 16, 1863, renamed 30 Baty N.Y. LArt; Dyer (1959 [1908]), 1387–88, 1402. 3. Information provided by the donor as well as Mecklenburgisches LHA Schwerin. 104 Albrecht Wilhelm Albrecht. (F. F. Brockmüller) I didn’t know the slightest thing about American recruiting tricks, I did the same thing as so many others, and I made a mistake. I signed up in a regiment that, as I unfortunately found out later, didn’t suit me at all. There was no talk of bounties anywhere here, and if they had been promised to some of the soldiers here, they never received one.This regiment consisted mostly of Americans and Irishmen, which is why I didn’t like it. They had wanted to promote me, and did in fact do so, against my own wishes, but since I couldn’t speak English I didn’t want to have a position of responsibility.4 I didn’t want this 4. Having arrived in New York on August 27 (NYPL), he signed on with the 59 N.Y. Inf only three days later, on August 30, 1861. By the end of October he had been transferred from Comp D to Comp C, so that all the Germans would be together in a company commanded by German officers, ‘‘a company of Germans.’’ On November 27, 1861, he deserted in Washington; Muster Rolls, 59 N.Y. Inf, NatA. [3.21.231.245] Project MUSE (2024-04-24 03:01...

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