Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home

20. Corporal Jakob Heinzelmann

Heinzelmann 179 Rock Creek, May 13/64 Dear brother, [20 ll.: being free of guild restrictions is good, but ‘‘in Germany it will never get any better,’’ no matter if it is a monarchy or a republic] It is the country that makes for freedom?—whereworkers are needed, and when that’s the case, they get high wages and necessarily become wealthy if they work hard and are thrifty [14 ll.: a free country; transcontinental railroad; his brother does not read newspapers—doesn’t know what is happening in the world]. That is Germany’s misfortune, that so many people do the same. I am ashamed to say that Germany is still living in the 14th century compared to America. I can judge it, I have been in this country long enough, and you can tell the difference when you see someone recently [arrived] from Germany. The United States are far in advance of the Old World in every way, in art and science, in learning and in machines, and in every other way you can imagine, they’re a lesson for all [25 ll.: American character; reads newspapers from all over the world; does not want to live in Germany again; greetings; signature]. In Maryville, Nodaway County, Missouri, where in 1870 less than 2 percent of the settlers were German-speaking, Heubach built and ran a large new mill. He married an Austrian woman, and in 1880 they were listed with a daughter who was ten years old. In 1873 he was one of the founders of the local Masonic lodge, and according to the courthouse records, he was still alive in 1888.2 2. Nodaway County, Missouri (1910), 1:332, 335; MC 1870: Maryville, Nodaway Co./Mo., Polk Twp., #566; MC 1880: Nodaway Co./Mo., Polk Twp., e.d. 263, #143; History of Nodaway County, Missouri (1882), 1:280; Nodaway Co. Deed Book 90, p. 127, December 28, 1888, Nodaway Co. Courthouse, Maryville, Mo. 20. Corporal Jakob Heinzelmann In November 1841, about two years before the birth of his own son Gustav, Pastor Keppler christened Jakob Heinzelmann in Lombach, a village near Freudenstadt, Baden, in southwest Germany. The son of a farmer from nearby Sulzbach, Heinzelmann apparently was apprenticed to a blacksmith. Nothing is known about the reasons for his emigration or the details of his passage, but on September 3, 1862, source note: Heinzelmann’s German is almost unadulterated Swabian dialect in its spelling, use of idioms, and syntax, with some interference from High German and English. A Germanspeaker from a different region has to stop and think about the meaning of a word occasionally, but despite Heinzelmann’s rather limited vocabulary, he can make himself understood. 180 Heinzelmann he enlisted in Buffalo, New York, for three years. He served in the same regiment (116th New York Infantry Volunteers) as Albert Krause (no. 22), but in a different unit (Company G, in which about half of the soldiers were German-speakers).1 For about a year starting in June 1863, the 116th Infantry was deployed together with the 14th New York Cavalry (Gustav Keppler’s [no. 21] unit) in various campaigns of the XIX Army Corps, from the siege of Port Hudson* until the Red River campaign. Three of our letter-writers, therefore, ended up taking part in the same action and describing some of the same events, a fact that is statistically quite improbable. Frankling, January 23, 18642 Dear parents and brothers and sisters, I take up my pen with joy for a second time to let you know that I am well and still alive, because since I wrote you the last letter things have been quiet and we haven’t had any more battles. We marched for two days back toward Neworlians, and those were two hard days because it had just rained very heavily, and so we had to go through mud and mire that came up almost above our knees, and it was very cold as well, and we had a bit of snow, the first snow in 50 years. We spent the night in a sugar factory because the ground was too wet to lie on, and there were no boards that we could use to set up our linen houses3 [5 ll.: weather]. I also met one of Pastor Kaapler’s sons,4 he is in the 14th Neuiorger Gabalri [New York Cavalry] regiment, but he is not with his regiment, he is one of ourcolonel...