In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

370 Penzler Apart from the entries in the muster rolls, Ruff cannot be clearly identified in any other American sources, except for the fact that when he enlisted, he was living in St. Louis in Ward 2. The cousin he mentions in the letter, the musician Severin Robert Sauter, also lived in this ward. In 1870 the census documents mention a thirty-four-year-old saloonkeeper named Charles Ruff who lived in the same ward as Sauter; if this is our letter-writer, he had cut eight years off his true age—something perhaps not unusual for a man married to a twenty-two-year-old. It is also possible, however, that shortly after his discharge, Ruff succumbed to an illness that had caused him to be hospitalized on April 11, 1865. This seems more likely, since he never applied for a war pension, and it would have been extraordinary indeed if he had survived after the war for a number of years without submitting an application.4 4. Muster Rolls, 41 Mo. Inf, Comp G, NatA. Information about Sauter in MC 1860: St. Louis/Mo., W. 2, #612; MC 1870: St. Louis/Mo., W. 10, Subd. 9, #1303. CD St. Louis, 1859–60; perhaps about Ruff in MC 1870: St. Louis/Mo., W. 10, Subd. 18, #2270. 49. Private Johann Christoph Penzler Not much is known about Johann C. Penzler’s earlier life, but it seems safe to assume that he emigrated for economic reasons. When he was born on August 27, 1829, his father, who had been a smallhold farmer, was already dead; and before Johann had turned three, his mother passed away. He grew up in Elxleben, a village with 1,200 inhabitants four miles north of Erfurt, in the Prussian part of Thuringia . We do not know who raised him, but his only close relative was his brother, Heinrich Jakob, a cabinetmaker who was twelve years older. Johann may well have learned this trade from his brother, since he earned his living as a carpenter until the end of the Civil War. Sometime before 1860 he moved to St. Louis and married Elisabeth Benack, from Hesse. He then lived for a while on his father-in-law’s farm in Carondelet, St. Louis County, returning to St. Louis shortly before he wrote the following letter. A later letter contains at least a small hint of his liberal political views: he sent his children to a Turner* school three times a week.1 In the 1870s he ran a saloon, and he died in 1882 at the age of fifty-three.2 source note: Short as the available text may be, it is long enough to show serious deficiencies in spelling, grammar, and the construction of sentences. Not included here is one letter in the series from the time after 1865. 1. Information provided by the donor; KB (ev.) Elxleben; Neumann (1883), 266; MC 1860: St. Louis Co./Mo., Carondelet Twp., #838; MC 1870: St. Louis Co./Mo., Carondelet Twp., #23– 24 lists Penzler with $1,400 in real estate. On the date of his emigration, see the letter of February 27, 1878, NABS. 2. CD St. Louis, 1875–82. His widow also appears the following year, CD St. Louis, 1883. Penzler 371 St. Louis, May 27th, 1865 Dear brother, [20 ll.: correspondence; birth of a son; death of his three-year-old daughter ; move to St. Louis] Last year times were very bad. The commanding general of the rebels, together with 3 other generals and 30 thousand men attacked Misouri, because most of our soldiers had gone with the main army to the eastern and southern states, so there weren’t many soldiers in our state. That’s why the rebels could go through the whole state without being held up very much. Wherever they went they took all the livestock, food, and all the men who could carry guns away with them, and they burned everything in their path. Then a militia or Landsturm was called up and outfitted with guns, and then the rebels were beaten back. The regiment I was assigned to served for 40 days, but I only went along for 30 days. We were posted 75 to 80 miles from St. Louis, but we had no enemy contact.3 The rebels were just a few hours away from my father-in-law’s farm, but then they went off in a different direction, since as much as...

Share