Schurz, Carl b. (?) 1829; Liblar (Rhineland), Prussia d. May 14, 1906; New York City
Very successful German American journalist and politician who advanced from being senator for Missouri to being named secretary of the interior in the administration of Rutherford B.
Hayes. A lieutenant in the German revolutionary army in 1849, Schurz rose to instant fame when in 1850 he managed to liberate his friend and teacher Gottfried Kinkel from a Berlin prison. He himself claimed to have evaded the surrender of Rastatt through an unfinished sewer. Via Switzerland, he went first to France, then to England, trying to support himself writing for newspapers, but his real career as a journalist and later also as a politician only started after his arrival in the United States. Functionally bilingual, Schurz forged for himself an important mediating position between the German and the Anglo-American element.His contributions to the Lincoln presidential campaign were so substantial that he was awarded a diplomatic position to the Spanish court, from whence he returned to fight for the Union. Brevetted brigadier in March 1862, Schurz and his division fought at Bull Run, Fredericksburg (after replacing Franz Sigel), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga. As a major general he briefly commanded the XI Corps at Gettysburg. His role there and at Chancellorsville is controversial; Schurz defended his troops against accusations of cowardice in the nativist press. In 1864 Schurz resigned his command temporarily to support Abraham Lincoln again. His effort contributed substantially to preventing the radical German wing of the Republican Party from nominating Schurz’s former superior, John Fremont.
After the war Schurz wrote for the New York Tribune and worked on a book about his journey through the defeated southern states. He next took editorial positions with the Detroit Post and the German Westliche Post in St.
Louis, before managing to win a seat in the U.S. Senate from Missouri on the Republican ticket in 1869. A supporter of Horace Greeley (against his former superior Ulysses S. Grant) in 1872, Schurz was made secretary of the interior by Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877. He effectively reorganized the Indian affairs administration and introduced many civil service reforms. On the occasion of a visit to Germany, the former revolutionist, now rather conservative, even met with Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.Schurz remained active in politics and journalism after leaving office in 1881, writing for Harper's Weekly, the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation, and the North American Review, as well as working as managing editor of the New York Evening Post. Among the books he published are a much-read and frequently reedited autobiography and a biography of Lincoln. His political influence, notably in German circles but also on the Republican Party, remained considerable. Among his admirers was Mark Twain, who wrote a very complimentary obituary.
Wolfgang Hochbruck
See also American Civil War, German Participants in; 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment; Forty-Eighters; Newspaper Press, German Language in the United States; Politics and German Americans; Schurz, Agathe Margarethe; Sigel, Franz
References and Further Reading
Schurz, Carl. Lebenserinnerungen. 3 vols.
Berlin: Reimer, 1906-1912.
Trefousse, Hans. Carl Schurz. A Biography. Knoxville: University of Tennessee, 1982.
Twain, Mark. “Carl Schurz, Pilot.” Harper’s Weekly, May 26, 1906.