Library of Congress Intimate letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869 PUBLICATIONS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN EDITED BY JOSEPH SCHAFER SUPERINTENDENT OF THE SOCIETY INTIMATE LETTERS OF CARL SCHURZ 1841-1869 # WISCONSIN HISTORICAL PUBLICATIONS COLLECTIONS VOLUME XXX. SENATOR CARL SCHURZ PUBLICATION OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN COLLECTIONS, VOLUME XXX # INTIMATE LETTERS OF CARL SCHURZ 1841-1869 TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY JOSEPH SCHAFER # SUPERINTENDENT OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN Wisconsin Historical Society Founded 1849 PUBLISHED BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN MADISON, 1928 2d set F576 .W81 2d set COPYRIGHT, 1929, BY THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN # THE ANTES PRESS EVANSVILLE, WISCONSIN Mar 11 1929 ©CIA 6436 C R v PREFACE The project of preparing a book on Carl Schurz was authorized by the Executive Committee of the State Historical Society at its annual meeting in October, 1926. The approach of the centenary of Schurz's birth, March 2, 1929, was the immediate stimulus Intimate letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869 http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09286 Library of Congress to the undertaking which, meeting with favor in the Legislature of 1927, was provided for through the appropriation granted to the Society for the biennium beginning July 1, 1928. The original plan contemplated a volume to be made up of documents illustrating especially that portion of Schurz's career which pertains to Wisconsin, this state having been his home from 1855 to 1866. Speeches were found printed in Wisconsin newspapers, which have never been made accessible to the general public, and certain other records were also assembled, partly from the Schurz papers in the Library of Congress. It would have been practicable to bring together from a variety of sources a body of material which would have proved not only interesting but historically valuable enough to justify publication. By a rare piece of good fortune, however, we have been enabled to secure a collection of documents possessing a vastly higher significance than those just mentioned. At New York City, in January, 1928, George McAneny, acting on behalf of Marianna Schurz, sole survivor of Carl Schurz's immediate family, turned over to this Society for transcription, with the privilege of publication, a group of Schurz's letters ranging in dates from the early 1840's to the year 1869. These VI in part illustrate his life prior to his settlements in our state, but a heavy proportion of the whole number were written during the eleven years when his legal residence was in Watertown, Wisconsin. Carl Schurz, from early boyhood, was a prolific writer of intimate letters, and happily many of these had been preserved so that, when wanted, they could be assembled by the Schurz family. Theodore Petrasch, his principal boyhood correspondent, came to America in 1864, bringing Schurz's letters with him. Professor Kinkel, who lived to a ripe old age, had preserved letters Schurz wrote to him and to the first Mrs. Kinkel; Frederick Althaus, who lived in London, preserved letters; so did Schurz's parents, both of whom died in 1876; as did also Mrs. Schurz, to whom the larger part of his purely private letters were addressed. Intimate letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869 http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09286 Library of Congress When, in 1913, Georg Reimer, publisher of the German edition of Schurz's memoirs ( Reminiscences of Carl Schurz. 3 vols. New York: McClure's. 1907-1908), called Erinnerungen, wanted to fill a large part of his third volumes with letters, Agathe Schurz assembled originals from all the sources named and typed copies were executed under her editorship. She then sent a portion of these copies to the Berlin publisher, who printed them in Erinnerungen, volume three, but she retained a still larger number for which the publisher had no space. She naturally sent him what she thought would be most interesting to German readers. Thus were excluded many letters strictly supplementary to the printed group, which are of highest interest from the point of view of American history and of Schurz's biography. It was the residue left after supplying material for VII that work which was turned over to this Society by Mr. McAneny and the surviving Miss Schurz. The bundle contained two hundred and eighteen letters. About seventy of these duplicated letters published in Erinnerungen, while that book contains one hundred and fourteen which are not represented in our group. Twenty-five of the latter, in whole or in part, had been translated and published in Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers (6 vols. New York: Putnam's. 1913), volume one. In deference to that important publication, fostered by the Carl Schurz Memorial Committee, these have not been included in the present volume, save that omitted portions of letters therein printed have in some instances been translated for this publication. In a few cases I have made my own translation, directly from the German text, of letters which were printed in the above-mentioned work. All of the balance, both those printed in Erinnerungen and those never printed, are in the present volume. So large a proportion of the letters published in the present volume being already in print in the German, it was decided to avoid the added expenses involved in a bilingual publication. The letters, both those in Erinnerungen and those in our bundle, extend into the year 1869, when Schurz entered upon his senatorial career, though the book leaves off with his Intimate letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869 http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09286 Library of Congress first letter after taking the oath of office on March 4, while we received manuscript letters extending to August 10, some of them highly significant as revealing the manner in which he attacked his senatorial problems. That point of termination corresponds with Schurz's own narrative as contained in volumes VIII one and two of Erinnerungen , showing that the publisher regarded the letters as documentary illustrations and supplements of the text. Schurz in his remarkable autobiography refought his way through the most stressful and anxious years of his life. In a strain of exultation, which can be traced through the letters immediately following his election to the Senate, he proclaims that he has attained the goal of his ambition politically, while financially he has—after a long and bitter struggle —become independent. He always considered the senatorial term as the climax of his political career, just as he considered his oratory during the Lincoln campaign of nine years earlier the acme of his political speech making. The year 1869 is therefore a natural point of division in Schurz's life, by far the most meteoric if not the most significant portion of it having been completed by that time. Schurz was the first American citizen of German birth who felt himself to be possessed of powers of persuasion and argument equal to the task of proselyting in the service of a great and sacred cause millions of German scattered over a continent. The demonstration he made of those powers in 1860 was the basis of his later achievements. It made him available for a senatorship in a state where he had resided less than two years. The senatorship in turn afforded scope for the exercise of his high talent for practical statesmanship and shaped the issues out of which proceeded the movement for the organization of the Liberal Republican party, to which, as to the election of Lincoln, Schurz and the liberal Germans contributed so powerfully. His selection by President Hayes for a cabinet post was IX the natural corollary of his leadership in the Liberal Republican movement. Thereafter he had no public office, nor was his leadership of the liberal Germans so complete at any time after 1881 as it had been for two decades after 1860. Nevertheless he was able in 1884, in the interest of what he deemed essential political morality, to guarantee the defeat of James G. Blaine, an activity which entitled a loss Intimate letters of Carl Schurz, 1841-1869 http://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbum.09286 Library of Congress of influence such as the non-partisan usually suffers in a time of rigorous organization. Thereafter he disregarded party ties with almost seeming recklessness; but he at all times, with voice and pen, earnestly supported policies he thought good, and just as earnestly fought those he beleived to be bad. He died May 14, 1906. This collection of private letters of a distinguished political leader possesss special value for American history and biography, as well as special interest for the general reader. Schurz in his mature years was a charming letter writer and, his dominant interest being politics, his letters constitute a kind of running commentary on the changing political phases of th period through which he lived and wrote. Especially noteworthy are those written during the stirring days of campaigning in 1860, and those which follow the election of Lincoln and extend beyond his inauguration to the outbreak of the Civil War. The letters from Madrid later in 1861, while delightful as affording a glimpse of Spanish scenes and Spanish life, reflect very little of European politics, which of course was treated adequately in his letters to the President and Secretary of State. The letters Schurz addressed to Mrs. Schurz during the war, said by him to have been very full and absolutely continuous, designed to make a complete X record of his observations at the front, were all lost in a depot fire at Detroit in 1866. We therefore have only a few letters written from the camp —one to his daughter, several to his parents, two to Petrasch.