Leopold von Gilsa

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Leopold von Gilsa

Leopold von Gilsa (born August 15, 1824 in Erfurt , † March 1, 1870 in New York City ) was a German-American officer.

Life

Leopold von Gilsa came from the old Hessian noble family von Gilsa zu Siebertshausen . He was the son of the Prussian major Karl Anton von Gilsa (1785-1833) and his wife Agnes, née Madelung (1800-1891). After the father's early death, his widow married the later Prussian major general Karl Schenck zu Schweinsberg (1796–1869) in Gotha on July 4, 1835 . Julius Friedrich von Gilsa was his younger brother.

In keeping with family tradition, he joined the Prussian army early on. In 1841 he came from the cadet corps as a second lieutenant in his father's regiment, the 1st Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 31 . On December 3, 1848, he was transferred to the 4th Infantry Regiment. On February 12, 1850, he was allowed to leave. Von Gilsa joined the Schleswig-Holstein Army to actively fight in the Schleswig-Holstein Uprising. On July 28, 1850, he was assigned to the 5th Jäger Corps as a volunteer officer and company commander with (provisional) promotion to captain ; on January 10th he was given permanent employment with seniority of July 10th, 1850. After the unsuccessful battle for Rendsburg , the Schleswig-Holstein Army was disbanded at the end of March 1851; on March 28, 1851 left Gilsa.

He then emigrated to the United States. Here he lived in New York for a long time by singing and playing the piano in the polka bars of the New York Bowery .

When the Civil War broke out , he quickly succeeded in assembling a regiment of volunteers of German descent, all of whom had served in Germany. He was appointed commander of that 41st New York Infantry Regiment de Kalb . After the formation on June 6, 1861, the regiment with a strength of 1046 officers and soldiers went to war on July 8, 1861; it was first used to defend Washington, DC and subsequently assigned to the Army of the Potomac .

In the Battle of Cross Keys on June 8, 1862 Gilsa was seriously wounded. During his convalescence leave the regiment fought in the brigade of Julius Stahel under General Franz Sigel in the Second Battle of the Bull Run . With the establishment of the XI. Corps of the Army of the Potomac under Oliver Otis Howard in the fall of 1862, the regiment was the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division under the command of Charles Devens assumed and Gilsa was appointed brigade commander.

Situation at the beginning of the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 1st

In the battle of Chancellorsville , the brigade secured the right flank. Gilsa's warnings of a Confederate deployment were not taken seriously, and now the brigade had to absorb the first onslaught of Thomas Jonathan Jackson's corps . He was able to withstand the multiple superiority for at least a while; however, the brigade was nearly wiped out. Public opinion, influenced by nativism , wanted to blame the German-born units for the heavy losses. When the pious General Howard shortly afterwards wished the Germans more trust in God, von Gilsa lost his temper; He is said to have yelled at his boss in German "with a selection of barracks yard flowers, so that Howard believed that Gilsa had gone mad."

At the Battle of Gettysburg , von Gilsa's brigade was part of Francis Channing Barlow's division . Barlow had temporarily relieved of his command and arrested von Gilsa on the march to Gettysburg because von Gilsa had allowed his men to leave the column to fetch water, which Barlow considered to be a lack of discipline and assertiveness. It was not until the afternoon of July 1st, the first day of the battle, that Gilsa returned his command. A wrong decision by Barlow led to another defeat of the XI. Corps. In order to gain possession of a small mound later known as Barlow's Knoll , he pushed his troops dangerously far north, opening his right flank for the attack of an opposing division under Major General Jubal Anderson Early . When the Confederate attacked Cemetery Hill on the evening of July 2, Gilsa's brigade, like Chancellorsville, had to absorb the first impact. She was thrown back by the superior forces and evaded the positions of the corps. In Gettysburg, monuments at the foot of Cemetery Hill commemorate the deployment of the brigade and its regiments (41st New York, 54th New York, 68th New York and 153rd Pennsylvania regiments). The brigade's losses were high. With 54 dead, 311 injured and 163 prisoners or missing, it was reduced to almost half, from 1,136 to 608 men.

  • Battle of Gettysburg, situation at Cemetery Hill on July 2, 1863

  • Brigade plaque at the base of Cemetry Hill

  • Monument to the 41st Regiment at the base of Cemetry Hill

In the fall of 1863, von Gilsa and his brigade were sent to South Carolina and used in the siege of Charleston . The 41st New York Infantry Regiment was discharged in 1864. Von Gilsa returned to New York with the remains of his old regiment, was duly celebrated there and set up a new regiment in the winter of 1864 to 1865, which, however, was no longer used.

It is surprising that he was never promoted to general, despite the fact that he was in command of a brigade for a long time. Agnes zu Salm-Salm claimed in her memoirs that she had prevented Lincoln from Gilsa's promotion through her relationships with her cousin Abraham Lincoln , since her husband Felix zu Salm-Salm was enemies of von Gilsa.

From 1865 he took over "the position of a correspondent and accountant in an industrial establishment" in New York. Leopold von Gilsa died at the age of 45 as a result of his injuries and his long service in the war. His funeral and burial took place on March 3, 1870 with military honors. Troops of the US Army and the New York Army National Guard under General John E. Bendix , Generals Franz Sigel and Max Weber and six colonels provided the escort of honor. The funeral procession moved from his home at 226 East 21st Street in Manhattan to Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn , where Sigel gave the funeral oration at the grave.

literature

  • Wilhelm Kaufmann: The Germans in the American Civil War. Munich and Berlin: Oldenbourg 1911, p. 503 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Data from Hans von Ahlefeld, Max Gottschalck: History of the 1st Thuringian Infantry Regiment No. 31, together with a list of all officers, doctors and paymasters who have served in the same. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1894, p. 539
  2. ^ The officer corps of the Schleswig-Holstein Army and Navy. In addition to the senior lists of generals, staff and subaltern officers. Published by a retired officer from Schleswig-Holstein , Lübeck: von Rohden 1865, pp. 142, 192
  3. ^ Jan Schlürmann: The Schleswig-Holstein Officer Corps 1848-1851 (excerpt from The Schleswig-Holstein Army , Tönning 2004, appendix). His highest regular rank in Germany was retired Royal Prussian Second Lieutenant ; he was also a captain in the Schleswig-Holstein army; According to the German sources, he was never a major , as can be read in American accounts.
  4. ^ Departure of the de Kalb Regiment , New York Times, July 9, 1861
  5. ^ Christian B. Keller: Chancellorsville and the Germans: Nativism, Ethnicity, and Civil War Memory. New York: Fordham University Press 2007 ISBN 978-0-8232-2650-4
  6. ↑ Kaufmann (lit.)
  7. ^ Bradley M. Gottfried: Brigades of Gettysburg - The Union and Confederate Brigades at the Battle of Gettysburg . Skyhores Publishing, New York 2012, pp. 305 .
  8. ↑ Kaufmann (lit.)
  9. ^ F. Möller: Biographical notes on the officers, military doctors and officials of the former Schleswig-Holstein army and navy. Kiel 1885., p. 55
  10. ^ Funeral of Colonel von Gilsa , New York Times ( digitized version )
personal data
SURNAME Gilsa, Leopold von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gilsa, Leopold Freiherr von und zu (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American officer
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Erfurt
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 1870
Place of death New York City