Peter Joseph Osterhaus

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Peter Joseph Osterhaus

Peter Joseph Osterhaus (born January 4, 1823 in Koblenz , † January 2, 1917 in Duisburg ) was a Baden revolutionary , general in the United States Army in the Civil War , US diplomat and businessman.

Life

Osterhaus completed a commercial apprenticeship, did his military service as a one-year volunteer in the Prussian army and was second lieutenant in a Landwehr regiment. He participated in the revolution of 1848-49, was last Colonel of the vigilantes of Mannheim , and fled after their failure in the United States . There he lived first in Belleville , Illinois and St. Louis , Missouri .

At the beginning of the civil war, Osterhaus joined the 2nd Missouri Infantry Regiment on April 20, 1861 as a commoner , which was recruited from Germans. He later became a major in this regiment and took part with him, among other things, in the battle of Wilsons Creek . He set up the 12th Missouri Infantry Regiment and became its commander. In the battle of Pea Ridge , Osterhaus commanded a division under Franz Sigel . Here he was nicknamed "Fetzenpeter" because he encouraged his troops of German descent to beat the enemy, "so that the shreds fly". After his promotion to Brigadier General on June 9, 1862, he first led the 3rd Division of the Southwest Army .

During the Battle of Vicksburg under Major General Grant Osterhaus commanded the 9th Division in the XIII. Corps and was responsible for the union position on the Big Black to intercept Confederate supplies for the besieged city. The Battle of Chattanooga was the most successful for him. He led his division, the first in the XV. Corps, against the Confederate positions at Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. In pursuit of the defeated Confederates, his division at Taylor's Ridge got a "bloody nose".

In the following, Osterhaus was involved in General Sherman's Atlanta campaign and almost all of the major battles of that campaign, such as Resaca, Kennesaw Mountain and Jonesboro. In the meantime promoted to major general - effective from July 23, 1864 - he led the XV. Corps through Georgia to Savannah . In 1865 he became Chief of Staff of General ERS Canby and fought at Mobile , Alabama , among others . He also organized the surrender of the Confederate forces under General Taylor .

After the war Osterhaus was military governor of Mississippi , then American consul in Lyon (1866–1877), and later vice consul in Mannheim (1898–1900). From 1877 he held a leading position in the rubber industry. From 1883 he was an independent coal dealer. By special law of the Congress President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him retired Brigadier General in 1905. D. of the United States Army . In 1915 he rose to major general a. D. on. He died in Duisburg in 1917, where he lived with his youngest daughter. His body was cremated and buried in the main cemetery in Koblenz . The family crypt was severely damaged by a landslide in 1969 and was abandoned seven years later. On June 23, 2012, a memorial stone in honor of Osterhaus was inaugurated above the old grave.

His son Hugo Osterhaus (1851–1927) and grandson Hugo Wilson Osterhaus (1878–1972) were admirals in the US Navy and served for the United States during World War I. Both are buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Another son, Karl Osterhaus (1859-1904), served as a major in the artillery in the German Army and was killed in the suppression of the Herero uprising in German South West Africa .

literature

  • Earl J. Hess: Easter House in Missouri. A Study in German-American Loyalty. In: Missouri Historical Review. Volume 78. No. 2, 1984, pp. 144-167.
  • Earl J. Hess: Peter J. Osterhaus. Grant's Ethnic General. In: Steven E. Woodworth (Ed.): Grant's Lieutenants. From Cairo to Vicksburg. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence 1990, pp. 199-216.
  • Hans-Peter Kleber: Peter Joseph Osterhaus. A German-American life. In: Koblenz contributions to history and culture. New series 2. 1992, pp. 87-130.
  • Emil Mannhardt: General Peter Joseph Osterhaus. In: German-American history sheets. No. 4 July 1904, pp. 54-63.
  • Sebastian Parzer: The businessman and revolutionary Peter Joseph Osterhaus and his relationship with Mannheim . In: Mannheimer Geschichtsblätter 34, 2017, pp. 83–93.
  • Mary B. Townsend: The Promotions of General Peter J. Osterhaus and the Two-Edged Sword of German Ethnicity. In: Missouri Historical Review. Volume 106. No. 3, 2012, pp. 137-151.
  • Mary B. Townsend: Yankee Warhorse. A Biography of Major General Peter Osterhaus. University of Missouri Press, Columbia 2010, ISBN 0-8262-1875-X .
  • Steven E. Woodworth: Peter Joseph Osterhaus . In: American National Biography , Online February 2000.
  • Osterhaus, Peter Joseph . In: James Grant Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . tape 4 : Lodge - Pickens . D. Appleton and Company, New York 1888, p. 603 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Koblenz: Osterhaus memorial stone ( memento of the original from January 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pressemeldung-rheinland-pfalz.de
personal data
SURNAME Osterhaus, Peter Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION General of the Northern States in the Civil War, 1848 revolutionary
DATE OF BIRTH January 4, 1823
PLACE OF BIRTH Koblenz
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 1917
Place of death Duisburg