Carl Schurz (2 March 1829-14 May 1906) was a German revolutionary and US politician and general. Schurz became a war hero during the American Civil War, and he would serve as Senator from Missouri (R) from 4 March 1869 to 4 March 1875 (succeeding John B. Henderson and preceding Francis M. Cockrell) and Secretary of the Interior from 12 March 1877 to 7 March 1881 (succeeding Zachariah Chandler and preceding Samuel J. Kirkwood).
Biography[]
Carl Schurz was born in Erftstadt, Rhineland, Prussia on 2 March 1829 to a Catholic German family. He befriended his teacher at the University of Bonn, the German revolutionary Gottfried Kinkel, and he became acquainted with fellow German students Franz Sigel, Alexander Schimmelfenig, Fritz Anneke, Friedrich Beust, Ludwig Blenker, and others, friends that he would meet again during the American Civil War. In 1848, he took part in the Rhenish Revolution, and he escaped Rastatt as the Prussian Army assaulted the city; Schurz knew that the Prussians would massacre the prisoners. He freed Kinkel from Spandau prison and fled to Great Britain, becoming a German teacher in London. In 1852, Schurz and several other former German revolutionaries moved to the United States and settled in Watertown, Wisconsin. Schurz joined the liberal Republican Party and became immersed in the abolitionist movement, running for Lieutenant-Governor in 1857 and raising Abraham Lincoln's popularity among German-speaking voters. In 1861, Lincoln made him ambassador to Spain, dissuading Spain from supporting the Confederate States at the start of the American Civil War.
In April 1862, Schurz was commissioned as a Brigadier-General in the US Army, becoming a Major-General in 1863 after fighting at the Second Battle of Bull Run. Schurz led a division in the XI Corps at the Battle of Chancellorsville and the Battle of Gettysburg, and the corps performed poorly in both battles, leading to anti-immigrant sentiment rising. Schurz ended the war after fighting in Tennessee, resigning in April 1865. In 1868, he was elected to the US Senate as a representative from Missouri, representing the anti-Ulysses S. Grant faction of the Republicans. He was opposed to African-American civil rights out of fear of mixed-race couples, and he opposed the suppression of the Ku Klux Klan. In 1875, he lost the senatorial election, but he would later serve as Secretary of the Interior. Schurz died in 1906 in New York City, New York at the age of 77.