2 major-generals, 2 lieutenant-colonels, 12 captains, besides a number of subaltern officers and two surgeons? General Stahel commanded an army corps, General Asbóth a division and a district, General Schoepf a division and a fort; while Generals Knefler, Kozlay, Mundee and Pomucz and Colonel Zsulavszky had charge of brigades. The appended partial list contains the public records, more or less complete, of 61 officers. In compiling this list and the biographical sketches, use was made of Heitman's Register, the Official Army Register of the Volunteer Force of the U. S. Army, Dyer's Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, reports of the Adjutants-General of several states, and the Rebellion Record; also of various English, Hungarian and German books, memoirs, magazine and newspaper articles, and the oral or written communications of some of the participants or their descendants. No claim is made to absolute accuracy or completeness; and any correction or additional information will be gratefully received. III Since the Hungarians, few as they were, were scattered all over the country, enlisted from nearly every state and served in various armies, departments and corps, it is impossible to present their story in a continuous narrative. We must be satisfied, therefore, with individual sketches, unconnected, or but loosely connected at the best. There was no purely Hungarian organization in the Union Army. The nearest to one were the Garibaldi Guard of New York and the Lincoln Riflemen of Chicago. The latter were organized as an independent company of Hungarians and Bohemians by Géza Mihalóczy, a former honvéd officer, with another Hungarian, Augustus Kováts, as his lieutenant. This was in February, 1861, more than two months before Lincoln's first call for troops; and the far-seeing Mihalóczy drilled his men night after night to be prepared when the call should come. His request to the President-elect to permit the company to be named after him was presented to Mr. Lincoln at Springfield, Ill., by Julian Kuné, also a honvéd officer, and was gladly granted. Within 48 hours from the receipt of Gov. Yates' order to send a force to Cairo, Gen. Swift left Chicago with several companies, among them the Lincoln Riflemen. In Cairo there was much confusion at first, owing to the lack of experienced officers and the untrained condition of the troops. This was partly overcome by the energy of Gen. McClellan, who wrote10 that "the artillery, especially, made very good progress under the instruction of Col. Wagner, an Hungarian officer, whom I had sent there for that object." Col. Gustave Wagner had been a major of artillery in the Honvéd Army, and accompanied Governor Kossuth co Kutahia. He was the son of a heroic mother, for it was his mother who, under great personal danger, returned from Turkey to Hungary, and, in disguise and with a false passport, effected the escape of Mme. Kossuth from Hungary. He was in charge of the expeditions to Belmont and Lucas Bend, Mo., and when he was appointed chief of ordnance on Gen. Frémont's staff, Gen. U. S. Grant wrote to Frémont that "his loss from this post will be felt." Later, he commanded the 2nd New York Artillery. William Howard Russell, war-correspondent of the London Times, spoke of 10 McClellan's Own Story. By George B. McClellan, New York 1887. Page 45. him and the other Hungarians in Missouri (in his Pictures of Southern Life) as of "a fine, soldierlylooking set of men." The soldierly looks of the Hungarians were commented on also by several other writers of the period. In the West it was of vital importance to secure the two border states, Missouri and Kentucky, for the Union and to free the Mississippi from Confederate control. In St. Louis, independently of the volunteer regiments raised for the Federal army, several regiments of Home Guards (a literal translation of the word Honvéd) were organized "for the protection of the home and family, for the free exercise of the franchise and the supremacy of the Union," the leading idea being "to make this body strong enough to prevent even the chance of a fight within the limits of the city." The plan originated with three Hungarians, Anselm Albert, Robert and Roderick Rombauer, who met early in January, 1861, to form such an organization. Eventually five regiments of such Home Guards were organized in St. Louis. They not only fully accomplished their object, but sometimes volunteered to do duty outside of the city also, and were known officially as the U. S. Reserve Corps, Missouri Volunteers. The tactical development of the first regiment was attended to by Lieut.-Col. Robert J. Rombauer, and that of the second regiment by Lieut.-Col. John T. Fiala, who had also been a honvéd officer. Anselm Albert had served in the Engineering Corps of the Honvéd Army as lieut.-colonel, after Világos followed Gen. Bem to Aleppo, and came to the United States in 1850, where he eventually settled in St. Louis. He was lieut.-colonel of the 3d Missouri Infantry, became an aide-de-camp to Gen. Frémont in the West with the rank of colonel and later his chief-of-staff in the Mountain Department. The Rombauers are a remarkable family. Originally of Saxon stock, they settled in Hungary some 500 years ago, and gave several prominent citizens and stanch patriots to Hungary. Theodore Rombauer was director of the Hungarian Government's ammunition factory at Nagy Várad during the revolution, and, after the surrender of Gen. Görgei, had to flee for his life. Four of his sons had served the Hungarian cause, and four of his sons fought in the Union Army. They were, however, not the same four sons, for one of them, Richard, had lost his life in the battle of Vizakna, in Transylvania, and his place was taken in America by a younger brother. Robert J. Rombauer, the oldest son, was an artillery lieutenant in the Honvéd Army. When that army was crushed by the Russians, he stayed in the country, believing, like many others, that it would be impossible for Austria to wreak vengeance on every subaltern officer. He was mistaken, however, for he was taken prisoner and pressed into the Austrian Army as a private. After ten months his devoted mother succeeded in getting his release, and the whole family was soon re-united in Iowa, whence, after an unsuccessful effort at farming, they moved to St. Louis in 1853. There, as already stated, he took a leading part in organizing the Home Guards, and, when their term expired, re-enlisted for three years, becoming colonel of the 1st U. S. Reserve Corps, Missouri Volunteers. In 1863 he published a military treatise11, and in the centennial year of St. Louis a history of the conflict in St. Louis during 1861, with a thoughtful and judicious review of the causes leading to the Civil War, as an introduction12. He was also engaged in jour 11 The Contest. By R. J. Rombauer, St. Louis, February 1, 1863. 16-mo., 106 pp. 12 The Union Cause in St. Louis in 1861. By Robert J. Rombauer, St. Louis, 1909. 8-vo., XIV, 475 pp. The appendix contains the rosters of the St. Louis regiments. nalism, and held several offices of trust and honor in St. Louis, as President of the Board of Assessos, member of the School Board, Commander of the Grand Ai my of Missouri, etc. Now, at the pa triarchal age of eighty-two, he is still hale and hearty, and devotes himself to literary work. Roderick E. Rombauer, although at that time "wretchedly poor" (as he states in his autobiography)13, managed to study law at Harvard, and returned to St. Louis in 1858. He was a 1903. 13 The History of a Life. By Roderick E. Rombauer, St. Louis, 8-vo., 146 pp. |