James A. Garfield’s changing view of General Franz Sigel

James A. Garfield first hoped to serve under Franz Sigel and later suspected the general was overrated. A volunteer at the James A. Garfield National Historic Site traced that change in an article for the Garfield Observer, drawing on Garfield's Civil War letters, collected in The Wild Life of the Army.

Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel. Credit: Library of Congress.

A controversial commander

The article calls Sigel one of the most controversial commanders in the Army of the Potomac. He was at odds with colleagues because of his foreign background and lack of training at West Point, and it describes him as stubborn and sometimes arrogant. But he mattered to the Lincoln administration because he drew the loyalty of German-Americans, thousands of whom took up the pledge "I goes to fight mit Sigel."

Sigel was born in 1824 in Baden, Germany, and graduated from the Karlsruhe Military Academy in 1843, at nineteen. He served the Grand Duke of Baden until 1848, when he joined the German revolutionary movement, acted as its minister of war and briefly led an army until Prussia crushed the revolution. He fled to Switzerland, then England, and reached New York in 1852, with considerable prestige among German-Americans.

Sigel in the war

He joined the Union army in Missouri and became a brigadier general in the summer of 1861. In 1862 John Pope gave him command of the First Corps of the new Army of Virginia. After the defeat at Second Manassas, his mainly German command was disbanded and reassigned as the Army of the Potomac's Eleventh Corps. By February 1863 Oliver O. Howard had replaced him there, to the dismay of the German soldiers who admired him.

Garfield's letters

Garfield put great faith in Sigel's fighting ability. Before the battle of Pea Ridge he wrote that he hoped a rumor of Sigel's arrival was true, and in September 1862, angry at General George B. McClellan, he wrote that serving under McClellan would be dreadful and serving under Sigel a joy.

Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, whom the article says Garfield and Sigel both intensely disliked. Credit: Library of Congress.

On October 5, 1862, Garfield met Sigel when, while accompanying Kate Chase, the Treasury Secretary's daughter, he was invited to tea at Sigel's headquarters. Stationed nearby with the Army of the Ohio and thinking of transferring, he called Sigel small, lithe and well made. He was struck by the German officers, mostly exiles of the 1848 revolution, thought them cultured and enthusiastic, and was charmed by Sigel's and Carl Schurz's piano playing. Writing later, he was indignant that Sigel had been cut down to 7,000 men and placed under an inferior, while McClellan refused to cross the river; he said that General Halleck had insulted Sigel and charged him with cowardice. If the Republic fell, Garfield wrote, its obituary should read "Died of West Point."

A second look

In November 1862 Garfield served on the court-martial of Fitz John Porter and on a court of inquiry into General McDowell, and he came to admire McDowell, who strongly disliked Sigel after Second Manassas. Garfield noted that almost every prominent general in Pope's army had his reputation ruined or damaged in that campaign, and that Pope had blamed his corps commanders, Sigel included. His last word on Sigel was torn: admiration for high qualities on one side, sad contempt for what he called charlatanry and unfounded pretensions on the other. He suspended judgment, though he thought Sigel overestimated.

On May 15, 1864, Sigel lost the battle of New Market, Virginia, where young Confederate cadets from the Virginia Military Institute played a prominent part. He never again held an active command. After the war he worked as an editor and in politics, and died in New York City in 1902 at age 77.

Sources

• Frank Jastrzembski (volunteer, James A. Garfield National Historic Site), "James A. Garfield and the 'Yankee Dutchman': Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel", written in September 2016 for the Garfield Observer and carried by the National Park Service (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/james-a-garfield-and-the-yankee-dutchman-maj-gen-franz-sigel.htm); the letter dated May 1862 about Pea Ridge is left out because its date is doubtful, and two pictures credited to Dickinson College and civilwar.org are left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.