*** Welcome to piglix ***

August Willich

August Willich
August Willich.jpg
Brigadier General August Willich, ca. 1863
Birth name Johann August Ernst von Willich
Born (1810-11-19)November 19, 1810
Braunsberg, Province of East Prussia
Died January 22, 1878(1878-01-22) (aged 67)
St. Marys, Ohio
Place of burial Elmgrove Cemetery, St. Marys, Ohio
Allegiance Kingdom of Prussia
United States of America
Union
Service/branch Prussian Army
United States Army
Union Army
Years of service 1828 - 1846
1861 - 1865
Rank Union Army major general rank insignia.svg Brevet Major General
Unit 9th Ohio Infantry
Battles/wars

American Civil War


American Civil War

August Willich (November 19, 1810 – January 22, 1878), born Johann August Ernst von Willich, was a military officer in the Prussian Army and a leading early proponent of communism in Germany. In 1847 he discarded his title of nobility. He later immigrated to the United States and became a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Willich was born in Braunsberg, Province of East Prussia. His father, a captain of hussars during the Napoleonic Wars, died when Willich was three years old. With an elder brother, Willich found a home in the family of Friedrich Schleiermacher, a theologian, whose wife was a distant relative. He received a military education at Potsdam and Berlin. Initially an artillery officer in the Prussian military (1. Westfälisches Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 7), he resigned from the army in 1846 as a convinced republican. Willich was not the only republican emerging from that regiment. One of his fellow officers in Münster and Wesel was Fritz Anneke, who also was to become a revolutionary commander in Palatinate 1849 and later a commander in the Union Army. Willich tendered his resignation from the army in a letter written in such terms that, instead of its being accepted, he was arrested and tried by a court-martial. He was acquitted and was permitted to resign.

With Schapper, he was the leader of the left fraction of the Communist League. He took an active part in the Revolutions of 1848–49. In 1849, he was leader of a Free Corps in the Baden-Palatinate uprising. Revolutionary thinker Friedrich Engels served as his aide-de-camp. Among his revolutionary friends were Franz Sigel, Friedrich Hecker, Louis Blenker, and Carl Schurz. After the suppression of the uprising, he emigrated to London via Switzerland. He had learned the trade of a carpenter while in England, and so earned his livelihood. In 1850, when the League of Communists split, he (together with Schapper) was leader of the anti-Karl Marx grouping.


...
Wikipedia

...