Gustav Tafel

Gustav Tafel (October 13, 1830 – 1908) was a German-born colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1897 to 1900.

Tafel was born in Munich, Germany (München). He was one of the Forty-Eighters, meaning he fled Germany after the Revolution of 1848. He started in Cincinnati as a printer, and later became a newspaper editor. He resided in a house at the northeastern corner of 14th and Walnut streets from 1848-1870. At the time, Cincinnati had a large German population and a number of German language newspapers, and Tafel quickly became a leader in that community.

When war erupted and Governor William Dennison called for volunteers to join the army, Tafel enlisted with the Cincinnati "Turnverein" and served as a lieutenant in Company A, 9th Ohio Infantry, a mostly German regiment. In June 1862 he was assigned to command the 106th Ohio Infantry (aka, "The 4th German Regiment"), one of the last German regiments raised in the state. However, because the organization was forced to take the field in September with only eight of its companies filled, Tafel's commission was modified to that of lieutenant colonel on November 11, 1862. After the Perryville Campaign, Tafel's battalion was merged into the hard-luck Thirty-ninth Brigade, which was captured intact by Confederate General John Hunt Morgan at the Battle of Hartsville on December 7, 1862.

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