Stump the German

[Eva Elisabeth]

(06-15-2014 09:35 AM)Houmes Wrote:  Stump the German is trying to stump us with a German.

Very smart indeed, Mr. Sherlock Ho...er...Dr. Houmes. Actually I first wanted to post this on the "Who is this person"-thread, but considered that too mean.

Brilliant, it is Gustav Körner. He also preceded John Parker Hale as US minister to Spain, and was an ardent abolitionist, since he, like Carl Schurz, and Henry and Julius Ulke, was a "Forty-Eighter", and like many Forty-Eighters he opposed nativism and slavery, in keeping with the liberal ideals that had led them to flee Germany. Just to remind - according to James McPherson ("What They Fought For, 1861‐1865") of the approximately 2.2 million Union soldiers were 516,000 (23.4% of all Union soldiers) Germans; about 216,000 were born in Germany (whereas of the Confederate army only 9% soldiers were foreign-born at all).

Strangely several places he lived at coincided with places where Mary Lincoln lived, though not always at the same time. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1809, died in Batavia, Illinois, in 1896 (and in between had nine children with his wife Sophie). But the two indeed met as well:

Gustav Körner attended the Alton Lincoln- Douglas debate. When Lincoln met him in the hotel, he invited him to go to their room to see Mary. In his memoirs, Körner wrote: "I had not seen Mrs. Lincoln...since meeting her at the Lexington parties when she was Miss Todd...Most of the parties were very elegant...splendid supper at midnight...At one party at the Todds I met Mary Todd, who became Lincoln's wife."

G. Körner had studied law in Lexington. He also wrote about Lexington: "My American guidebook calls it perhaps the finest spot on the globe...It is the richest city in Kentucky and hence there's much show and luxury here...I must confess that with us - in Frankfort-on-the-Main - the wealthiest do not live as elegantly and comfortably...Most of the ladies were highly accomplished to the fashion of the country. Some of them played very well on the piano, and some sang remarkably as well. They played for me German melodies and songs...I may say towards the end of the season...the walz mania had spread...".

I hope, Dr. Houmes, you will like your prize (I would): you win tickets for the soccer world cup game USA vs. Germany in Recife on June 26.