THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
and daring officers I have ever known—I speak from knowledge, as he served for a time on my staff—and he finally died a genuine hero's death while riding close into the enemy's lines for the purpose of securing to his commander some important information. He hailed from Ohio, and his name was Newcome.
When I arrived in New York on my recruiting mission, several German infantry regiments were almost completed—mainly under the leadership of Colonel Max Weber, who had been an officer in the army of the Grand Duchy of Baden, which, in 1840, went over to the revolutionists of that period; of Colonel Blenker, who had commanded part of the revolutionary forces of the Palatinate, and of Colonel von Gilsa, who had been an officer in the Prussian army. At the same time two other German revolutionary officers, Colonel von Schimmelfennig and Colonel Mahler, who in 1847 had served in the Palatinate and in Baden, were organizing German volunteer regiments in Pittsburg and in Philadelphia, while Franz Sigel and other German revolutionists were, in the same manner, active in the West. In New York Colonel Blenker attracted the most attention. He was indeed a personality of extraordinary picturesqueness. In my reminiscences of the insurrection of 1849 in the Palatinate I have described how the appearance of Colonel Blenker's martial figure on a prancing stallion at the head of some well-armed battalions revived the spirits of the retreating revolutionary forces. After the failure of the South-German insurrection, he migrated, with many thousands of companions in misfortune, to this country, and became the traveling agent of a then very popular and prosperous German weekly, the Criminalzeitung, edited by Mr. Rudolph Lexow. Whenever Blenker appeared in a town he soon had a large audience around him, attracted by his grand
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