Franz Sigel

Baden and Palatinate revolutionaries (1848–1849) Russian revolutionary democrats 1824–1902 ○ Natural causes

Officer who was war minister of the Baden revolutionaries in 1849 and became a Union major general in the American Civil War

Born at Sinsheim in Baden in 1824, he graduated from the Karlsruhe military academy and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Baden army in 1843. Through Friedrich Hecker and Gustav Struve he joined the revolutionary movement, and he left the army in 1847. In 1848 he organised a free corps in Mannheim and the Seekreis, and in April he led a militia of more than 4,000 volunteers against Freiburg, which grand-ducal troops defeated on 23 April. In 1849 he became war minister and commander-in-chief of the revolutionary government; after a wound forced him to give up the command he served under Ludwik Mierosławski as adjutant general, and in July he led the remaining troops into Switzerland. He emigrated to the United States in 1852. In the Civil War his ability to rally German immigrants made him a Union major general, though his generalship was poorly rated. He died in New York in 1902.

Also known as: Franz Peter Sigel