Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1902 — DEATH OF GEN. SIGEL. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DEATH OF GEN. SIGEL.

PASSING OF A DISTINGUISHED CIVIL WAR CHARACTER. He Held Missouri in the Union—Participated in Revolution of 1848 in Germany Before Seeking Hie Fortune in Thia Country. Gen. Franz Sigel, who was one of the picturesque characters of*the Civil War, died at his home in Mott Haven, N. Y. He was in his 78th year and his death was due to the infirmities of old age. He was born Nov. 24, 1824, in Baden, Germany, and took part in the Revolutionary War in that country in 1848. He came to the United States in 1852. Ha was in St. Louis when the Civil Wai broke out and he organized a regiment and took the field with the Union forces. Sigel was commissioned a brigadier general May 17, 1861, and on March' 21, 1862, he became a major general of volunteers. When McClellan was relieved by Gen. Burnside in November, 1862, Gen.' Sigel was placed in command of

the grand reserve djvtsiba.~~ In July. 1863, he was assigned to the command of the district of Lehigh, and in February, 1864, to the command of the department of West Virginia. On May 15 of the same year he fought and lost the battle of Newmarket. Relieved by Gen. Hunter, he was assigned to the command of the reserve division on the Potomac, and during Gen. Early’s raid, in July, 1864, he defended Maryland heights with 5,000 against 18,000 men, making it possible for Gen. Lew Wallace to assemble his troops at Monocacy and for Gen. Grant to send re-enforcements to the threatened capital. Gen. Sigel was the hero of a wellknown war poem written by Grant P. Robinson, a Union soldier, in 1862, entitled “I Fights Mit Sigel.” In politics Gen. Sigel was a Democrat, but an antiTammany man. A widow, three sons and a daughter survive. The youngest son, Franz Sigel, Jr., is a lawyer in Chicago.

GEN. FRANZ SIGEL.