August Bondi Excerpts from the Autobiography of August Bondi (1833–1907)* CHAPTER I FAMILY HISTORY ORIGIN OF THE NAME There is a family tradition that sometime toward the close of the seventeenth or the early part of the eighteenth century, one Jomtov Landschreiber, a rural scrivener, whose business it was to keep up the census of the Jewish communities scattered through Bohemia, outside of Prague, and report the assessment of taxes subject to review by the respective authorities; when urged to adopt a Christian name and to Germanize it, adopted the name of “Bondy.” He had traveled in Italy and “become somewhat acquainted with the Italian language, so he changed the Hebrew word, “Jomtov,” (good-day) for the Italian word, “Bondi,” (good-day) and Germanized it by changing the letter “i” into “y,” making the name “Bondy” and all the Bondi and Bondy families in the world are descended from that Jomtov Landschreiber. There are in the United States many families “Bundy;” they are descendants of a Huguenot settler, near Vincennes, Indiana, about the eighteenth century. ANCESTORS Of the descendants of Jomtov Landschreiber history is silent until we come to one Herz Emanuel Mendel Bondi or Bondy, a wealthy merchant of Prague, Bohemia, and his wife, Judith (nee Lämel), parents of seven children—two daughters and five sons. Of these sons, the youngest, Herz Emanuel Naphtali Bondy, was my father. CHANGE OF NAME My father’s family name was originally “Bondy.” In his first citizen’s papers he changed it to Bondi.

• Autobiograpy of August Bondi (1833-1907): Published by His Sons and Daughters for Its Preservation (Galesburg, Illinois: Wagoner Printing Company, 1910). The following excerpts (chapters I through V) retain the original text of the printed edition, except for minor changes in punctuation, capitalization, and the correction of obvious errors.

87 All I know of my father’s ancestry is that he descended from an old and honored Jewish family of Bohemia. His grandmother was an Eibenschütz, of Dresden. My grandfather, Mendel Bondy, had been a well-to-do merchant, up to some ten years before his death in 1827, at the age of sixty-five years. My father always spoke of him with reverence. My father’s mother, Judith Bondy (née Lämel), died when my father was but fifteen years old. A little incident in the life of her youngest brother, Selke Lämel, may be of family interest. In his young days, towards the close of the 14th century, an eventful battle between the Austrians and the French resulted in a sad defeat of the former, and Austria wanted peace. To begin negotiations an armistice was necessary; but they did not know who could possibly be persona grata with the French commander. Some personinhighstandinghadbecomeacquaintedwithyoungSelkeLämel,ofTuschkan (at that time a wool-broker, and about 24 years old) in the coffee house frequented by both, had found him to be a French scholar, and had taken a liking to him. This man proposed the young Jew, Lämel, as a fitting messenger to Gen. Moreau (the victor at Hohenlinden and Lamback, Dec. 1800), to propose a truce. Lämel went and was successful, his negotiations being most satisfactory to the Austrian government. Lämel’s fortune was made. He was repeatedly commissioned to treat with French generals and even negotiated with Napoleon. He received any number of government contracts and became a millionaire, leaving to his wife, at his death in 1845, a sum equal to five million dollars. His widow died in her 96th year and the estate was divided among her children, who devoted a great part of it to charities, mostly Jewish, and to educational institutions. Lämel had, in about 1820, an audience with Emperor Francis. As he entered the room the Emperor called out, “Come closer, glad to see you, I love you, Lämel.” (Lamel or Lamele means lamb in the Austrian dialect.) Lämel answered, “So your majesty can shear him?” This so pleased the Emperor that Lämel was thereupon ennobled with the title, Simon Edler von Lämel. The family name and male line died out with his son, Leopold, who left daughters only. MY FATHER’S EARLY HISTORY My father was born at Prague, Bohemia, December 25, 1788 or 1790, family records differ as to the rear of his birth. In his 12th year he met with a serious accident at a ball game. His left leg was broken in two places which caused a limping gait in a fast walk. This defect, with his inferior size, 5 ft. 3 in., immured him from military service. He had what in those times was considered an excellent education and was well versed in Hebrew and German. From his eighteenth year on, he was engaged as either a salesman or a bookkeeper by prominent firms. In 1811 he joined the Masonic fraternity at Offenbach, or Frankf[u]rt, a[m] Main. Father often told me that the teachings of the secret societies to which he belonged incited to continual mental improvement and were a mutual aid and assistance in the troubles of life. He especially favored Masonry. Love and respect for that institution was, so to say, bred into me. 88 Among other societies to which my father belonged was a charitable organization something like the Christian Commission in our civil war of the sixties. It was the business of the members of this organization to visit the battlefields of 1813 and 1814, to assist in caring for the wounded and to relieve the suffering population near the battlegrounds whose homes had been burned and sustenance pillaged by both armies. In his old age my father could recall many scenes and events of the contests against Napoleon. He was present at the siege and battle of Dresden, where he saw Napoleon on the Bridge, over the Elbe, issuing his orders. Like all European Jews, my father held in great esteem the memory of Napoleon, as he had contributed so much to the extension of religious liberty. CHILDREN OF HERZ EMANUEL MENDEL BONDY My father’s brothers and sisters were: 1st. Wolf Emanuel Bondy, eldest. Died in 1863 at Prague, in his ninetieth year. His two sons were: Rudolph Bondy, childless, separated from his invalid wife (Gentile). Died in 1903, July 2nd, at the Alexian Brothers Hospital, St. Louis, Mo., of acute Bright’s disease. Remains cremated; ashes buried in Alton, Ill., cemetery by the grave of his first wife. Ludwig B., the second son, still living (1903), is the owner of quite a printing establishment in Vienna, with his only son as a partner. He is a widower and a Roman Catholic, his wife was also of that creed. The only daughter of Wolf Emanuel Bondy, Julia, married a Mr. Altman and died in 1852, leaving two infant daughters. 2nd. Ferdinand Bondy died childless at 45 years of age. 3rd. Lamel Bondy died childless in his seventieth year. 4th. Isaac Bondy died in 1879 at the age of ninety years. He had two sons, Emanuel Bondy, my brother-in-law, who died childless, near Salina, on my farm in 1874, buried in Gypsum Hill cemetery; and Joseph Bondy, died at Vienna, leaving surviving his widow, Helene Bondy, and one daughter married to a Mr. Freund, and one son. 5th. Anna Bondy, married, died leaving one daughter. Family name unknown to me. 6th. Louise Bondy, married “Lichtenstadt,” died a widow, almost ninety years old, in the eighties. Left surviving her six daughters, all yet living (1903), and one son, Maximilian Lichtenstadt, married and in the millinery business in Düsseldorf. MY MOTHER’S EARLY HISTORY My mother, Martha, born December 25, 1806, the youngest of three children, was left motherless in her infancy, her mother, Abigail, née Kuh, became insane during confinement with my mother, and died soon after. Her father, Wolf Adam Frankl, was the senior partner of one of the largest silk firms of Austria. My mother’s family, the Frankls, was of the oldest and most respected Jewish families of Prague. In 1810 Wolf Adam Frankl moved to Vienna with his three motherless children, David Adam, Joseph Adam and Martha. He died suddenly in August 1812, as was then supposed, by poison administered in a letter. In 1863 89 some old letters fell into the hands of my Uncle David Adam which proved, beyond a doubt, that the crime had been committed, but the guilty parties had all gone to their last account. One of the abettors, when at the point of death, delivered the correspondence to my uncle. I do not know the particulars, as I was in the United States army when my uncle wrote the information to my mother, and after my discharge I refrained from mentioning anything about it for fear of causing unnecessary pain to my mother. My mother’s father was a most benevolent and charitable man, as was often told me by old people who had known him well. He was greatly esteemed by the Jewish congregations of Prague and Vienna. He is buried in the old Jewish cemetery, in the oldest part, number 1265, near the gate, second tomb from that of Isaac Forster. After the death of Wolf Adam Frankl his children were removed to Prague and placed under the care of Israel Landau, president of the congregation, and Rosalia Rebecca Landau, his wife (my grandfathers sister), and were there educated. When a child I heard my mother and her brothers converse about the condition of my grandfather Frankl’s estate, how large it was at his decease and plundered in a most shameless manner by different parties. My mother at eighteen years married a young merchant, “Lippman Wehle,” and was a widow six weeks after the wedding. She returned to her Aunt Rosalia Rebecca Landau and remained with her, assisting her in her business (silks) until married to my father, January 12, 1832. Some three or four years before his marriage, my father had entered into a partnership with his brother, Isaac, wholesaling bleached and unbleached cotton goods. In 1830, nearly bankrupt, they tided their difficulties over by extensions. My parents, after marriage, moved to Vienna; my father to attend to the sales, and Uncle Isaac at Prague to attend to the purchases from mills in Bohemia. CHAPTER II EARLY PERSONAL HISTORY In the third story of the Temple house at Vienna, July 21, 1833, I, August Bondi, was born. Following is the official record at my birth: GEBURTSZEUGNISZ Von dem Unterzeichneten wird hiemit, bezeuget, dasz am einundzwanzigsten des Monates July im Jahre eintausendachthundertdreyunddreiszig 21ten July 1833, dem Herrn Commissionair Herz Emanuel Bondi von seiner Ehegattin Martha gebornen Frankl ein Knabe geboren find demselben am 28 ten July 1833 der Nahme August Bondi beygelegt wurde. Welches auch in dem Geburtsprotokolle der israelitischen Einwohner Wiens, folio No. 325, eingetragen ist. Zu dessen Urkunde eigenhändige Fertigung, Wien am 8ten Septembre 1833. 90 W. MANNHEIM Lehrer der Israeliten zu Wien Gesehen und bestätigt von dem Herren Vertretern der hiesigen Israelitischen Einwohner. Wien, den 9ten September 1833. Die Vertreter der Israeliten in Wien T. L. HOFMANN M.D. LUDERMANN Diese Unterschriften werden hiermit bestättiget von der L. C. Poligny Herr Direction Wien, am 9ten September 1833. Zeuge G. G. DIETS [Direction seal] My sister Henriette, or Harriet, was added to the family May 22, 1835. From her ninth month to her seventh or eighth year she was very sickly with a disease caused by an abnormal condition of the glands of the bowels—as I understood. She had to be humored and grew up quite self-willed and with all the faults common to family pets. When I was five years old my mother began to teach me the a, b, c, and the next year I was sent to the private school of a stern pedagogue, Adam Schreyer, who gave nie occasional threshings which I had, no doubt, deserved. It must at that time have been about fifty years old, was yet a bachelor, and has crossed the river long ago; but while he was most strict, his system of teaching must have been most excellent, and I learned fast. I would never tattle at home when I had received a licking, nor was I ever asked whether I had been punished. My mother taught me, and I have so instructed my children, that parents have no business to make such inquiries, nor ought children to tattle, because teachers entrusted with the work of character forming should have full control without parental interference. Once, while my Uncle David Frankl was visiting us, I came from school to dinner with my hands bloody from a switching, and my uncle prevailed upon my parents to hire a tutor. I was kept home and “Moritz Stern,” a Hungarian, from Pres[s]burg, a medical student at the Vienna University, became my tutor. He was a good scholar and also a friend of the rod. He remained with us six years and taught me, as private tutor, the common branches and Hebrew, German, French, Hungarian and Latin. I underwent the customary semi-annual examinations in different grades at the proper times. When past eight years—the fall of 1841—my father applied for my admission to the First Gymnasium class, but met a refusal because I was under ten years of age—the legal age of admission—so I was sent with my tutor to Pres[s]burg, Hungary, for matriculation in the Parva of the Gymnasium there, as the Hungarian school-laws ignored legal age of admission. I studied at ‘home under my tutor and went to Pres[s]burg in February and July, 1842, for the semi-annual examinations. I distinctly remember an incident of my Pres[s]burg visit February, 1842. It was Purim night, the streets of the Jewish quarter were most lively with masks, clowns, etc. At 91 that time (before 1848) in Hungary the soldiers of the regular Hungarian regiments were used for police when anyone was needed. The weather was hitter cold, two feet of ice on the Danube, the city authorities had established warming stations with a corporal’s guard in each of the main streets. My tutor and I entered one of those warming stations about midnight. It was quite filled up with people enjoying the red- hot wood stove, and the squad of Magyar grenadiers, all but the sentry outdoors, and the corporal in common with them, snoring on bunks. It struck twelve o’clock. The corporal called on the respective relief, but the snoring kept on, when the corporal, with a firm grip, raised his cane (of hazel), then the proper mark of distinction of a corporal in the Austrian army, and struck a decisive blow on the posteriors of the members of the respective relief with a “Teremtette” (the Magyar Goddam). The touched relief jumped up at once, rubbed the affected parts, donned their accoutre- ments and started for their posts. A little historical item may also be of interest here. At the time of which I am writing, 1842, south and east of Vienna the Danube was crossed by pontoon bridges, and these were taken up when ice formed, and no communication between the two banks of the river existed until the ice had become strong enough to bear the traffic. Sheafs of straw were then placed over the ice at the regular crossings, irrigated and when the material had become solid, planks were fastened to it on top which formed good passage-ways for all travel. After exhausting my amount of red tape I was at last, in October of 1843, (then past my tenth birthday) admitted to the Second Grade (Principe) of the Academic Gymnasium of Vienna. This Gymnasium, as were all gymnasiums of those days in Austria, was managed by the Piarists, a monkish order, somewhat like the Benedictines, all good men, treating their pupils with even-handed justice and using their best endeavors for their advancement. Shortly after my admission an imperial decree abolished the age qualification for admission to the Vienna Gymnasium. Besides the regular gymnasium curriculum I continued to apply myself to the study of different languages. My intention all along was to become physician. My Uncle Joseph Adam Frankl, M.D.), (practicing at Marianbad during summers) who had acquired an European reputation, often in his jokes referred to me as his future successor in the profession. As for his boys he had selected different careers. For the elder, Paul, the military profession. The younger son, Joseph, was to be an artist. In January 1844, my mother became quite an invalid from heart trouble, but under skillful treatment recovered within the next eighteen months. During the months of May, June and July she occupied a summer retreat near Meidling, one hour by railroad from Vienna. I stayed with them all the month of July and passed the happiest days of my childhood in the mountains and forests surrounding the village; often all alone, sometimes accompanied by a dog, generally returning in the evening with my clothes, dirty and ragged. March of 1845, Moritz Stern, my tutor, was discharged. He afterwards graduated M.D., and in 1849 served as regimental surgeon in the Hungarian Revolutionary Army. I had two tutors between March and July of that year. In the autumn mother engaged Edward Messer as tutor for sister and myself. He was a medical student of the Vienna University. 92 Up to 1840 I was among the seven of highest rank in the class. In January of ’46, while I was in the 4th grade of the gymnasium, the firm, “Emanuel Bondy Söhne,” of which my father was the senior partner, failed. They had met with severe losses through mercantile failures in Italy, Galicia and Hungary. Father and uncle became involved in lawsuits. My father, as senior partner and manager, had to bear the brunt of a criminal prosecution. The creditors of the firm believed that some distant relative of my father would come to his relief, also that my father could and would likewise use compulsory means with his debtors; but it was impossible for my father to bring about a settlement with his debtors, as the political conditions in Hungary, Italy and Galicia were already quite chaotic, and the relatives who, like my father and my uncle, had suffered losses, would not and could not come to the rescue. In the spring of 1847 my father became dangerously ill and seven weary months passed before he recovered. My mother had saved a small part of her dower and with it she assisted Uncle Isaac (father’s old partner), and hired lawyers for legal relief of my father who was committed to jail during the bankruptcy investigation. Legal proceedings in Austria at that time were all in chancery. Judges all expected and accepted bribes as their official perquisites. Many a bank note wandered from mother’s purse into the hand of the respective judges, and I believe that my father’s case was kept in court only to bleed mother. During these days of tribulation, from January, 1846, to June 1848, when my father was returned to his family, we lived hard. We children continued to study as before, Edward Messer, M.D., being our tutor until June of 1847, then my sister went to the best private school for girls; but our fare was boiled potatoes and bread twice a day, and bread and cocoa shells for breakfast. Only two meals with meat each week. Some years afterwards my sister was informed that my Aunt Charlotte (Uncle Isaac’s wife) had saved her entire dower and had a great deal more means than mother; but be that as it may, I feel, yet in my old age, proud that my mother did what she believed to be her duty, and never did we children oppose mother in her regular remittances to Uncle Isaac. Mother consulted with us about everything. Our lives were embittered by misfortune, but never could children revere parents as sister and I did mother, and she deserved it. Father never interfered with mother’s plans for educating us children. She was his cashier and clerk and had full control and management of the family. In all matters of discipline she was most strict, still I was never licked at home but once, for although I was impetuous, I was easily controlled. When I was nearly 12 years old my father gave me a sound threshing. I deserved it, and so acknowledged. Under the teachings of my mother and by the example of father and mother I formed a kind and generous disposition. Up to 1846 my blackened shoes and dusted clothes were brought to me every morning; yet I was prohibited from using any but the most polite language to the servants. My parents always impressed upon their children that Jews or Christians, high or low, all are children of a common Father. These principles affected my conduct all through life. While keeping a strictly Jewish house, my parents favored my knowledge of other religions. I had read the “New Testament” before I was eight years old. The martyrdom of Jesus caused in me the same feeling of horror and pain as the martyrdom of the victims of the tyranny of “Antiochus Epiphanes.” My father explained to me that the report of the Christian Testament regarding the execution of Jesus by the Jews is merely false. 93 Leopold Brescer, the teacher of the Jewish religion of the Vienna congregation, lectured his students above the 3rd gymnasium grade on [Moreh Nevuchim] (Guide to the perplexed) of Maimonides, alternating with it the teaching of translations of the Psalms, Proverbs and Koheleth. My tutor, Moritz Stern, was liberal minded, yet an enthusiastic Jew, and whenever we walked for an airing, conversed with me on Judaism and religious subjects from a liberal standpoint. I could not, under these conditions, help forming my mind according to the command of Moses, “Thou must love the Eternal, thy God and thy neighbor as thyself.” Enthusiastic Jew and lover of humanity. The family troubles affected my studies. At times I got behind. The full gymnasium course in Austria then consisted of six years, each year containing two terms. We had semi-annual examinations in March and July, and quarterly examinations in November, January, April and June, and vacation from about July 5th to October 5th. In May and June of 1846, I had been much distracted and most careless. I had a foreboding that at the quarterly examination in June the professor would call me out for examination by the rector and to be lectured by him. I tied my feet to the foot-board of my bed when I laid down the night before the examination and got up at 3 o’clock a.m., and had mastered my studies by 7:30 o’clock a.m., when I started for school. I was called out to translate and explain Horace’s Ode, “De ista rustica.” “Beatus ille qui procul negotiis paterna rura bovis exercit suis.” I had to translate, explain and expound the entire ode, and acquitted myself most excellently. Professor, rector and classmates were astonished. I managed to hold my own in the class. At this time I had to prepare my lessons at home alone, my tutor Edward Musser, M.D., having been discharged in June of 1847. In February of that year, he had married an ex-governess, the mother of his two illegitimate sons—legitimized after marriage. He often deprecated to me the outrages of absolutism and state-church. Showed me his confessional certificate purchased from a woman hawker for 6 Groschen (6 cents of American money), which the law obliged him to show to the priest before marriage. He died in 1896—83 years old. His son, Edward Musser, Jr., M.D., practices in Vienna. At the Academic Gymnasium, Professor Rosalek was my instructor in Parva, Prof. Franck in Principe-Gram[mar] and Syntax, and Prof. Podlaha, of the 5th and 6th gymnasium classes, taught me Poe[try] and Rhetoric. He often read to us of Washington, Jefferson and the American Revolution from translations of the American authors. In Parva the class numbered 106 students; when we reached Rhetoric we were but 96. In the first grade there were six Jews. There were but two left when we entered the 6th grade. The friars, as teachers, paid no attention to the creed of their scholars. They were impartial educators. I yet remember with reverence their efforts in my behalf, while I am well aware that the system of the Catholic schools of those days could not bring out the full powers of their pupils’ minds. Classics and history were pruned not to entice to disbelief of the state-religion or dissatisfaction with autocracy. The discipline was of the best. It was altogether carried out by intellectual means, but while it was far ahead of the American high-school humbug, it was yet infinitely inferior to the system even then prevailing in the Prussian gymnasiums, where all 94 superficial training is tabooed and classics and history are taught only to effect general erudition and culture. I will mention in this connection two little incidents in my college life of this year, 1847. About the middle of January the first general thaw had taken place, but during a dreadful cold of three days in the last week of January, the Danube froze over, the ice being two feet thick. Wolves followed the deer of the Prater into the suburbs of Leopoldstadt and Passau. In the second week of February suddenly warm weather set in and the ice going out dammed the river at a bend, and an inundation was the result. At 9 o’clock a.m. the water stood four feet in the street of Leopoldstadt, where we lived. Some of the scholars hurried home. I would not leave school as I believed I could see the fun later; but when I started at 10 o’clock a.m., the ice-gorge had broken and the inundation was over. The second incident was a riot of the students of the faculty of Philosophy in February of this same year. The professor of mathematics had slapped a student in the face, and for a week not a student of the faculty carne to the lectures, till the professor had publicly asked pardon of the class and of the insulted student. Five hundred students remained together in the daytime and were careful to allow no public manifestation by which any could be singled out as leaders, and as all the 500 could not be arrested, none were. Then followed those glorious days of March, 1848, glorious for those young spirits who arose as one man, burning with the desire to kindle the light of freedom of “Liberty” in priest-ridden, despotism-cursed Austria. I will try to give a true and faithful account of those events. I will give only actual facts within my own personal knowledge. “Etsi quorum pars parva fui.” My children, and whoever else may read these lines, let me impress on you my assurance that in this, my autobiography and memoirs, I have not described nor mentioned anything which my ears have not heard or my eyes not seen—except where I state the events from hearsay, and so declare. Some historians or memorialists may contradict some of my accounts of important events; but remember, I was on hand at times and places when and where others were not. I have never favored that embellishment and romanticised tradition should take the place of history, which should be nothing else but true description of the actual happenings and events during the different epochs of humanity as they passed and were acted. On the evening of the last day. (Tuesday) of the Carneval of 1848, seven young men, mostly medical students, enjoyed a merry-making in the Wieden suburb of Vienna. Only a few weeks before the French had expelled Louis Phillipe. They argued over that event and expressed their preference for a free government in Austria; at last, one called out: “Let us have some fun and play Vienna Revolution and the expulsion of Metternich,” prime minister of Austria for 25 years, who with Nesselrode, was the chief support and sheet-anchor of European despotism.1 One of the students represented Metternich and the others, with their knotted pocket handkerchiefs, expelled him from the room. From smallest acorns Largest oaks do grow. 95 These youngsters, when sober next day, talking over their fun of the preceding night, eventually made up their minds for a realization of their play, and conferred with their comrades for such purpose. The students at the Austrian universities had, for years, suffered the grievance that certain studies were attached to and connected with certain class years, and only salaried professors of the Catholic faith were allowed; while in Germany students were allowed to select what studies they pleased for each year of the course established for the study of the respective professions in which they desired to graduate and were allowed to maintain any number of “docents” for the several branches of studies; each docent, however, obliged to pass professional examination. These privileges were comprised under the title “Freedom to teach and to learn.” The strict censorial system muzzling the press, which thereby had also become most servile to the powers which were; and the state-church dogging, more or less, each step of the citizen, were also causes of irritation and most keenly felt by the educated, intelligent youth. The students at the “Alma Mater” of the three faculties, philosophy, medicine and law; the students at the Polytechnical School, and the students at the Academy of Arts—numbering in the aggregate, near 10,000, with youthful enthusiasm declared for: Freedom of conscience; Freedom of the press. and Freedom to teach and learn. The students and members of the various faculties and schools agreed to post and to hold a mass meeting in the Aula of the university on Sunday, the 12th of March, 1848, at 11 o’clock a.m., to comment upon the formulation of a petition embodying requests for the abolishment of the grievances and for freedom of conscience, freedom of the press, and freedom to teach and to learn, and for a National Guard; which petition could be presented next day, March 13th, by a committee to be selected, to the provincial council (Landtag) of the province of Lower Austria, then sitting at Vienna. The provincial council consisted of the mayors of the large cities and the representatives of the landed aristocracy. The council convened once in a while to go through the formalities of voting an internal improvement budget. The petition of the students was to be, and was, rather more of an address requesting intercession with the ministry for redress of grievances and abolishment of the autocratic system of government by a Diet to be called together without delay. The afternoon of the 12th of March was quiet. The police had increased their force of spies in citizen’s dress, but no arrests were made. It is said that Metternich ridiculed the movement. Monday morning, March 13th, I went to my class in the gymnasium. I was in the last class, rhetoric, but a few months more and I would have been ripe for the philosophy courses of the university. After the class closed, 10 o’clock a.m., I did not hurry home. We then lived in the Leopoldstadt suburb—Anthony Gasse [Antonigasse]. I loitered on my way to listen to various addresses made to the gathering crowds from the pedestals of monuments. My appetite getting the upper 96 hand, I hastened home for dinner, intending to return to the city without delay, to be present at the presentation of the address. The Leopoldstadt suburb lies across that smallest arm of the Danube which separates itself from the main river a few miles above Vienna and reunites itself a few miles below the city. “The city proper” yet retained the old fortress walls with its several gates. On my return from dinner, I reached the gate, “The Rothe Thurm Thor” before 1 o’clock p.m. The gate was closed, infantry on guard. While I waited a few minutes before the guarded gate, my mother came. She had hurried after me, having become satisfied that there would be trouble and begged me to return home; but I stayed and mother kissed me and blessed me. “Go then with God,” she said. The small gate near the big gate was opened to allow the relief squad to march out; a crowd of roustabouts from some vessels (the harbor is close by) ran over the squad. The attack was so sudden and the soldiers so unprepared that they ran right over them. I and a few others rushed with them, and I was in the city proper. Vienna had a weak garrison, as all available forces were needed in Italy at that time, and as I mentioned before, Metternich never suspected the least danger from a mob of half grown youngsters, and foolish protesters. Again, when a few hours after the Her[re]ngasse massacre, he had to change his opinion, the pusillanimity of his advisers influenced the doomed minister and, as is almost always the case when a tyrant meets determined opposition, courage failed him and irresoluteness marked the last hours of Metternich’s ministry. As fast as legs would carry us, I, with a few classmates, ran up to the Her[re]ngasse. With me was a Baron Spens of my class who, in 1849, entered the army as a cadet, and years afterwards died a general. During this walk he continually berated the men who participated in this revolt, as it had already become, and repeatedly said that grape and canister only was a fit reply to the petition. I ran some faster than the others of my small crowd and reached the Her[re]ngasse and pushed for the front near the palace where the provincial council held its sessions. I became mixed up with the students of the different schools and faculties. The street was packed for quite a distance, but I kept in front. A couple of thousand youngsters cannot be kept quiet, and while waiting for news from the student deputation, who had taken the address to the provincial council (Landtag), we shouted for “freedom of the press, and freedom of conscience.” Occasionally some shouts of “Down with Metternich,” and cheers for “Constitution” were heard. The deputation appeared on the balcony of the Council Hall and in a few words requested us to be quiet. We complied, when through a side street marched out a battalion of (Czech-Bohemian) pioneers, first in platoon, then in half-company column to within less than a hundred feet of the surging crowd—the platoon front extending from house-wall to house-wall across the street. The commanding officer steps to the front and shouts the order to disperse. Even if willing, we could not move, as the 80-foot street was packed full. The order “fire” is given, the front ranks discharge their muskets, (flintlocks)—a dozen dead and dying fall around me. Heinr[i]ch Spitzer, 18 years old, a Jewish student of the Technical school, an only son of his parents, from Voisenz, Morana, pierced through the heart falls and brings me down with him, and another student of the same school falls over us both. A bayonet charge is ordered and as I crawled from under my dead comrades, a Czech struck me over the head and shoulders two licks with the butt of 97 his musket, and another Czech savage lounged his bayonet into my back, fortunately only grazing my skin and raising me from the ground, as his bayonet had become fastened in my overcoat. As the bayonet lost its hold, I made tracks along with a crowd, pushing our way through a narrow alley-like street, “Strauchgass[e].” At this time a deed of heroism was performed by a man who, long ago, passed to his rest, forgotten by all except the few old men saved by his courage. At the outlet of the Her[re]ngasse and Stra[u]chgass[e] into the Michaelisplatz, in front of the Burg, (imperial residence) were stationed two cannon in charge of an artillery sergeant, Johann Follett. The cannon were loaded with grape and ca[n]ister, and the gunners stood by them with burning matches. As the crowds, fleeing from the charge of the Czech pioneer battalion, debouched into the Michaelisplatz, an archduke (I have forgotten his name) galloped up in general’s uniform and commanded “Fire!” The sergeant, Johann Follett, jumped before the muzzle of one of the guns and thundered to his men, “Hold, hold on, I am in command here and, imperial highness, remember, if I fall here, the House of Hapsburg goes down with me.” The living masses of men, women and children within 100 feet of those guns were spared. The brave sergeant was, after a few days, promoted lieutenant and fell at Navara. The students returned to the Aula of the university, leaving the dead and carrying their wounded comrades. My head and shoulders ached fearfully, and the blood trickled slowly down my back inside of my shirt from the slight bayonet wound. The back of my overcoat and my hat were soaked with the blood of Martyr Spitzer. I went home, had a few bites to eat but said nothing to mother about my experiences. By dark I tried to reach the university to share in the attack on the arsenal, but the gates were closed, so I went home tired and went to bed. I will tell of the attack on the arsenal, as I heard it the next day. About 8 o’clock in the evening the students had organized to storm the city arsenal. Vienna had two arsenals—the city arsenal and the imperial arsenal. The city arsenal contained 25,000 old muskets, some remnants of the Turkish wars of the 18th century, and some ornaments of the Napoleonic Wars, of course, all old style flintlocks. The city arsenal, not containing weapons of great value, had no guard, only a corps of janitors to take care of the rooms filled with relics to be shown to the public which throngs the building on certain days. The students went for the old banners, which had been used in the Turkish and the Napoleonic wars and later floated in advance of the brave youngsters of those days. They found the flag-room in the university locked and the keys could not be found. It was 8 o’clock p.m., when Prof. Stephen Ladislaus Endlicher grabbed a candle, stuck it on a pole, exclaiming, “Boys, we are all for more light; then let this candle be the symbol of our wish, and our banner.” He took the front and the others followed. They marched to the city arsenal, found it unguarded, broke down the gates at 11 o’clock p.m., and each man seized a musket with bayonet and, as they were without ammunition, the bayonet alone was relied upon. During the night Metternich had fled, and the Emperor had issued his proclamation granting the demands of the people and appointing a new ministry. About 7 o’clock of the evening of the 13th of March, a battalion of curasiers had, without provocation, charged the crowds in front of the church of St. Stephen, on St. Stephen’s Square, and many were left lifeless on 98 the spot, many more wounded. Altogether, the number of that day’s dead was thirty- eight, among these three women. Immediately the National Guard of the city was formed. Every citizen was entitled to membership, and the students, in a separate body, called “Academic Legion,” formed an integral part. This Academic Legion consisted of five corps: 1st, the students of philosophy; 2nd, medical students; 3rd, law students; 4th, students of the polytechnic School; 5th, students of the Academy of Fine Arts. So commenced the Vienna Revolution of March 1848. It was closely followed by the uprisings of Berlin, Munich and many others. In Vienna, in March 1848, was started the movement for a United Germany, which was perfected 22 years later at Versailles, after Austria was ousted from the German confederacy in 1866; and yet the present German Empire and the present dual monarchy, “Austria-Hungary,” owe an eternal debt of gratitude for their present freedom, political life, and their liberal institutions to the enthusiastic youngsters of 1848, who then and there sacrificed life and fortunes to their humanitarian aspirations. Very few of the young men of 1848 concluded their studies. Once engulfed in the whirlpool of the stress and storm of this revolutionary period they could not concentrate their minds on studying for a livelihood. Hundreds fell in the October days of ’48; some were executed by court’s martial, more had the death sentence commuted to imprisonment in the dungeons of Brünn and Spielberz. Hundreds joined the Vienna legion of the Hungarian Revolution and fell in the battles of 1849. Hundreds more were pressed into the Austrian army and perished in battle or deserted into Turkey or Italy, and thence emigrated to the United States, where others had preceded them. Many went clown, even in this free land, in the struggle for bread, and of the survivors many died on the battlefields of the Civil War of the ’60’s. Perhaps, one of the saddest deaths was that of Prof. Endlicher, the leader of the students’ attack on the city arsenal, who suicided one year after the Vienna uprising. A very few yet survive, proud of the memories of their youth. None have ever regretted their share in the great drama commenced that fateful day of March, 48, whose last act has not been reached. On Thursday, March 16th, the deputations of the Hungarian Diet and of the University of Budapest reached Vienna to receive from the Emperor, their king, the pledge that the Hungarian constitution should cease to be as a dead letter, Louis Kossuth (Kossuth Lajos) at their head. The members of the Diet in carriages, many of the Budapest students horse-back proceeded to the Burg amid the cheers of the crowds filling the streets. On Friday, March 17th, we buried the thirty-eight victims of the Thirteenth in a common grave in the Wäringer general cemetery. The remains were afterwards removed to the new cemetery and an imposing monument erected by free contributions. The National Guard and the Legion, 15,000 bayonets, followed the remains to the grave. The different funeral orations lasted three hours. I marched with the corps consisting of the Philosophy students, which had the rear on the march and was on the left wing of the hollow square farthest from the grave, where it was impossible to hear the speaking. The speakers all expressed the wish that with the remains of the martyrs all further strife be and remain buried; but idle thought! Despots and priests never yield, 99 except to overpowering force, and even then make continued efforts to regain by stratagem the powers wrested from them by the people. By evening some Magyar bishops visited the university and, observing that the student’s guard used water only for their beverage, ordered up an ample supply of beer, wine and bread to satisfy all the thousands returning from the funeral. I returned to my studies in the 6th class of the gymnasium and did the best I could, considering that a great deal of my time was taken up with attendance at the various student meetings of those days. During March and April ministries came and went. About the first week in May, the “Fiquelmont” of the most reactionary section of the high aristocracy was commissioned Prime Minister. One Count Hoyos [von Sprinzenstein] was commissioned in command of the Vienna National Guard. The citizens and the students had a right to believe that the concessions wrung from the imperial government by main strength were endangered. Deputations insisted to the emperor upon a change of ministry, but these efforts were in vain. On Monday, the 15th day of May, the representatives of the different corps of the Legion, at 3 o’clock p.m., after a deliberation lasting from 10 o’clock a.m., ordered a petition to the emperor for a change of the Ministry, the petition to be supported by the armed forces of the National Guard and of the Legion. The scholars of the three Vienna gymnasiums were not enrolled in the Legion; but those of the highest, the 6th class or grade, were permitted to bear arms and to do duty in the corps of the students of the Philosophy faculty, as but a few months intervened before they would be ripe for university and matriculation in the First class of students of the faculty of Philosophy. A neighbor, Moritz Pollak, a member of the National Guard, was temporarily absent from home. I took his gun. bought me six cartridges and joined the Legion. All the muskets of the Guard and of the Legion had flintlocks. One-half of the Austrian army was yet armed in the same manner. The regular members of the legion had drilled daily, we 6th class scholars had drilled only occasionally, possibly half a dozen times. At 6 o’clock p.m., the legion, some 9000 strong, left University Square marching by columns of platoons of 32 files, until we reached the wider thoroughfares, when we changed to half-company columns. The philosophy corps, 700 strong, in four companies; each company a captain, two lieutenants, two drummers. The student deputation to the Emperor at the head of the legion carried the monster petition asking the dismissal of the stationary ministry. The different bodies of the National Guard had all requested delay and had declined to take part. Nearing the castle we had to march through two lines of the several regiments of grenadiers of the Vienna garrison drawn up on the sidewalks, so that we scraped their files in passing. These grenadiers had each 60 rounds in his cartridge box. We boys felt the seriousness of the situation: not a loud word was spoken, cigars thrown away, we felt that the night might develop a bloody fray. We debouched into the square, Josephplatz, and in serried ranks took position, filling the square. About 500 or more of what appeared to be common laboring men surrounded the square formed by the legion. The corps of philosophy students had its position on the west side of the square. The windows of the cabinet in which the emperor, the ministry, and the student deputation discussed the petition, was in plain view of all. At 9 o’clock p.m., we received permission to stack arms and leave them under care and guard of a detail and break ranks for refreshments at the tavern on the Square, strictly 100 enjoined to return to our places within thirty minutes. In ranks this afternoon and evening had touched elbow with Frederick Hassaurek, a scholar in the 6th class at the Piarist gymnasium, in the suburbs of Josephstadt. I had a little change, he had none and was as hungry and thirsty as I was. I invited him and we two had beer and bread at my expense. I have never seen Hassaurek since that night. He escaped from Vienna after the October days, came to the United States in 1849, settled in Cincinnati, began editing a German newspaper, Hochwächter, became prominent in politics, was minister to some South American republic, under Lincoln; Chili, I believe, in ’62, ’63, and ’64. He was unfortunate in his second marriage and died broken-hearted toward the close of the ’80s. Some think that he suicided. Before 10 o’clock p.m., every man of us was in his place again. At about 11 o’clock the deputation appeared on the balcony of the council room, and Gustav Klier, a student of law, in behalf of the students’ deputation, announced that his majesty desired till tomorrow for the consideration of the petition. The answer, “heute noch,” (today [still]) came from thousands of throats. At 11:30 o’clock, some companies of the Guard of the outlying suburbs straggled in, were received with roaring cheers, and each announced that the other companies of the respective districts would be on hand sooner or later. At 12 o’clock, midnight, Gustav Klier returned to the balcony and repeated the emperor’s request and received the same answer as before. A few more companies of the National Guard arrived and with those already present, took position on the west of the Philosophy Corps. Knowing that some 20,000 troops were on forced march to Vienna from Bohemia and Galicia, we were determined to succeed in our demands without delay, and the roar, “heute noch,” was incessantly kept up and at 12:15 a.m., the emperor yielded. Fiquelmont was allowed to resign and Pillersdorf commissioned to organize a new Ministry. We then returned to the University Square where we broke ranks about 1:30 a.m. Gustav Klier, who in his clear voice had at various times during the night announced the condition of the negotiations, after the October days escaped from Vienna, came to St. Louis in 1849 and there made cigars for a living. Afterwards, in 1851, he became teacher in a ladies’ seminary and studied medicine at the same time. He graduated as an M.D., in 1854, received an appointment in the city hospital of St. Louis in 1856 and perished in the Gasconade Bridge disaster on a Missouri Pacific excursion, I think, in 1860. There was not much study after the excitement of the 15th, yet I went to my class each morning of the 16th and 17th of May. Count Hoyos resigned and Count Mannsfeld was commissioned commander of the National Guard and the Legion. On the morning of the 17th of May, Vienna awoke to the news that the emperor, fearful for his safety in the capital, had departed for In[n]sbruck in the Tyrol. Still everything was quite peaceful, only a few small riots occurred which were quelled by the Legion. I served in the ranks on the afternoon of the 17th. Mother sent me on an errand to a lady, near the Jäge[r]zeile, before breakfast, about 5 o’clock, Thursday, the 18th of May. Returning in about an hour I saw a large body of infantry—regiment after regiment—equipped for field service in half- company column debauching from the northern railroad depot, march towards the main city. I was satisfied something was up, so hurried home, put a piece of bread in my pocket, shouldered our absent neighbor’s musket again, as in preceding days, 101 and put for the university. On the way I purchased at Vienna’s only powder store, Stumers, six more cartridges which with the six bought on the 15th, I carried in my trousers. I was only one block from the university when the tocsin of the university church commenced to sound loud and deep. I was one of the first five to arrive. Outside of the regular guard, I was the youngest marching in the ranks of the Legion and my arrival amongst the first five caused quite a comment amongst the guard of the university. We were there informed of all the events of the early morning hours. The university building, ever since the organization of the Legion, was guarded every night by a full company, and one sentinel at each of the three gates. In the early dawn of this morning the sentinel at the south gate had heard a sound as of approaching infantry, and fearing some danger, shut the iron bar gate and shouted to his comrades at the other gates to do likewise, so when the company of grenadiers arrived, the entire guard was ready with loaded pieces behind the gates. Commandant Count Mannsfeld, at the head of the grenadiers, ordered the captain, commanding the student’s guard, to disband his men and vacate the premises. A parley ensued. After it had lasted few minutes, a student, nicknamed Ducas, because he was the illegitimate son of a French duke, loaded his musket behind the bar-gate, in view of the troops, and resting his piece on a crossbar of the gate, raised and cocked it ready, and when Count Mannsfeld inquired, “What do you mean?” Ducas replied, “This first shot for you.” Count Mannsfeld turned on his heel, the grenadiers retire[d] and a member of the guard climbed the stairs to the university church steeple and sounded the tocsin. By 8 o’clock the Legion was assembled in its full strength in and around the university, and troops commenced to stream in towards the city from the south railroad depot, as they had in the early morning from the north. The troops took position on the glacis around the city walls and commenced to throw up intrenchments and to place their cannon in battery position, as for a bombardment. A laborer brought the news to the university—to the Untere B[ä]ckerstrasse where I was with the company in whose ranks I served. I exclaimed, “Cannot we build barricades?” and ran into the nearest home and got a pick, borrowed a crowbar from the janitor and set to work at once to lift one of the square granite blocks of the pavement. One of my classmates, a Hungarian, assisted me. As we lifted out the first two granite blocks, some fifty comrades with cheers fell to work. The pick was taken from me by stronger hands, I willingly surrendered it, and before 11 o’clock the barricade assumed respectable proportions, and several hundred more have been started throughout the main city. My children, it was your father, who not yet 15 years old, had lifted the first granite paving block, to start the first barricade in Vienna. At noon the decree abolishing the Academic Legion was promulgated but not heeded. Students and citizens of all classes seemed determined to oppose any infringement of the late won concessions. The barricades, as soon as constructed, were manned by details of the National Guard, as an attack was expected by the large bodies of troops encamped near and around Vienna, and when, shortly after midnight, reinforcements for the Imperial troops arrived, an immediate attack was expected and the tocsin rang out from every steeple of the city and suburbs. Every National Guard drummer beat the alarm, everything was in the best order for defense. The gates of the houses were opened and two men detailed to every second floor window. All women and children were or- 102 dered from the streets, and when morning dawned, the Pillersdorf Ministry annulled all decrees of the two days just passed. About noon of the 18th, the delegates of the various corps of the Legion assembled in the Aula, ‘had elected Father Anton Füster (a Catholic-priest), professor of theology of the faculty of philosophy, for commander of the Legion; and about 5 o’clock I was ordered to his quarters on duty as an orderly. Here I found several more youngsters on like detail. He gave us his verbal orders for the various barricades commanded by officers of the Legion, and assigned each orderly to a different barricade as its messenger between the barricade commander and himself. He assigned me to the barricade nearest to the house in which he lived. About 4 o’clock p.m., the delegates of the Legion and of the National Guard organized a “Committee of Safety,” to consist of representatives elected by and sent from the various corps and battalions of the Legion and the National Guard. Its business, “Ne populus detrimentum capeat” (that the liberties of the people be not impaired). This committee was soon in working order, the Jew, Dr. Adolf Tischhof for its chairman. As committee of the public welfare its power was unlimited. Dr. Tischhof died in the ’90’s. On the afternoon of the 19th, all military posts within the city and suburbs were surrendered to the National Guard for occupation and on the 20th the committee of safety ordered the demolishment of the barricades, and in a few days the city looked as of old. The guards at all public institutions, as the Imperial Bank; Customs house, ‘Excise Station, imperial Gardens, the Burg, etc., had thenceforth to be supplied by the Legion and the National Guard. Monday, May 22, Father Füster resigned as commander of the Legion and was elected chaplain. The Archbishop of Vienna excommunicated him after the October days, and in ’49 he emigrated to the United States and taught in private schools in Baltimore and in Philadelphia. In 1870 he returned to Vienna and died there in ’74, still under ban. Capt. Messenhauser, retired from the regular army, was elected commander in his place. On account of the troublesome times, the gymnasiums changed dates of the semi-annual examinations from the first week of July to the first week of June. I passed, received my certificate (abeunde) to enter the university and I joined the Legion as a full fledged member with the privilege of a vote as well as to fight, which I had enjoyed heretofore. I joined Company 5, of the battalion of the Philosophy Faculty, and became a private in its ranks Zach, captain; Fischer, first lieutenant (I have forgotten their given names). I was the youngest member of the Legion and quite petted. I shared all the duties with a will, always on hand to obey orders of the superior officers of company or battalion. I remember a bread riot of several thousand laborers engaged on public works, clamoring for a small increase in wages, as victuals had raised in price. I happened at the aula, just in from 21 hours’ guard duty at an excise post, when the order came for a detail of as many men as could be gathered without delay, under any commissioned officer at hand, for the quelling of the disturbance. Within a few minutes about twenty gathered. Lieut. Aigner, a young officer of the Corps of the Academy of Arts, took charge and our little handful hastened away. When close to the mob we detached bayonets and these twenty, mostly beardless youngsters, after arguing with the leaders a few minutes, induced the crowd of some 2,000 or 3,000 men to follow them to the city hall, there to lay their grievances before the city council, then in session, and 103 on their pledge to follow its in, we marched ahead and brought that mob to the city hall, where after a short argument, the pay of all day laborers on the public works of the city was raised 3 Kreuzers (not quite 3 cents), and the disturbance was quelled. Not much more than a boy, I was always welcomed when meeting with the popular leaders of those days. I became intimate with Oscar Falke, Hermann Moritz and Adolf Jellenek, Burchheim, eminent political writers and speakers, all members of the Legion; also with Capt. Messenhauser, the Commandant of the Legion, Robert Blum and others. Oscar Falke escaped from Vienna after the October days and established himself at London. The younger Jellenek (Hermann) and Capt. Messenhauser were, after the October days, court-martialed, sentenced and executed (shot Nov. 23, ’48) in the Brigit terrace. Adolf Jellenek became later, chief rabbi at Vienna and died Dec. 28, 1895. I also was then quite intimate with Prof. Aigner, who commanded the Corps of the students of the Academy of Arts. Aigner suicided after the October days when he found his escape from Vienna cut off. Daily intercourse with such men had its effect. We boys were all ears when with these men, eager not to miss a word of their conversation. I became imbued with hatred of spiritual and governmental tyranny. The intercourse with such men taught me devotion to humanity. We boys were fairly fanaticized with sympathy for the downtrodden of the globe. All our aspirations centered in the longing for a government in which thrones did not exist. Among my intimates of those days was Dr. Goldmark (a Hungarian Jew) member of the committee of safety, whom we met almost daily at the university, a leader and orator. He escaped to the U.S. after the October days, started a chemical laboratory and factory in New York, and hardly made ends meet until 1861, when at the breaking out of the civil war, he commenced the manufacture of percussion caps and shortly after nearly monopolized government contracts for that article. I also met, frequently, Hans Kudlich, medical student, who agitated the abolishment of the Ro[bu]th, the compulsory sixth work day for the old fief lord by the peasantry, and succeeded, for the law was repealed by one of the first acts of the Austrian Diet. He escaped to Switzerland in October and from there emigrated to the United States, where he still (1903) practices medicine in Hoboken. One evening while on guard at the university, in a heated discussion, I defended the laboring classes of Vienna, then struggling for a slight increase of wages to ward off starvation, and also the Italians in Lombardy and Venice who, yet struggling against the infernal Austrian military despotism, engaged in a contest which we had won for the time being, but as I and my friends insisted would lose quickly after the quelling of the Italian insurrection. I thought myself insulted, during the discussion, by a class-mate, now a member of the same company and, about to attack him with fixed bayonet, was quieted by the interference of the bystanders. I challenged my opponent in the discussion, but as all around insisted on conciliation, we shook hands and drank some good wine out of one glass. An ample supply of bread and wine was always sent to the university for the guards. The Jelleneks, Falke and Bruchheim reprimanded me next day for my rash conduct, while they fully approved my sentiments and indicted several leaders in their paper, “Students Courier,” foretelling a terrible retribution for having stopped half way in the conquest of right and for standing idly by while the imperial army throttled Italy; that after Italy’s defeat our turn would be next. 104 The agricultural population of Austria and all the common people in the various provinces, steeped in ignorance and superstition, were not ripe for a change from a despotism to free institutions. On Pentecost Day, June 1848, Whitsunday, Prague, capital of Bohemia was bombarded and next day taken by assault. There had been quarrels and disputes between the different nationalities; but all parties had united in a demand for municipal home rule, when Windischgraetz, commander of the troops in Bohemia, all at once interfered solely for the purpose of causing forceful resistance, which would furnish a pretext for a well delivered blow against the revolutionary tactics of the day, and by gaining a foothold in Prague would be better able to operate in the future against the imperial capital and Hungary. Eight hundred students and citizens were killed in the two days’ fight, June 15 and 16. Among the first killed was the wife of General Windischgraetz. She was watching the battle from a third story window, when a stray bullet hit her in the forehead. Of wounded there were about two thousand. The delegation from the Vienna Committee of Safety, sent to investigate conditions, was curtly ordered out of the town by the military authorities. A great many speeches were made in Vienna and in Budapest, but to no purpose. Many citizens and students of Prague escaped to Vienna, as Windischgraetz did not care to hold any one who wished to leave. My cousins—children of my father’s brother, Wolf-Rudolf, Julia and Ludwig, and my mother’s cousins, Adolf, Karl, Hanna and Amelia Austerlitz, were refugees to Vienna and put up with us two weeks. The German diet at Frankfort had elected Archduke Johann (uncle of the emperor) as Reichsverweser (protector of the realm). And now there were more speeches, more National Guard parades. The “Students Courier” prophesied days like Whitsunday and Monday for Vienna, but these warnings were unheeded. On Corpus Christi Day the National Guard and the Legion took the place of the regular troops during the exercises of the day and in the procession, as all the regular army had departed. It was the custom for the clergy, headed by the archbishop, coming from the cathedral, St. Stephen’s to march in procession through the kneeling ranks of troops, who then closed behind them and, with the clergy at the head, march through the city. Returning to the cathedral, again the clergy march through the kneeling ranks. The Jewish students, with one voice, decided to do just as their comrades did, so we Jewish members of the Legion knelt with our Catholic and Protestant comrades before the Christian host. We did this also at a field mass celebrated in honor of our martyred dead, July 29, ’48, by the legion Chaplain, Father Füster. When the little bell tinkled we all knelt. Father Füster preached a fine sermon that day that could be heard all over the field. I have met only one man whose voice could compare with Füster’s, he was Thos. H. Benton. About the middle of July I joined the “Vienna Legion” to go to Hungary and assist the Magyars in their struggle against the Ban Jellachich and his hordes of Croats, Slavonians, Wallachians, etc. We were not to depart until, at least, 1,000 or 2,000 had joined to form a full regiment. My parents had just decided to start a grocery business in a suburb when I informed them of my desire to assist the Magyars in their war for the preservation of their liberties. Father and mother then asked me if I would not prefer to emigrate to the United States, and after a few days of discussion I consented. All my closest and best friends, old classmates and chums agreed that the time 105 was near when the revolution in Vienna and Hungary would be drowned in blood, and that I should not oppose the decision of my parents. General Windischgraetz took command of the army surrounding Vienna in October, commenced the assault and bombardment October 23 and continued it until October 30, when he gave the Hungarian army of 31,000 battle on the Marchfeld, near Vienna, and defeated the same October 31st. He took the city by storm. The losses were immense on both sides. The Odeon, a large building of a block, with various halls, used for dances and theatrical performances, was fitted for a hospital by the Legion and the National Guard, and on the 31st of October it contained 4,000 wounded of both sides. Jellachich’s Croats set it on fire and it burned, with all its inmates. The Croats plundered three days in Vienna, just as Tilly’s Croats in Magdeburg, when he had taken that city in the Thirty-Years War. I have this from an eye witness. Before our departure from Vienna, the sessions of the Austrian Diet had commenced, July 28, and the emperor had returned from Innsbruck, at which time the National Guard and the Legion met him at the limits of the suburbs, and he was driven slowly to the Burg through their opened ranks, three rows of National Guards on each side. Then and there was the last time I did duty in the ranks of the Legion. On Monday, the 6th day of September, in the morning I took leave of my closest and best Jewish chums, Ignatz Goldner, Frederick Brandees, Gustav Spitzer and Emanuel Stiasny. We wept together, embraced, and since I have never met Goldner nor Spitzer, nor do I know what became of them. I met Frederick Brandees in New York City in February and in May, 1898, when going to and returning from the legion jubilee celebration at Vienna. He died in New York May 14, 1899. I met Em. Stiasny several times at Vienna March, 1898, and have kept up correspondence with him. I never met any of these friends of my youth, except Emanuel Stiasny, with whom I passed many hours during my ten days’ stay at Vienna in March, 1848. Stiasny was drummer in the Legion, was court-martialed in December, 1848, sentenced to death, pardoned to dungeon and hard labor for life. He was incarcerated at Brünn for four years, worked at the fortification by day, was manacled to a 20-lb. ball and chain, of which he carried the scars to his grave. His father, through bribed influence, obtained for him a full pardon in 1854. He then studied civil engineering, made his mark in this occupation, retired in 1893, died on July 22, 1904, in his 72nd year. Was never married. On the evening of the 6th of September, after a visit to my maternal grandfather’s grave, my parents, my sister and I went to the Northern railroad depot, accompanied by Aunt Helene Frankl, (wife of Dr. Joseph Frankl, mother’s brother,) and my cousins, Paul and Joseph Frankl. At about 7 p.m., the train moved from the depot. For miles we watched the St. Stephen’s cross, gilded by the setting sun, and when it disappeared I hid my face in my hands and cried myself to sleep. We stayed two days in Prague at Uncle David’s house. Uncle was absent and Aunt Fannie entertained us. We visited relations, and they visited us. From Prague we traveled towards Bremen; by stage to Eger, thence by steamer to Dresden. thence by railroad to Bremen, whence we left Sept. 23, on the bark, Rebecca, of 800 tons, for New Orleans. The vessel had 180 steerage and three cabin passengers, besides us. We occupied one on the upper deck, a small cabin with two large berths. The day before we left Bremenhaven, Uncle 106 David came to see us, but we were all ashore. The captain and mates did not know our names and so we missed the pleasure of seeing him. The officers of the ship—so uncle wrote us—denied having passengers by any such name as Bondi. We arrived at Balize on the 7th day of November, were taken in tow, with two other vessels, by a tug on the evening of the 8th. On the 9th the tug stopped at a plantation for wood; I went ashore and there saw, for the first time, Negroes at the sugar mill. They were late imports from Africa, men and women clad only in coffee sacks, open at both ends, slipped on and tied around the waist. We arrived in New Orleans November 10th and left it the next day at evening on the steamer, Buena Vista, for St. Louis, arriving there November 23rd. When near Memphis, one of our fellow passengers on the steamer, trying to draw water from the river with a bucket, fell overboard and was drowned. His old neighbors on board had prayer meeting and I, under the stress of the impression, wrote a poem of some thirty lines which various parties, years afterwards, claimed were well written. My sister kept the poem with some other poetry scribbled at various times. I saw the same in her possession in 1881, but do not know what has become of them at present. Mother rented rooms in a brick house on Third Street, between Market and Chestnut, one Schuetz, owner. Mother and sister began to teach needlework which proved rather unsuccessful. I hired with the Ruthenburg Bros., dry goods, one door south of the old theater, south of Vine Street, on Third Street, and next to the old Missouri Fire Co.’s. station. The name of the senior partner was Julius Ruthenburg; I forget the first name of his brother. I stayed with them at $8 per month from Dec. 1 to March 1. When first ordered to sweep the store I broke out in tears. A late member of the Vienna Legion to do such menial work—but I soon came to it, but never became a proficient sweeper. Julius Ruthenburg was quite clever to me, but I disliked to continue because the two brothers continually fussed. Father started to peddle, and in March, 1849, opened a store on Carondelet Avenue, about ten blocks north of the arsenal, but the venture was N.G. He sold out at cost to various parties, mostly his creditors, settled up, and we moved to rooms near the arsenal, home owned by a man named H[a]user. Mother and sister opened a private school for girls. They soon had about forty scholars, as the entire southern St. Louis had no public school. Father went peddling, and I started in with Ruthenburg and Emanuel, who had bought out Ruthenburg Bros. Julius Ruthenburg had started on Broadway [and] Market. Rudolf Bondi, who had followed us to St. Louis, commenced to clerk for him at the time of the great fire in St. Louis which destroyed about ten million dollars worth of property and one life was lost; I think it was the 29th of May, 1849, but am not certain about the date. J. Emanuel, Ruthenburg’s partner, was a Russian Jew, about 73 years old, who some forty years ago had escaped military service by running off to England and then to the United States. I worked for $18 per month, paid $4 per month for my six dinners per week, and walked about twenty-five blocks to my work every morning and back home nights. Some 10,000 people died of cholera from February to October, 1849. We kept well, but mother’s school was broken up by the epidemic. In March my parents had agreed to let me go to California overland, and an informal agreement 107 was made with a party to take me along for $60, but mother, at the last moment, withdrew consent. In October, 1849, I started on a venture to retail an auction stock of dry goods in Quincy, Ill., with Julius Ruthenburg and Cousin Rudolph. 1 earned about $90 in six weeks and when ready to return—my earnings in a money belt in five franc pieces—the belt burst and all my money was irrevocably lost. I was taught caution by this lesson and remembered it through life. When I returned to St. Louis I found my parents living in the Schuetz brick house; mother and sister working for a shirt factory and father making cigars. I apprenticed to Arthur Olshausen, owner of Anzeiger des Westens, to learn the type- setting and printing trade. The foreman, one Lischen, was a scoundrel who, contrary to the arrangement made between Olshausen and my father, robbed me of the extra pay due me for work after 6, o’clock p.m. There I proved quite useful. After two months I set from 4,000 to 5,000 ems and worked off by myself the setting of the small French, Italian and Spanish weeklies of the day. I left the printing office in March, 1850, and for two weeks stayed with a nephew of Julius Ruthenburg, who ran a small tannery near Edwardsville, Illinois, to recruit, after the three months’ night work in the printing office. (I forget the tanner’s first name, but he was a Ruthenburg). In May, 1850, I went into partnership in Vide Poche, Carondelet village, five miles north from Jefferson Barracks, in a tavern business, what is now Schirmer Street. My partner was Paul Mahé, 35 years old, native of Bordeaux, formerly orderly sergeant with the Zephies in Africa for seven years. In 1850, the Cabet communist colony of Nauvoo had disbanded and many of the ex-members drifted to St. Louis and quite a number came to Vide Poche village, which was then mostly inhabited by the descendants of the first French settlers. I then became acquainted with an old man who when a boy, had plowed corn on the site of the St. Louis court house. I heard the story of the Grand Coup, the last Indian onslaught in St. Louis, from the sons of the Canadian pioneers and from a few survivors. I was also in daily contact with the ex-Nauvoo colonists, and these people just made themselves contemptible in my eyes with their continued mouth-slob- bering, upholding communism, atheism and other isms, and then bowing low when meeting a priest, of whom there were plenty in Carondelet, as the Jesuit seminary was then located there. My partner, Mahé, taught me the principles and technicalities of gardening. We had five acres to cultivate and just as he taught me, so I garden yet by rule and line and flat cultivation. I there became acquainted with the Carlat Bros., who kept tavern near Jefferson Barracks, four miles south from where I kept. They were named Jean Baptiste Carlat and Eugene Carlat. Both yet live; the former a farmer in Jackson County, Mo., and Eugene Carlat, the Kansas City undertaker, whom I still (1903) meet every time I visit Kansas City. I also learned to ride and to drive while at Vide Poche. I quit the tavern business in May, 1851, came to St. Louis and tried to study mathematics. My parents kept a small dry goods store and shirt factory on Second Street, near to and north of Myrtle Street, in John Eherle’s brick building. I bought me a school 108 text book in algebra and tried hard to study by myself, intending to begin a course in some school to fit myself for a civil engineer, but I could not settle down to study. I had a good time swimming, fishing and on excursions. I joined the Society of Free Men (Freier Männer-Verein), where I became acquainted with Dr. Henry Börnstein editor of the Anzeiger des Westens, and Prof. Franz Schmidt, late president of the Frankfort Parliament. ST. LOUIS POLITICS Now about politics in the United States and St. Louis as I found them on arrival at St. Louis, and as they developed. In the November election of 1848 the Whigs carried their national ticket and Zachary Taylor was elected president. Complete returns in those days were not possible till some time in December. The Germans in the United States were solidly aligned with the Democratic Party. Frank P. Blair, of St. Louis, had played a prominent part in pushing the Van Buren Free Soil ticket, which had hardly caused a ripple in the political sea. The pro-slavery attitude of the Democratic Party was not yet discovered in St. Louis. The two German papers made opposition to one another for patronage only. I tried to keep posted and attended all mass meetings, and all ward meetings, which were held near the center of the city and were easily come- at-able. The democratic mass meeting, held Jan. 8th, 1849, was the first political meeting which I attended in the United States. There I heard Frank P. Blair for the first time. In 1849 commenced the contest for and against the admission of California as free territory. Clay, Webster, Calhoun and Seward were leaders in the respective debates. In 1850 the Missouri legislature passed the since notorious Clairborn, Fox, Jackson resolutions pledging Missouri’s cooperation with its southern sister states and instructing its representatives and senators in Congress to comply with these resolutions. Thomas H. Benton, “Old Bullion,” opposed the resolutions with all the energy of his nature. “Solitary and alone, he set the hall in motion” to block the support of slavery extension by the Missouri democracy. He was beaten for his sixth term in the senate, the pro-slavery Whig, A. Geyer, was elected. In 1852 Benton became a candidate for representative to Congress for the 7th Missouri congressional district, in which St. Louis was situated, and was elected. In April, 1851, Luther M. Kennett, Whig, was elected mayor of St. Louis. In the riot on that election day, a few houses, owned by Germans in South St. Louis, were destroyed. The American, or Know-Nothing party, had begun to swallow the Whig party. The ministers of various churches opposed the lately organized, so-called, “Benton Democracy,” which was hostile to further slavery extension, and as all late German immigrants under the leadership of Henry Börnstein, editor of the Anzeiger des Westens, took a prominent part in the “Benton Democracy.” Some ministers attacked that immigration which they claimed had to leave their country for their country’s good. This antagonism of church against the men of ’48 and ’49 effected the organization of the Freier Männer-Verein by some 600 late political fugitives and 109 their friends which Henry Börnstein most effectively directed to influence progressive policies in city, state and nation. We youngsters from the barricades and struggles of the revolutionary movements of Germany, Austria and Hungary, who had there been initiated into politics, were eager to grasp the opportunity which would prove our important political influence in our new home. It was not sympathy with the Negro slave, it was antipathy against the degradation of labor which made us a solid unit to back Thos. H. Benton and his campaign manager, Frank P. Blair. We had no votes, as it required five years residence for full citizenship and only full citizenship could vote at that time, but we could argue, tall: and discuss, and while some stood aghast at the cheek of the exiled youngsters, the crowds listened, were led to consider, were influenced to vote. Then and there was planted the seed of which Gen. Lyon reaped the harvest. The young exiles of ’48 kept Missouri in the Union. They furnished the brains to the physical forces of German workmen. By them united St. Louis was firmly held in the grip of loyalty to the Union. Börnstein eventually (1861) became lieutenant colonel of the Second Missouri Volunteers, then colonel and military governor of Missouri, and after the three months’ service of his regiment, he was, until 1866, American Consul at Hamburg. He died in 1897 at Vienna in his 94th year. Before 1851 the influence of the German voters in politics was nil. Occasionally a German was elected constable or justice of the peace, but few months after the organization of the Freier Männer-Verein the American papers began to fight the late German immigrant, to oppose his influence in politics; but they yet respected the youngsters who from the revolutionary battlefields of Europe had invaded the United States and were anxious to make themselves felt in politics. Thomas H. Benton, in his struggle, was valiantly assisted by Frank P. Blair and Henry Börnstein and Joseph Lewis Blennerhasset, son of Hermon Blennerhasset, of Blennerhasset Island, of Burr Confederacy fame. Whenever I could I attended these political meetings. I heard ex-Senator Benton address a meeting of some 20,000 on Washington Square. His voice was like the roaring of a lion. I attended the funeral procession in honor of Henry Clay who died July, 1852. I also heard Benton’s funeral oration on Daniel Webster in November of the same year. In the summer of 1851 the Lopez Crittenden expedition left New Orleans, 500 strong, to liberate Cuba. This undertaking was premature. If this first division of the liberating army had waited for the second division, the Spanish sway in Cuba would have ceased then and there, I enlisted in the second division which was to start two weeks after the first division. We were 35 strong. Each night we drilled in the Sturgeon Market. Alex Sturgeon paid our drill master and was to furnish our outfit—rifle, satire, bayonet, revolver. Of this division, only two survive (1903), Major Wiseman and myself. Alex Sturgeon is in his eighty-fifth year, and Major Wiseman is in the Leavenworth Soldier’s Home (1903). Every river town from St. Louis to New Orleans and from Pittsburg to Cairo was ready with its quantum for the second division, all to ship as nearly at one time as possible. Twenty-four hours before we were to take the steamer at St. Louis, the news of the defeat and annihilation of the best division reached St. Louis and the second 110 division disbanded. I cannot recollect the exact date, but think it was the second Sunday in September, 1551. All the German organizations under Börnstein leadership united in a funeral demonstration in honor of Crittenden and his comrades who had fallen in battle or had been garrotted by Spanish court martial. October, 1851, I engaged in school teaching in school district No. __, Merrimack township, St. Louis county, in a German settlement, at $20 per month; boarded with Philipp Waldorf. Paid, with washing, $6 a month. It was eighteen miles from St. Louis. I walked to St. Louis every Friday evening and returned Sunday p.m., riding in the Carondelet omnibus the first six miles. I had eighteen pupils in this log school house in the woods. The boys had to cut wood during recess to heat the room. As it was the first school kept for eighteen months, the children were beyond ordinary control and I quit the job, as I did not admire handling a hickory rod for six hours a day. I returned to St. Louis and about the middle of November I started from home again for Texas by deck passage on the Grand Turk, for which I paid $2.50 to New Orleans. I was advised to buy a quart of whisky and give it to the first good-looking Irish deck hand who would feed me through. I did as advised and had my grub all the way for ten days in New Orleans. I remained in New Orleans two weeks, became acquainted with a young man of my age from Boston, who boarded where I did. He was with his uncle. We visited all places of note around. I had a letter of recommendation from my father to a brother Mason, Dr. Dembitz, father of the S. N. Dembitz of Louisville, Ky. He recommended me to several houses, and if I had cared I could have had employment, but I refused several good offers of $40 and $45 per month. New Orleans was then the landing place of returned Californians, and I saw many leaving their ship with heavy carpet bags. I tried there to enlist for Commodore Perry’s Japan Expedition, but they had just closed the recruiting office; I had reached it too late. It rained almost every day while I was in New Orleans. I paid no attention to getting wet and allowed my clothes to dry on me repeatedly, for which foolish trick I had to suffer afterwards. I left for Galveston with the Meteor. Afterwards, under another name (which I have forgotten), as a gunboat in the Mississippi fleet of 1862, it assisted us in repelling the Confederate attack on Helena, Ark. July 4th, 1863. I arrived in Galveston about Dec. 10, 1851, stayed around a week and could not find a suitable job. I had only $1.15 left, and l wanted to go to Houston. Hearing that a steamer Brazos was taking a lot of German emigrants there for $1.00 per head, I went aboard in the evening, after having purchased a big bag full of wormy crackers for my supper and breakfast for 5 cents, and I slept on some sacks of grain on deck. Next morning the steamer started by 10 o’clock and the mate and clerk refused my dollar for the passage, as I did not belong to the emigrant crowd, fortunately the captain came along just then and he offered to take nie free and give me my grub if I would interpret in collecting freight charges from the emigrant crowd. The captain of the steamer Brazos was Thomas Henry Chubb, as Boston Yankee, afterwards Commodore in the Confederate service, and one of the most successful Confederate smugglers and blockade runners. His mate was his brother, John Chubb, also afterwards in the blockade running business. Arrived at Houston and finding no employment—the town was the muddiest town I have ever seen—I returned to the Brazos because Captain Chubb had promised me work in case of failure to find any in 111 Houston. I was installed as barkeeper. I made another trip to Houston and returned to Galveston Dec. 21. The day and evening was hot and sultry. It became still about 10 o’clock p.m., and the captain ordered the anchor out, as we were close to a bar and all signs foretold a northerner. At 11 p.m., the storm broke loose and drove the boat, dragging anchor, ashore on a sloping sandbank high and dry. The place was somewhere near Morgan’s Point. Chambers County, I believe, is now the name of the region where, having been driven by the storm, we stayed six weeks, until relieved and floated off by a spring-tide. While staying wrecked on the sand bank I took part in an expedition of exploration. The country was a wilderness. We met thousands of wild cattle feeding on the prairies. We found a bayou, the mouth of which was close to the place where we were wrecked. We also found several hundred acres of cedar and oak timber. Everybody on board the steamer was discharged except the mate, (the captain’s brother), myself and two Irish firemen and the engineer. The captain and the mate each had his wife come from Galveston by steamer and skiff to the boat to cook for us. We had plenty of hard bread and flour, and whenever we were out of meat we shot a young beef and preserved the hide, as instructed by Capt. Morgan’s overseer. When we were floated off we took the hides to Galveston and delivered them to the agent of the ranch. The cattle, some six hundred head, and ten thousand acres of land, were for sale for $15,000. Two dollars per head for the cattle and 25 cents per acre for the land. An old German and his hunchback son lived on the land in a cabin near the bayou to take care of the improvements of the large deserted plantation close by. These deserted plantations had costly mansions and had been deserted because the fevers had killed the families. The only drinking water was that which fell from the clouds. Every plantation had immense wooden tanks in which the rain water was caught. New Orleans, Galveston and Houston also depended upon the rain for their supply of drinking water, as the bayou waters were brackish. Capt. Chubb used what force he had to chop oak cord wood and cedar piles out of the timber lands close by and loaded them on board—none objected. He claimed to visitors that he ought to have something to reimburse him for lost time. Through carelessness I lost my way and wandered around 21 hours in wet clothes before I regained the steamer, and the consequence was chronic diarrhea, which became worse daily. My disregard of sanitary precautions, allowing my wet clothes to dry on me, both in New Orleans and since, had undermined my system. The disease became so serious that the company gave me up. but I kept on my feet, and having some medical knowledge, I restricted myself to 1⁄2 cracker and 1⁄2 cup of tea three times per day, and put red pepper in my tea. With this treatment I improved so that I could skull the boat loaded with cedar wood from the shore to the steamer through about eighteen inches of water. I kept moving and at work, and after a few days of my restricted diet, the fearful hunger which accompanies chronic diarrhea, left me, and I allowed myself two cups of beef soup with plenty of red pepper, and before we left the sand bank my condition was normal, but I continued to stint my food. About the middle of February 1852, the spring-tide set in, and all hands helped to work the boat into deep water. I coiled the slack of the capstan and when done with my work I felt that I could not get up, so severe was the pain in all my limbs. Inflammatory rheumatism had set in, and it held me bedfast for two weeks. As soon 112 as I could move, I took a bath in the bay every evening while the weather was warm, and improved in strength very rapidly. The first week in March, 1852, the Brazos went into the Trinity River trade. It took four weeks for the round trip. I went as second clerk and barkeeper. While the Brazos was being fitted for the trip up Trinity River, I stayed three or four days at Capt. Chubb’s home and bunked with his eldest son, Thos. Henry Chubb, Jr., later on wharfmaster at Galveston. During my stay in Texas I gathered a great deal of information on southern life. When in Galveston the howlings of the slaves receiving their morning ration of cowhiding waked me at 4 o’clock a.m. I found the Yankees the most cruel masters. The native southerner had a full knowledge of the Negro character and treated slaves with regard to their dispositions, so different from whites. Hospitable to any white man, no matter how poor, they yet had no consideration for the poor white laborer. The sick slave received attention, the sick white laborer none. I make these statements from my personal experience and observation. Every good-looking young man from the north could have his pick of southern young ladies of first families. I was only 18 years, yet if I had been willing, several of these young ladies would have fallen in love with me. I disliked to marry a woman with slaves. Had I stayed south I would have joined the Confederate army, but while really I did not have much sympathy for the Negroes, I felt that my father’s son was not to be a slave driver. While lightering over Redfish bar on the first trip of the Brazos to Trinity River, the bay was black with swans, pelicans, geese and ducks, and Col. Morgan’s 18-year- old son was close to our boat engaged in duck hunting in a skiff managed by a colored boy, who let one oar drop, scaring the ducks. Young Morgan, mad, his gun ready for the ducks, deliberately emptied the load into the shoulder of the colored boy. I loudly condemned such cruelty. (Of course, I put into my remarks all the vinegar of an 18 years smart aleck), when an old man, Rev. Roach, a minister of the southern M. E. church, father of our pilot, stepped up and reproved me, finishing his remarks thus: “We have no use for northern abolitionists, and only your age protects you from deserved punishment.” In February 1852, three free mulatto sailors, citizens of Boston, were, according to Texas law, sold into slavery for attempting to run off three slaves by hiding them in their outgoing vessel. The first trip of the Brazos was a paying venture. I saw numberless alligators, from ten to twenty feet or more. On our return trip a snag, into which we ran one morning by 8 o’clock, took our larboard guard, and it took two days to rig a false guard. We started on our second trip about the first week of April. We went each time as far as Magnolia, the landing of Palestine. The keel boat from Dallas brought a full load of bear pelts for shipment. Here I saw bois d’arc (osage hedge), with trees three and four feet thick. On this trip I nearly lost my life in this manner: Capt. Chubb shipped a second engineer, gambler and spreer. The second day from Galveston he brought me a dozen decks of cards (as barkeeper, I kept and sold cards), and requested me to sell these instead of others when called for by him. I well knew that they were likely marked and refused. On the down trip he started a game of poker with some planters who had their cotton aboard, and putting in all night lost heavily, lost all his money. By morning he was wild, as he had had some twenty drinks during the game, and when he met me, pulled out a pistol, exclaiming, “I believe I just as well kill you d—s—b—.” A young 113 Kentuckian, returning to his old home for his girl, knocked up his arm and the bullet went wild; he then pulled out his bowie knife and lunged after me. I raised my right hand to ward off, and as he reeled, the point of his knife cut into the tip of my little finger. The scar is there yet. The captain locked the fellow into a cabin, and tied him down till sober, when he begged my pardon. I refused to prosecute, which I could not have done anyway, as it all happened in a wild, sparsely settled country. On this trip I saw deer and turkeys by the hundreds in the woods bordering the river. A whole deer sold to the boat for 75 cents. Nearing Galveston, Capt. Chubb made me an offer of staying with him as overseer of a plantation and timber lot on the bay, 30 miles from Galveston. I did not refuse but said I would look over his place and see whether 1 could do the work. When in the bay returning on this second trip to Trinity River, May 9th, we had to lighter twice over the bars. It took us until May 10th, o’clock p.m., to reach Galveston. The Negro crew had been up two nights. Capt. Chubb ordered the boat unloaded at once and his brother, the mate, and his cousin, watchman and second mate, by name, George Reed, to attend to the darkies getting it done by morning. The mate and watchman came and requested me to attend to the unloading. If I intended to follow boat, I had to learn anyway how to run the deck, but at the same time made me promise never to reveal to Capt. Chubb that they had left their job to me. In the goodness of my heart I assented. By 4 o’clock a.m., May 11, the crew tired, having been up three nights hand running, and some, trying to skulk, I poked them up with cord wood, when one of them, ”Ike,” turned on me and said, “M’assa, I didn’t think dat of you.” This cut me to the heart. I finished having the boat unloaded by 7 o’clock a.m. The captain came aboard at 9 a.m. I asked for my pay. He tried in vain to hold me, and at 11 a. in., I was on board the Meteor for New Orleans, where I arrived May 13th, at 5 o’clock a.m. I visited Dr. Dembitz, spent two days with them, and then put for St. Louis, where I arrived about May 23, having been away a few days over six months. When I arrived in St. Louis my parents and sister were highly pleased. My parents rented a room in the home where they had their business and desired nie to study for some profession. I tried hard but I could not concentrate my mind on my studies. I had taken up algebra, because if I had to choose a profession, civil engineering was my preference, and algebra and geometry were necessary studies for that profession. I tried two months but gave up. Political waves ran high—Missouri then had state elections in August. Benton ran for representative in the 7th district (St. Louis) and was elected with eight hundred plurality. Franklin Pierce ran for president against Winfield Scott. Ned Buntline, whose real name was Edward Judson, was in St. Louis, as he expressed himself, to run the American campaign against the d—d Dutch and Irish. The democrats called Gen. Scott all “Fuss and Feathers.” I heard Stephen A. Douglas, the little giant, speak to thousands on the Court House Square of St. Louis, at one of the November elections. During the summer and fall canvass I had never missed any gathering. I heard Benton, Kennett, Blair, [Ur]iel Wright, Blennerhassett, Kaiser, Kribben, Kretschma[r] and many others no longer among the living.2 The hard work of the ’48ers had elected Benton and his ticket in the August election of ’52 in St. Louis. Dr Börnstein 114 and his crowd had met the expectations of his friends. This was the year of the high water in St. Louis. The Mississippi came up to Commercial St. In November of ’52, I went to work for Brooks, a clothier, on the Levee, at $20 for the first month, $25 the second month and after. I stayed with Brooks for six months, and then had $30. The firm then became Brooks & Keiler, and I remained with them until April, 1854. The senior clerk was a Pol[e], Hendricks, about 60 years old. He was brother-in-law of Udall Levi, commodore of the U.S. navy, a good clerk but too fond of poker for his good. There was also another clerk, Ko

In August Bondi's memoirs: "My mother, Martha, born December 25, 1806, the youngest of 3 children, was left motherless in her infancy, her mother, Abigail, née Kuh, became insane during confinement with my mother, and died soon after. Her father, Wolf Adam Frankl, was the senior partner of one of the largest silk firms of Austria. My mother's family, the Frankls, was of the oldest and most respected Jewish families of Prague. In 1810 Wolf Adam Frankl moved to Vienna with his 3 motherless children, David Adam, Joseph Adam and Martha. He died suddenly in August 1812....After the death of Wolf Adam Frankl his children were removed to Prague and placed under the care of Israel Landau, president of the congregation, and Rosalia Rebecca Landau, his wife (my grandfathers sister)."

John Brown (1800-1859), the radical abolitionist, remains one of the most controversial figures in American history. Some see him as a principled freedom fighter, others as an outlaw. Brown led Free State forces in Bloody Kansas, which many historians see as a rehearsal for the Civil War, and reached the height of his notoriety in a raid on the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859.

Not well known is that three immigrant Jews were among Brown's small band of anti-slavery fighters in Kansas: Theodore Wiener, from Poland; Jacob Benjamin, from Bohemia; and August Bondi (1833-1907), from Vienna. Of the three, August Bondi left the most significant mark on history.

In contrast to Brown, whose ancestors arrived in America on the Mayflower, Bondi's family emigrated to St. Louis in 1848 in the wake of an unsuccessful democratic revolution in Austria. Bondi had been a member of the student revolutionary movement in Vienna, and his idealism carded over to his adopted country. In 1855, he emigrated to Kansas to help establish the Free State movement there.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 decreed that in 1855 the settlers in the Kansas Territory would decide by vote whether Kansas would be a slave or free state. Pro-slavery "Border Ruffians" and anti-slavery Free Staters poured into Kansas Territory, hoping to capture the election.

Anti-slavery forces appeared to hold the upper hand, but on election day some 5,000 heavily armed pro-slavery Missourians swarmed into the territory, overwhelmed the polling places, captured the ballot boxes and elected a pro-slavery legislature. Once in control of state government, the pro-slavery forces launched violent attacks against anti-slavery settlers.

John Brown moved to Kansas in 1855, and his anger rose at the mistreatment of the anti-slavery majority. In May 1856, Brown led a raid on a company of Border Ruffians at Pottawatomie Creek and massacred more than a dozen of its leaders. The next day, Brown and his men captured 48 pro-slavery fighters at the Battle of Black Jack, a few miles from Palmyra.

Bondi, Benjamin and Weiner all fought with Brown at Black Jack. In Bondi's account of the battle, which can be found in his papers at the American Jewish Historical Society, he recounts marching up a hill beside Brown, ahead of the other men:

We walked with bent backs, nearly crawled, that the tall dead grass of the year before might somewhat hide us from the Border Ruffian marksmen, yet the bullets kept whistling... Wiener puffed like a steamboat, hurrying behind me. I called out to him, "Nu, was meinen Sie jetzt" Now, what do you think of this?). His answer, "Sof odom muves" (a Hebrew phrase meaning "the end of man is death," or in modem phraseology, "I guess we're up against it").

Bondi later wrote of Brown's leadership:

We were united as a band of brothers by the love and affection toward the man who, with tender words and wise counsel ... prepared a handful of young men for the work of laying the foundation of a free Commonwealth.... He expressed himself to us that we should never allow ourselves to be tempted by any consideration, to acknowledge laws and institutions to exist as of right, if our conscience and reason condemn them.

John Brown left Kansas to take his quixotic last stand at Harpers Ferry. Captured, Brown was tried and hanged for treason. Benjamin only lived until 1866, and Weiner died in obscurity in 1906. But August Bondi remained true to his convictions and continued to support the anti-slavery cause in Kansas. When the Civil War broke out, he was among the first to enlist, serving as a first sergeant in the Kansas Cavalry. After the war, Bondi settled in Salina, Kansas, where he served as land clerk, postmaster, member of the school board, director of the state board of charities, a local court judge and a trustee of the Kansas Historical Society. He was known for his political integrity and idealism,

Bondi, who died in 1907, described himself as a consistent Jew throughout his life, although Salina was too much a frontier community to support a synagogue. When his daughters married, the family traveled to Leavenworth, Kansas, so that a rabbi could officiate. Although his funeral was held at the Salina Masonic Hall, a rabbi from Kansas City officiated at the service.

August Bondi's life traced a remarkable path, from guerrilla fighter against slavery to distinguished elected official and pillar of his community. Even in an age and place that could be inhospitable to Jews, Bondi always identified publicly and proudly with his Ju