Schurz, Carl

Schurz, Carl (shrts), 1829–1906, American political leader, b. Germany. He studied at the Univ. of Bonn and participated in the revolutionary uprisings of 1848–49 in Germany. Compelled to flee to Zürich after the collapse of the movement, he finally emigrated (1852) to the United States, where he settled (1856) in Watertown, Wis. and became a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln, who appointed him (1861) U.S. minister to Spain. Schurz resigned this position to serve in the Civil War. Promoted to major general in 1863, he fought in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga and served with Gen. William T. Sherman's army in North Carolina in 1865. Between 1865 and 1868, Schurz was Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune, editor of the Detroit Post, and joint editor and owner of the St. Louis Westliche Post. He was U.S. Senator (1869–75) from his adopted state of Missouri. Antagonized by the radical Republican Reconstruction program and opposed to the administration of President Grant, Schurz aided in forming (1872) the Liberal Republican party. In 1876, Schurz supported Rutherford B. Hayes, whose hard money views he approved, for the presidency. He served (1877–81) in Hayes's cabinet as Secretary of the Interior. He was an editor (1881–83) of the New York Evening Post and wrote editorials (1892–98) for Harper's Weekly. In 1884, convinced of James G. Blaine's unfitness for office, Schurz led the mugwumps in their opposition to Blaine's nomination and candidacy. Schurz supported the Democrat Grover Cleveland in that year and again in 1888 and 1892. He turned to William McKinley in 1896 because of William Jennings Bryan's currency views, but in 1900 he supported Bryan because of his anti-imperialist views. He wrote Life of Henry Clay (2 vol., 1887), Abraham Lincoln: an Essay (1891), and his own reminiscences (3 vol., 1907–8; abridged vol. by Allan Nevins, 1961).

Bibliography

See F. Bancroft, ed., Speeches, Correspondence, and Political Papers of Carl Schurz (6 vol., 1913); J. Schafer, ed., Intimate Letters of Carl Schurz, 1841–1869 (1928); biographies by C. M. Fuess (1932, repr. 1963) and J. P. Terzian (1965).

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Schurz, Carl

Schurz

(credit: Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

(born March 2, 1829, Liblar, near Cologne, Prussia—died May 14, 1906, New York, N.Y., U.S.) German-U.S. politician and journalist. After participating in the abortive German revolution of 1848, he fled to the U.S. in 1852. He settled in Wisconsin, where he became active in the antislavery movement and the Republican Party. In the American Civil War he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and saw action in several battles. After the war he became a newspaper editor in St. Louis (1867–69), where he won election to the U.S. Senate (1869–75). As U.S. secretary of the interior (1877–81), he promoted civil-service reform and an improved Indian policy. He later edited the New York Evening Post and the Nation (1881–83) and wrote editorials for Harper's Weekly (1892–98). Pursuing his reform interests, he joined the Mugwumps (1884) and headed the National Civil Service Reform League (1892–1901).

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Schurz, Carl (1829–1906) politician, journalist; born near Cologne, Germany. Fleeing Germany because of revolutionary sympathies, he arrived in the U.S.A. in 1852. An abolitionist and liberal Republican, he was a Civil War general; later, as U.S. senator (1869–75), he attacked corruption in the Grant administration. He was U.S. interior secretary under President Rutherford B. Hayes. A Washington correspondent of the New York Tribune in the late 1860s, he also edited several papers, including the New York Evening Post (1881–83).