August Seimering, the Forty-Eighters, Freie Presse fur Texas & San Antonio Express. (original) (raw)

August Siemering's ringing abolitionist editorials are considered classics in German-American literature. He was a teacher, editor and soldier. He was a schriftsteller (writer) "of no small merit," and by all accounts a pretty good dancer.

A free-thinker and political liberal, Siemering came to Texas from his home in Germany in 1851. He was among the first of the Forty-Eighters to settle in Sisterdale.

The Forty-Eighters supported the democratic revolution that swept across Europe in the 1840s. But the revolution failed, leaving the Forty-Eighters between a rock and a hard place.

About 4,000 Forty-Eighters came to the United States. About 100 came to Texas. Most of them, including August Siemering, settled in Sisterdale.

Joining him were such notables as Otto von Behr - the son of a German prime minister, Carl Daniel Adolph Douai - the man who introduced the kindergarten system to the U.S. and Edgar Gerhard Julius Ludwig von Westphalen - the son of a Prussian Baron and Karl Marx's brother-in-law.

The Forty-Eighters made Sisterdale one of the most unusual outposts on the Texas frontier. Sisterdalians were not rugged frontier types but urban, cosmopolitan intellectuals. They read the best literature and spent hours discussing Voltaire, Kant and Hegel. They conducted town meetings in Latin or Greek. They were the most educated and enlightened people of their day.

Not known for laying low and keeping quiet, the Forty-Eighters were soon up to their eyeballs in a new controversy - slavery.

In 1853 August Siemering began contributing articles to a German language, anti-slavery publication called the San Antonio Zeitung ("newspaper" in German). That same year the abolitionist organization Die Freie Verein (The Free Society) elected him secretary.

In May 1854 the Verein called a meeting of German abolitionists in conjunction with the Staats-Saengerfest (State Singing Festival) in San Antonio.

The meeting produced a platform that included equal pay for equal work, direct election of the president, abolition of capital punishment, abolition of slavery, free schools including universities and total separation of church and state.

The platform was controversial to say the least. Even German conservatives opposed it.

In 1856 August Siemering moved to Gillespie County. He opened the first public school in Fredericksburg. The school received permission to meet in a room at the courthouse "provided that the same shall be vacated during the holding of District Court."

He married Clara Schuetze of Gillespie County in 1859.

Evidence suggests he was a persuasive man. Members of the Gillespie County Rifles, a company of Confederates led by Capt. Charles H. Nimitz, identified him as a Unionist, but after meeting with Siemering the group removed his name from the list of targeted individuals.

Although an abolitionist he was drafted into the Confederate army in 1861. He served in Company E, First Texas Cavalry, led by Capt. Frank van der Stucken. Three years later he resigned his commission as a lieutenant citing myopia and general bad health. He referred to his war experience as a "nightmare."

In 1864 he moved to San Antonio where he taught at a military school. At night he taught ballroom dancing.