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Major Frederick Schumacher
and the 21st Wisconsin Infantry
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Baptism of fire in the cornfield at Perryville, Kentucky
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Frederick Franz Von Schumacher was born in 1817 in Germany. His father was Andreas Anton Frederick Von Schumacher and his mother was Karen Marie Thecherning. On April 10, 1847, he married Catherine Dorothea Charlotte Dittman. He had three children: Karen was born on July 17, 1857, Alfred was born on November 30, 1856, and Olga was born on August 4, 1858. He served in the Prussian army from 1848 to 1857. By 1861, Schumacher had immigrated with his family to America. On April 27, 1861, Frederick listed his residence in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and he listed his profession as an engineer and city surveyor.
When the Civil War broke out on April 12, 1861, when Fort Sumter, in the Charleston, South Carolina harbor, was fired on by Confederate forces, under General P. G. T. Beauregard, President Abraham Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers. Frederick Schumacher answered the call and enlisted in Company F & G, of the 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Union Infantry as a 1st lieutenant and later promoted to captain. The 6th Wisconsin Infantry was organized at Camp Randall in Madison, and mustered into service on July 16, 1861 and marched for Washington, D. C. on July 28, 1861. The regiment was part of the famous Iron Brigade, in the Army of the Potomac. A year later, on July 16, 1862, he was promoted to major and took command of Company F & S of the 21st Wisconsin Infantry.
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In August of 1862, the 21st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry was organized at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, under the command of Colonel Benjamin Sweet. On September 5, the 21st Wisconsin mustered into service 996 men. On September 11, 1862, the regiment marched out of the state and ordered to Cincinnati, Ohio. Unfortunately when the regiment marched out of the state, the arms drawn from the state arsenal were defective and had to be returned. The regiment left the state without arms and did not even know how to handle a rifle. They did not even have tents. When the regiment arrived in Cincinnati, Ohio, they crossed the river into Covington, Kentucky, where they were issued arms, which were Austrian Lorenz muskets. The 21st Wisconsin spent most of their time performing duty in the trenches. The regiment was still lacking tents and camp equipment.
While spending time in the trenches, the men got to know their officers. According to Sergeant John Otto of Company D, of the 21st Wisconsin, Schumacher was an excellent singer. Otto said that Schumacher was also “the best sociable man I ever met with. The boys all loved him. Although he was a strict disciplinarian he had such a pleasing winning smile in giving orders, or when administering a rebuke, or correcting a fault that nobody could resist him. His funny, broken English added much to the charm and whenever he chose to crack a joke, there certainly was a handle on it (as the men used to say). i
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When Confederate General Braxton Bragg and the Army of the Mississippi invaded Kentucky in August of 1862, he headed towards Louisville, Kentucky. The 21st Wisconsin was ordered to help defend the city. The regiment marched to Louisville and when they arrived they helped build the trenches around the city. While in the city, the regiment was issued tents and camp equipment. Several days after their arrival Union General Don Carlos Buell and the Army of the Ohio arrived in the city and the threat of invasion in the city subsided. The Army of the Ohio formed into three corps. The 21st Wisconsin was assigned to the 28th Brigade, under the command of Colonel John Starkweather, under Union General Lovell Rousseau’s division, under the First Corps, under the command of Union General Alexander McCook.
On October 1, 1862, Buell’s army, along with the 21st Wisconsin, marched out of Louisville in pursuit of Bragg’s army. Sergeant Henry Clay Taylor of the 21st Wisconsin wrote: We were ordered on the 1st day of October {at Louisville} to “fall out” and be ready to march in five minutes with nothing but our blankets. Well five minutes up and we formed in line and started on our march of course. We did not know where we were going. We marched all day until about 8 pm and went into camp without tents after eating a piece of bacon and hard crackers. I got under my blanket and went to sleep. 22 miles march the first day.ii. While in Covington and Louisville, the 21st Wisconsin spent most of their time in the trenches, so they only had battalion drill three times. While on the march, Kentucky was experiencing a horrible drought and the soldiers had a hard time finding water and many of the men collapsed after the first days march. By October 7, the regiment camped near Mackville, Kentucky.
On October 8, the 21st Wisconsin was assigned to guard the brigade wagon train, but orders arrived placing the regiment in front of the line of the division. The men were thirsty and the dust produced by the men marching on the drought ridden hard clay roads, covered the men. Colonel Sweet was sick and was riding in an ambulance at the head of his regiment and Major Schumacher was in command, since Lieutenant Colonel Harrison Hobart was on leave. At 2 p.m., Colonel John Starkweather, the brigade commander, ordered the 21st Wisconsin to the front and he placed the regiment in the reserve in two lines immediately behind the line of battle. As the regiment was being placed, General Lovell Rousseau, the division commander, rode up to the adjutant and pointed to the front and ordered the regiment to be placed in a cornfield at right angles and about 150 paces to the front. Colonel Sweet left his ambulance and mounted his horse to assume command. Sergeant Henry Clay Taylor of the 21st Wisconsin wrote: “Our brigade was formed in line of battle on a side hill by division, and held that position about five minutes when we were ordered to change our position at a double quick about eighty rods over a hill into a field of corn and form in line of battle which we did in very quick time while we were forming in line the 4th Indiana battery was being planted on a hill in our rear.iii
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While moving into position they came under heavy fire from the Confederates. The Rebel artillery got a better range and the shells began to explode close to 21st Wisconsin infantry’s line. Sergeant Henry Taylor wrote: “while we lay there the balls were whistling by us cutting down the corn stalks and plowing up the ground before and behind us. There were a good many wounded and killed while we were on the ground. Towards their front was Union General James S. Jackson’s division that had been placed in the front and to the right. The 21st Wisconsin could not see through the thick corn. All they could do was to hold their fire and wait for the progression of the battle.
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The 79th Pennsylvania, the 24th Illinois, and the 1st Wisconsin, along with Captain Asahel Bush’s 4th Indiana battery and Captain David Stone’s 1st Kentucky, Battery A, were towards the rear of the 21st Wisconsin and could see when the Rebels advancing out of the woods. Major Schumacher, on the left of the regiment, told the men that when the order came to fire they were to keep their cool and not to fire too high. According to Adjutant Michael Fitch of the 21st Wisconsin, the regiment did not have long to wait. He wrote: “Very soon, the broken and bleeding troops of Jackson’s division overpowered by heat and marching, many of them wounded, and the rest demoralized (for they were mostly new troops) came pouring back upon the line of the Twenty-first in crowds, and several hundred of them halted just in front of the Twenty-first, but without any formation. At this point General William Terrill, who commanded a brigade in Jackson’s division, dismounted and apparently overcome with vexation and exhaustion, passed to the rear by the right of the Twenty-first. He said to the adjutant as he passed, that the rebels were advancing in terrible force, and that the only way in which the Twenty-first could avoid being crushed was to wait until they came near enough, and then charge bayonets upon them.v.Fitch relayed the information to Colonel Sweet, but already found him on the ground wounded. Sweet took a severe wound in the elbow joint in his right arm and a wound to his neck. His life “hung in the balance. vi. With Jackson’s division retreating to the rear, Confederate George Maney’s brigade followed Terrill’s brigade and entered the cornfield.
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Sergeant Otto wrote: “I looked to the front. All at once I saw a rebel flag, that is, the upper part of it above the cornstalks and not far away either. I sat down on my right knee and said as loud as I could: “Boys, be ready, there are coming!” They got on their knees; some looked forward, some back at me. He could not understand why the order was not given to fire. He looked to his right and did not see his Colonel, because he was already injured. He looked to his left and could not find Major Schumacher, because he was dead. According to Colonel Sweet, he was killed almost instantly in about half an hour after the fighting began. He was riddled with bullets. One bullet passed through his head and six others had passed through his chest and legs. viii. Otto leveled his rifle at a butternut colored jacket of an oncoming Confederate soldier who was walking through the cornstalks and fired. Some of the men of the company also fired at the oncoming Confederates.
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Figures in History
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