Adolph von Steinwehr

Baron Adolph von Steinwehr (1822 to 1877) was a German-Brunswick army officer who emigrated to the United States, became a geographer, cartographer and author, and served as a Union general in the American Civil War. Born in Blankenburg in the Duchy of Brunswick into a military family, he was commissioned a lieutenant in the Brunswick Army in 1841, resigned in 1847 and went to the United States, where he worked as an engineer in the Coast Survey. At the start of the Civil War he raised the 29th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up mostly of German immigrants, and commanded it at the First Battle of Bull Run. Promoted to brigadier general in October 1861, he commanded a division of the XI Corps at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and his division later served at Wauhatchie and Chattanooga. He resigned his commission in July 1865, and afterward worked as a geographer and cartographer and wrote school geography textbooks.