Joseph Weydemeyer
Encyclopedia
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
– August 26, 1866) was a military officer in the Kingdom of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as a journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
and Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
.
At first a supporter of "true socialism" he became, in 1845-46, a follower of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
. He became a member of the League of Communists. From 1849 to 1851 he headed its Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
chapter. He visited Marx in Brussels, staying there for a time to attend Marx’s lectures. He participated in the 1848 Revolution. He was one of the "responsible editors" of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Neue Rheinische Zeitung
The Neue Rheinische Zeitung - Organ der Demokratie was a German daily newspaper, published by Karl Marx in Cologne between June 1, 1848 and May 19, 1849. Its name refers to a paper earlier edited by Marx, the Rheinische Zeitung...
from 1849 to 1850. He was involved in the writing of the manuscript of the Deutsche Ideologie (German Ideology).
He worked on two socialist periodicals which were the Westphälisches Dampfboot (Westphalian Steamboat) and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. In 1851 he emigrated from Germany to the United States and worked there as a journalist. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon was written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852, and originally published in 1852 in Die Revolution, a German-language monthly magazine published in New York and established by Joseph Weydemeyer...
, written by Karl Marx, was published in 1852 in "Die Revolution", a German-language monthly magazine in New York, established by Weydemeyer.
Weydemeyer took part in the US Civil War as a colonel in the Union Army.
Biography
Born in 1818, the same year as Karl MarxKarl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Weydemeyer was the son of a Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n civil servant residing in Münster
Münster
Münster is an independent city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also capital of the local government region Münsterland...
in Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
. Sent to a gymnasium and the Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
military Academy, he received his commission as a Leutnant in the Prussian artillery (1. Westfälisches Feldartillerie-Regiment Nr. 7) in 1838. At the beginning of his short career, he was stationed in the Westphalian town of Minden
Minden
Minden is a town of about 83,000 inhabitants in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The town extends along both sides of the river Weser. It is the capital of the Kreis of Minden-Lübbecke, which is part of the region of Detmold. Minden is the historic political centre of the...
. He began to read the bourgeois radical and socialist newspaper Rheinische Zeitung
Rheinische Zeitung
The Rheinische Zeitung was a 19th-century German newspaper, edited most famously by Karl Marx.The paper was founded on January 1, 1842 with a reformist pro-democracy editorial slant, providing an outlet for the Rhine region's middle-class and intellectuals, who were increasingly opposed to...
, the Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
paper Marx became editor and which was suppressed by Prussian censorship in 1843. But it inspired many soldiers in the Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....
and Westphalia. In the Minden garrison, the paper inspired revolutionaries like Fritz Anneke
Fritz Anneke
Friedrich 'Fritz' Anneke was a German socialist and newspaper editor, owner, and reporter. He immigrated to the United States with his family in 1849 and became an officer in the Union army, and later an entrepreneur and journalist...
, August Willich
August Willich
August Willich , born Johann August Ernst von Willich, was a military officer in the Prussian Army and a leading early proponent of Communism in Germany. In 1847 he discarded his title of nobility...
, Hermann Korff and Friedrich von Beust, all of whom, like Weydemeyer, will become prominent Forty-Eighters
Forty-Eighters
The Forty-Eighters were Europeans who participated in or supported the revolutions of 1848 that swept Europe. In Germany, the Forty-Eighters favored unification of the German people, a more democratic government, and guarantees of human rights...
and after that officers of the Union army in the Civil War.
The leftist officers in Minden formed a circle in which Weydemeyer took part. He also went frequently to Cologne and took part to discussions of social problems with the journalists of the Rheinische Zeitung. In 1844, Weydemeyer resigned from the Prussian army. He then became assistant editor of the Trierische Zeitung, a paper which advocated the Phalansteries
Phalanstère
A phalanstère was a type of building designed for an utopian community and developed in the early 19th century by Charles Fourier. Based on the idea of a phalanx, this self-contained community ideally consisted of 1500-1600 people working together for mutual benefit...
of Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier
François Marie Charles Fourier was a French philosopher. An influential thinker, some of Fourier's social and moral views, held to be radical in his lifetime, have become main currents in modern society...
and the True Socialism of Karl Gruen. In 1845, he joined the Westphaelische Dampfboot after paying a visit to Marx, exiled in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Marx, as well as Engels, were publishing in the Dampfboot. The paper was edited by Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
in Bielefeld
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
and Paderborn
Paderborn
Paderborn is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader, which originates in more than 200 springs near Paderborn Cathedral, where St. Liborius is buried.-History:...
. Luening's sister Luise became Weydemeyer's wife in 1845.
1848
After a second visit to Marx in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
in 1846, Weydemeyer went back to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to organize the Communist League
Communist League
The Communist League was the first Marxist international organization. It was founded originally as the League of the Just by German workers in Paris in 1834. This was initially a utopian socialist and Christian communist group devoted to the ideas of Gracchus Babeuf...
in Cologne. This was the organization for which Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1847. He continued to work on the Dampfboot. At the same time, he made a career as a construction engineer for the Cologne-Minden Railroad, but he quit the job soon after the beginning in 1848 because the company ordered its employees to stay out of political demonstration.
During the rest of the year, he was a full-time revolutionary journalist. In June 1848, he was invited to Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
by the socialist publisher C. W. Leske to be co-editor with Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
of the Neue Deutsche Zeitung. Near to Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, where the German National Assembly was meeting at the time, the newspaper intended to be a link between the left-wing of the Assembly and the extra-parliamentary movement. But in 1849, the counter-revolution succeeded and the Prussian absolutism crushed the Frankfurt Parliament
Frankfurt Parliament
The Frankfurt Assembly was the first freely elected parliament for all of Germany. Session was held from May 18, 1848 to May 31, 1849 in the Paulskirche at Frankfurt am Main...
, the armed democracy in Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
and the Palatinate and all the democratic papers. Marx's Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Neue Rheinische Zeitung
The Neue Rheinische Zeitung - Organ der Demokratie was a German daily newspaper, published by Karl Marx in Cologne between June 1, 1848 and May 19, 1849. Its name refers to a paper earlier edited by Marx, the Rheinische Zeitung...
disappeared under the censorship and the Neue Deutsche Zeitung survived by moving from Darmstadt to Frankfurt in the spring of 1849. The paper would be finally banished in December 1850 by the senate of the city. Weydemeyer remained in the country for half a year, underground.
In July 1851, with his wife and two children, he went to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
where he did not find a job. On July 27, he wrote to Marx that he had no alternative than migrating to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In his answer to Weydemeyer, Marx recommend New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
for his settlement, a place where Weydemeyer could have the chance to create a German-speaking revolutionary paper. At the same time, it was, in the idea of Marx, the city where the migrants were less likely to be touched by the Far West adventures. Marx also remarked that the United States would be a difficult country for the development of socialism, the surplus of population, being drained off by the farms and the fast growing prosperity of the country, the Germans being easily Americanized and forgetting of their homeland. Weydemeyer and his family sailed from Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
on September 29, 1851, and arrived in New York on November 7.
A Marxist journalist
Class struggle
Class struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
in the Old World. The paper first appeared on January 6 but was suspended on January 13. In a letter to Marx at the end of January, he attributed his failure because of the corrupting effect on the people of the American soil. He also pointed out the dominance of the liberal bourgeois-nationalist ideology on the people, among them Gottfried Kinkel
Gottfried Kinkel
Johann Gottfried Kinkel was a German poet also noted for his revolutionary activities and his escape from a Prussian prison in Spandau with the help of his friend Carl Schurz.-Early life:...
and Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth
Lajos Kossuth de Udvard et Kossuthfalva was a Hungarian lawyer, journalist, politician and Regent-President of Hungary in 1849. He was widely honored during his lifetime, including in the United Kingdom and the United States, as a freedom fighter and bellwether of democracy in Europe.-Family:Lajos...
. German immigrants were simply not sensitive to Marx ideas and analyses of the defeat of the 1848 revolutions and of the triumph of European reaction. In spring 1852, Weydemeyer brought out Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte as a final number of Die Revolution, after arranging for serial publication of Engels Peasant War in Germany in the New York Turn-Zeitung between January 1852 and February 1853.
He began to write for the Turn-Zeitung about different political issues, as the American aversion of the proletarian dictatorship, the calling of liberal American groups for free election in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and their silence about the conditions of the workers, the political immaturity of forty-eighters who raised money in the United States to foment revolution in Europe. To sum up, he wrote many articles which counterposed Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
to liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
for the German immigrants. In the July number of Turn-Zeitung, he began a discussion of American labor issues and the free trade versus protection debate, where he took a traditional Marxist stand for the industrial development
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
.
In the Turn-Zeitung of September 1, Weydemeyer analyzed the relationship between Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n cotton and American slavery. The development of American monopoly on the world market, in his point of view, promotes the rise of national economical development rather than regional and the rise of national parties in American politics rather than regional. He saw the shift from an agricultural dominance over the industrial to an industrial dominance over the latter.
In the Turn-Zeitung of November 15, Weydemeyer wrote a review of the election campaign of 1852, pointing the absence of labor issues in the platforms of the Whig
Whig Party (United States)
The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...
and Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
parties. In December, in a two-part Political-Economic Survey, he attempted to project a platform for American labor. He stands for organizations of the workers on a large scale political as well as economical, and urged the workers to adopt internationalism
Internationalism (politics)
Internationalism is a political movement which advocates a greater economic and political cooperation among nations for the theoretical benefit of all...
.
The foundation of the American Workers League
With four of his friends, Weydemeyer formed a tiny organization, the first Marxist organization in the United States, formed in the summer of 1852. The group, called Proletarierbund, won the attention of German immigrants with the organization of a meeting on March 20, 1853, in New York, where eight hundred German Americans assembled in Mechanics Hall and founded the American Workers League.This was an organization of mixed union and party functions, and presented a programm of immediate issues for the working class and the socialist goal at the same time. The program was for immediate naturalization of all immigrants who wished to gain American citizenship, it favored federal, rather than state, labor legislation, stood for guaranteed payment of wages to workers whose employers went bankrupt, assumption by government of all costs of litigation with free choice of counsel, reducing the working day to ten hours, banning labor for children under sixteen, compulsory education with government maintenance for children whose families were too poor, against all Sunday and temperance laws, for the formation of tuition-colleges and for state acquisition of existing private colleges, for keeping the national lands on the frontier inalienable, etc. Beside the immediate demands, the League's platform stated some revolutionary principles. The preamble charged the capitalists of the everyday worse situation of the workers, the need of an independent political party for the workers, "without respect to occupation, language, color or sex", and the task of overthrowing the capital leadership with it as a way to solve social and political problems. It also leaned on the American Constitution of the Founding Fathers.
The American Workers League functioned for several years under a central committee made up of delegates from wards clubs and trade unions. Member of its committee, Weydemeyer tried to wide the influence of the League to non German Americans but the League served primarily as a German recreation and mutual aid society, in isolation from the English-speaking workers. When in the context of the Know-Nothing agitation, in 1855, the members began forming a secret military organization to defend themselves against nativist attacks, Weydemeyer withdrew from the League. He devoted himself to study the American Economy and to writing and lecturing of Marxists ideas.
American Civil War
As the country was moving toward a civil warAmerican Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, German Americans played an important part in the emergence of the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, so did Weydemeyer, who was one the men who drew the German community toward the Republicans and the antislavery
Origins of the American Civil War
The main explanation for the origins of the American Civil War is slavery, especially Southern anger at the attempts by Northern antislavery political forces to block the expansion of slavery into the western territories...
cause. Hence, Weydemeyer stand for the Republicans was in contradiction with the influence of the most prominent labor radicals at the time, as Wilhelm Weitling
Wilhelm Weitling
Wilhelm Weitling was an important 19th-century European radical.Both praised and critiqued by disciples of the growing Marxist philosophy during the 19th century, Weitling was characterized as a "utopian socialist" by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, although Engels also referred to Weitling as the...
, who showed affinity for the Democrats and avoided attacks on slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
in his labor paper. William Sylvis, leading native-born trade unionist, didn't stand for the Republicans as well.
The Republican Party gained also influence through the free-soil movement. According to his Marxist opinion against the parceling out of government lands to small farmers, Weydemeyer denounced the Homestead Act
Homestead Act
A homestead act is one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "homestead" – typically 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River....
agitation in 1854 as contrary to the interest of the workers and was in favor of large-scale agriculture. But in the 1860s, together with other German Republicans, he urged the party to campaign for "immediate passage by Congress
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C....
of a Homestead law by which the public lands of the Union may be secured for homesteads of the people, and secured from the greed of speculators." Weydemeyer back of the free-soil movement and shift of position about that issue wasn't a stand for the free-soil movement as a social progress (as Hermann Kriege endorsement in this movement in 1845), but a question of tactic, backing the free-soil movement at that moment being a support for the antislavery cause, the main issue at the time in his point of view.
Shortly after dropping the American Workers League, Weydemeyer left New York and settled down in the Midwest, where he lived for four years, first in Milwaukee and then in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where he worked a journalist and also as a surveyor. He tried to establish in Chicago, another independent German labor paper, and contributed to the Illinois Staats-Zeitung
Illinois Staats-Zeitung
Illinois Staats-Zeitung was a German-language newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. The newspaper was founded in April 1848 as a weekly, and became a daily in 1851. The newspaper had as its main ambition to maintain the use of the German language. Along with the Westliche Post and Anzeiger des...
, a famous German Republican daily of the Midwest. He took part in the Deutsches Haus conference of German-American societies in Chicago in May 1860 to influence the Republican convention's platform and candidates. Back in New York at the end of 1860, he found a job as a surveyor of Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
and became active in the election campaign for Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Eight months later, he was in the army.
Thanks to his background as a Prussian military officer and surveyor, he became a technical aide on the staff of General John C. Frémont
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...
, the commander of the department of the West. He superintended the erection of ten forts around St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. After Frémont was removed from his command in November 1861, Weydemeyer was made a lieutenant colonel and given command of a Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
volunteer artillery regiment which took the field against Confederate guerillas in southern Missouri in 1862. At the end of the year, he was hospitalized for a nervous disorder and transferred to garrison duty in St. Louis, which he left in September 1863.
Politically active in Missouri, Weydemeyer was facing two main issues: the extension of emancipation to Missouri and the prevention of a split between the Lincoln and Frémont faction of the Republican Party. Despite his own sympathy for the Frémont straight position, he tried to conciliate the factions and keep safe the victory in the 1864 election and in the war. In September 1864, Weydemeyer joined the army as colonel of the Forty-first Infantry Missouri Volunteers charged with the defense of St. Louis. While doing his military duty, he distributed copies of the Inaugural Address of the International Workingmen's Association
International Workingmen's Association
The International Workingmen's Association , sometimes called the First International, was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class...
, exchanged letters with Engels on military and political issues, contributed to local papers, as the Daily St Louis Press where he wrote an editorial greeting the founding of the First International. In July 1865, he demobilized his regiment and left the Army.
At the end of the war, he began to write regularly for the Westliche Post
Westliche Post
Westliche Post was a German-American daily newspaper published in St. Louis, Missouri. The Westliche Post was Republican in politics. Carl Schurz was a part owner for a time, and served as a U.S. Senator from Missouri for a portion of that time.-History:The Westliche Post was established...
and the Neue Zeit, two St. Louis papers. He won the election as county auditor, holding his office from January, 1st 1866 until his death. He worked for harsher tax laws and collecting unpaid taxes of men who used the war to become rich. The same day William S. Sylvis inaugurated the National Labor Union
National Labor Union
The National Labor Union was the first national labor federation in the United States. Founded in 1866 and dissolved in 1873, it paved the way for other organizations, such as the Knights of Labor and the AF of L . It was led by William H...
in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
, Weydemeyer died of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
at the age of 48.