Kentucky in the Civil War, Luisa und Wilhelm, Hawesville, KY
Hawesville is a small town on the Ohio River, bordering Indiana. About ten miles west of Hawesville was the real Uncle Toms Cabin written about by Harriet Breecher Stowe. The river that the character Eliza crossed was the Ohio River, which often froze so that horses and sleds could drive on it during the winter. This site is at the edge of Daviess County and Hancock County, which is exactly where I grew up.
My Grandpa told me of walking across the river when it was frozen, as a boy, and of being able to wade across the river in the heat of summer. He spent a lot of time with his grandparents, taking cornet lessons from his grandfather, and helping his grandmother on the farm.
My great-great grandparents were well-to-do German Immigrants. A brief synopsis of the German language used in this story:
- Mein is pronounced mine, and means my or mine.
- Knabi means boy, and is pronounced kanobbee.
- Mutter/Mutti is mother; Vatter/Vatti is father.
- Vs are pronounced as Fs, so Mutti und Vatti is Mother and Father.
- Grossvatter and Grossmutter are grandparents.
- Goot, is the pronunciation of the German word, gut, which means good.
- Und, means and.
My grandfather told me that his grandmother, whom he adored, had a heavy German accent. She wore wooden shoes in the barnyard, but often dressed as a fine lady, as fitting for her position, especially on Sundays. Her name, Luisa, was pronounced Loo-eeessa, and Wilhelm was pronounced Vilhelm.
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1899, Hawesville, KY
Ach, mein Ed! Mein English is still not so good, after all these years here! You are the youngest son of my youngest son, mein bestest Knabi, and you ask of me to tell you of what I saw, all those years ago Come, mein Ed, and I will tell you of what I saw. Those were days of much heartache, much sad in my heart. I did not know, until I live here, how bad men could be.
I was borned in Cramburg, in the Great Rhine valley, long before the war here. Wilhelm was borned in Prussia, so I not know him until we both gots here. My family come here, when I a small girl. We rode for a long time on wagons, until we came to a big ship in the harbor of Bremen. Then, we ride the ship, from Bremen to England, and from England to Baltimore. It was a long, long journey. We land in Baltimore, and slowly make our way to this part of the world. There are many German peoples here, so we can speak to them, even though we cannot speak the English so well. Here, it did not matter that we couldnt speak the English too well, because many of our neighbors spoke German, too! But all different kinds of German! We speak the High German, very different!
Wilhelms family were in a goot position in Prussia, but the wars-- always taking the boys, the girls dying of fevers-- they had no one left, but your Grossvatter, Wilhelm. He lost eight brothers and sisters to the wars and the fevers. Wilhelms family move to Freiburg, to get away from the wars, always the wars. He was a professor of music, and he played hiss flute and taught the boys at the Institute of Music in Frieburg. So, his family take all the money they haf, and they give it to him to come to America. He take the best furniture with him, Ed, the best books, as they wanted him to haf a new lifea life safe from the wars. They would come later, they said. First, he was to buy a nice big farm, and earn the money to send for them.
Wilhelm did just that, Ed. He came on a big boat, to the America und then, he travel all the way here to Hawesville, where there are many German peoples, from all parts of Germany here living. He bought our nice big farm, and he growed the crops and milk the cows and take care of the farm, always saving-- saving for hiss Mutter und Vatter to come to him. Poor Wilhelm, after a year, just as he gots the money for them to come, he gets a letter, and they are dead. Dead of the same fever his sisters die of! Ach, so sad!
He was so sad, Ed, but, now, with all this money, he come to see my father. We live many miles from town, down a long, long road, but Wilhelm, he remember me from when he come to buy the cattle. Then, I haf long blond hair, and blue eyes! I was young, and I was strong! I see him then, and I think he is a fine man. He speak the same German we speak. He tells Vatti, I haf money. I haf cattle, and land. I wish to marry Luisa.
I lived with mein Vattie und Mutti far from town. I never before seen the things I see in this town! Vatti teached me to read and to write, and how to cypher, and do the numbers in my head. I read all the great books in our house, and I know a goot mann, who is educated, when I see one. I think, this mann haf many books, being a professor. Mein Vatti says to me, Do you like this mann? Is he to be a goot husband to you? So I say, Yess, he iss a goot mann for me!
So, we gots married. Wilhelm bring his wagon, and we ride to town. There iss no Christian Church, like we haf in Germany, so we marry at Court House. I tell Wilhelm, We gots the paper, we are married. I write to mein Vattie, to tell him.
I move to Wilhelms farm, at the edge of town, on the river. I bring my dowry with meI bring two cows, quilts, those fine blue dishes, all the things I make and save for my life as a wife. We take our cows to town to sell, our milk, our good German cheese, all the things we make on the farm to sell, we take to town to in the wagon sell it.
There, in the town were people that I haf never seen before! Our neighbors are no such men! These men were dark, Ed. They haf skins that are dark, and I not know who or what they were! They made these men stand on the square, they chain them to a post, and, Ed, they sell them! I haf never seen such a thing, to sell men. I thinking these be bad men, to sell other men. I turn away from the sight, go back to the wagon.
And at our wagon, Ed, where we sell the good things from our farm, I see a woman who whip a dark woman. I not understand why, so I ask, Why you whip this woman? The woman shoves me aside. I thinking she might whip me, so I stand at the wagon, arrange my goot German cheese. I, an educated woman, haf never seen such things as this! I am sick, a little. I ask Wilhelm What is this dark people, why they whip them? Why they sell them?
Wilhelm, who understands more than I, he say, They are slaves, Luisa. They belong to those people.
Slaves? I asked him. Like the bible?
Yes, he says, They are slaves, like the bible.
We do not own slaves, do we, Wilhelm? I ask, and I fear for the answer. I do not wish to own another man!
Wilhelm put his hand on mein arm and say, No, Luisa, we will not own men. You will give us strong sons to farm our land! So, I did. I give him seven strong sons, and they help with the farm, until they leave to the big city. Louis Hermann, your Vatti, lives in his house on the land his Vatti gif him. He and your Mutti haf you and Louis, and we are happy. We never haf slaves, Ed. EVER.
The war, it came to Hawesville, too, Ed. The grey soldiers, they wish to take Wilhelm with them, but he stay here. This not his war, he say, he just gots here. I think of his Mutti and Vatti and how they gif everything so he can come here and be safe. I shake with fearwhat if these men make Wilhelm go with them?
But, Wilhelm, iss very smart. He point his big gun at the men on their horses, and they go away. The next day, Wilhelm go to town, und give five acres land to the town, so they can build a school. He tell them, he can give more, if he not haf to fight in war.
"Then, the blue soldiers come, to make Wilhelm go with them, but he shows them the goot cheese und the big cattle they can buy. I do not want these men at my home, and when they speak to me, I speak to them in German. Many words, loud voice! They not come back. All through the war, we sell our goot cattle to the soldiers, and goot horses. We got no part of that war! We buy more land, because land here is goot in America.
We see the dark people, at night, slip from the town to the river. They come through our land, Ed. Wilhelm, not help them, no! We get into trouble if we help them. But he leave his boat tied to shore. He not say anything if boat gone in morning. Wilhelm, und your Uncle Frederick-- they get the small boat from the barn, row over to the other side to get our boat, and row back. He put one boat in the barn and leave one for Fred to go fishing. We haf goot fish that night, und many nights to come!
That is what I remember, Ed. Come haf some streusel, that your Oma make for you!
Thanks for coming by!
Notes: Luisa Lotz Scherer was a loving grandmother, and my Grandpa utterly adored her. She had blonde hair until she died, even though it appears to be darker in the picture-- I have a lock of her hair. I have her tea kettle, and her springerle, (?), molds-- you make a kind of light dough, dip the mold in dough, deep fry it, and cover it with powdered sugar.
That picture of flat land was part of my great-great grandparent's farm, some of which, (about 500 acres), were given to their son, my great-grandfather, and is where my Grandpa grew up. If you are ever in Hawesville, (hahaha), go west at the, (as in only), light downtown, and keep going straight, over the levy. As soon as you cross the levy, you're on their land. It bordered the river.
The courthouse above has been recently built on the site of the old school, which replaced the older school, which replaced the school built on the site in the 1860's, on land given to the city so that my great-great-grandfather didn't have to go and fight in the war.
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Grandma and Grandpa Scherer are buried 3 plots down from their son, (also known as Grandpa Scherer), and their loving grandsons, Louis and Ed Scherer. Great-great Grandpa Scherer wasn't about to fight in a war he could have cared less about! He had perfect timing-- he arrived before they began forcing immigrants to serve in the army at the boat docks.
My mother has a wonderful picture of Grandpa Scherer, as an old man, with my Grandpa and Uncle Louie sitting in his lap like petrified baby owls. His hair curls up in a dollop. The picture of Grandma Scherer, the old, is from Ancestry.com-- we don't have a picture of her-- some of her other descendants must have had it, and posted it.
Thanks! What a lot of people don't understand, is that so many people in KY were 'encouraged', at gun point, to join one side or the other.
Dowser--
Tnx and a tip of the Swami's turban for putting wonderfully human faces on what most of us only know as dry anecdotes of manipulated history. It's fortunate for you (and the rest of us) that your family managed to preserve some continuity over the generations. Articles like yours do a lot to show the rest of us how much has been lost since the extended family was destroyed by the demands of American economy. Please give us more when you've got time...
I surely will, dear Swamijim!
I've got 3 more of these to publish-- Luisa and Willhelm are still very lively legends in the family!
Someday, if I get to heaven, I look forward to meeting them... Not any time soon, of course!
Thanks so much for coming by to read these! The next one is kind of sad...
Dear Dennis-- thank you so much for coming by to read it! There were many human costs-- even here in KY. Luisa and Willhelm were fortunate in that 5 acres of prime land got him out of the war.
The next one is very sad to me... Nancy's Fire.
MUCH love to you!
Again, much fun and fascinating.
Sorry, but lemme suggest yet another tome. A novel about the border war in MO and KS. The main character is a "Duchy" fighting for the south. Apparently the Germans were known as Lincoln Loving Duchys amongst the bushwhackers. Anyhow, it is a mighty fine novel.
"Woe to Live On" by Daniel Woodrell
My family all donned the butternut or grey though they were not the owners of men. We are all pretty much Ulster/Scot hillbillies and goobers stretched from the verdant hills of the Appalachians in NC down to the red clay plains of LA. The working class had little use for the planter class and absolutely no stake in the continuation of slavery yet they signed up and fought in droves. Considering the Ulster/Scot mindset, and family letters, the main reason for fighting was that the yankees, a nation of shop keepers, came down here and tried to tell them what to do.
Cha togar m' fhearg gun doladh, and all that.
Oh, and Ang Lee made a pretty dang good picture show from the novel. Well worth a peek.
Wow, dear Tex, I'll have to look for that one!
I can see Luisa und Wilhelm doing whatever was best for the farm... And certainly don't blame anyone!