THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
making an heroic stand against the reinforced rebels, the Eleventh Corps was “losing its hold on the northward front”; that “its foreign-born, foreign-bred brigadiers were giving before the natives sweeping down upon them in those long gray lines”; and that, “just as at Chancellorsville, one sturdy Ohio brigade—McLean's command, now led by Ames—was making stanch but futile stand against the onward rush of Early and Gordon.” To characterize the cool effrontery of this tale I have only to remind my reader of the fact that at Chancellorsville McLean's brigade was at once swept away by the first onset of Jackson's attack, that the division on our extreme right at Chancellorsville, the first to be driven in, was commanded by General Devens of Massachusetts, a native, and his strongest brigade by General McLean, also a native, while only his smallest brigade had Colonel Gilsa, a foreign brigadier, at its head; that the only real fighting at Chancellorsville, which for about an hour delayed Jackson's progress, was done by “foreign brigadiers,” Schimmelfennig and Krzyzanowski of Schurz's division, and Buschbeck of Steinwehr's division; and that on the first Gettysburg day the “foreign brigadiers” did not leave the “native” Ohio brigade in the lurch, but that, on the contrary, the “foreign brigadiers” withdrew from the field even a little later than the Ohio brigade, after a valiant struggle, had found itself obliged to retreat.
The corps still continued to be used as a convenient scapegoat for all sorts of mishaps with which it had absolutely nothing to do. Officers and men still complained of being exposed to outrageous indignities. This went so far that in some instances the commanders of reinforcements that were to be attached to the corps, loudly protested against being identified with it on account of its “reputation.” I had long been in favor of maintaining the identity of the corps, and of
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