Spotsylvania Memory: "I immediately took command"

Carl Hermann Doerflinger (Findagrave)

Karl Hermann Doerflinger (whose name was spelled "Carl" after he came to America) was born in Ettenheim in the state of Baden in the German Federation on February 17, 1843. His parents were Karl Doerflinger and Theresa Gissalbrecht. The senior Karl had attended university, where he was an athlete. Karl the elder participated in the Revolution of 1848, in which democratic factions in German society sought to unify the states of the federation and provide for a constitution. Like many others, Karl was arrested and imprisoned for his role in the uprising. While he languished in prison, his wife Theresa baked "the means of his escape" in loaves of bread which she brought to him. At night, Karl got out of his cell and reached the outer wall of the prison, which he was able to scale because of his athletic ability. The Doerflinger family then crossed the Rhine River and made their way to the United States, arriving in 1848.

Like many other German immigrants of that era, the Doerflingers came to Wisconsin, and settled in Milwaukee. Young Carl (as he shall be called in this narrative. He often preferred to call himself the more anglicized "Charles") was a good student during the few years he attended school. From 1857 to 1860 he worked as an architect's apprentice. In 1860 he traveled to Colorado, where he worked for a time in the gold fields. He then returned to Wisconsin and worked on a farm until the outbreak of the Civil War.

Carl enlisted as a sergeant in Company B of the 26th Wisconsin Infantry on August 15, 1862 (his father served in the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry). Like many of the volunteer regiments in the Milwaukee area, the 26th was largely comprised of German immigrants. After two months of training, the 26th left Milwaukee for the eastern theater of the war. The men were crammed into freight cars and endured an uncomfortable three-day journey to Baltimore and then to Washington, D.C. They received additional training near Arlington Heights before they were transported to their camp in Stafford County.

The 26th was held in reserve during the Battle of Fredericksburg. The soldiers then had the decidedly unpleasant experience of the ill-fated "Mud March" in January 1863, after which they settled into their winter encampment near Stafford Courthouse.

Twenty-year-old Carl Doerflinger was promoted to 1st lieutenant on March 23, 1863 and transferred to Company K. The men remained in camp until April 27, 1863, when they were assembled and marched west. They crossed the Rapidan River at Germanna Ford by means of a pontoon bridge on April 29.

The 26th Wisconsin was part of the 2nd Brigade of the division commanded by General Carl Schurz (another German immigrant who had participated in the Revolution of 1848). These soldiers dug rifle pits along the Orange Turnpike near Wilderness Baptist Church. Their emplacements faced south, from which direction a Confederate attack was expected.

Wilderness Baptist Church area, 1863

In the map detail above, the Orange Turnpike runs from the upper right of the image and extends southwest past Wilderness Baptist Church and the farm of James Hawkins. Dowdall Tavern, the home of Reverend Melzi Sanford Chancellor, can be seen just southeast of Wilderness Church.

The Hawkins house, 1912 (Noel Harrison)

Six of the eight Hawkins sisters at home, April 1866

Unlike his commanding officer, General Oliver Otis Howard, General Schurz gave credence to intelligence that indicated that a large body of Confederates was working its way around the unprotected flank of the Union XI Corps. Schurz, who had made the Hawkins house his headquarters, asked Howard for permission to face one of his brigades to the west to meet this perceived threat. Howard reluctantly gave his assent.

In 1911, Carl Doerflinger drew this map to accompany his recollection of the Battle of Chancellorsville. Much of the following description of the events of the battle are derived from Carl's memoir.

The five regiments of the 2nd Brigade were shifted so that they now faced west. The 26th Wisconsin, the 58th New York and the 82nd Illinois formed a line 75 yards east of the tree line near the Hawkins house. The 82nd Ohio and the 157th New York were held in reserve. In all, this force likely numbered 2,000-3,000 soldiers. Ten men were selected from each of the ten companies of the 26th Wisconsin to serve as sharpshooters, with Lieutenant Doerflinger acting as second in command. These men advanced a little ways into the timber. They would not have to wait long.

A little past five in the afternoon of May 2, 1863, musketry and cannon fire could be heard southwest of Carl's position, as the 13,000 soldiers of the right wing of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's flanking force crashed into the startled Union soldiers along the Orange Turnpike. Very soon thereafter, Carl and his comrades could see figures in gray darting among the trees in their front. These figures very quickly coalesced into a dense mass of Confederate soldiers which made rapid progress toward Carl's skirmish line. These were the leading edge of the remaining 17,000 Confederates of Jackson's 2nd Corps.

Carl and the other sharpshooters began firing at the gray mass in front of them. They then scampered the 75 yards back to where their main line had formed. The commander of this little band was shot dead during this footrace. During their dash back to the Union line, a bullet clipped the strap of Carl's haversack, which he instinctively grabbed before it hit the ground. A second bullet dented the scabbard for his sword.

Once Carl reached his regiment, he learned that his company commander had been wounded (mortally, as it turned out) making him the ranking officer of Company K. "I immediately took command." Drawing his sword, he rallied the troops of his company. The bravery of the 26th and the other regiments of the 2nd brigade slowed the progress of the Confederates by as much as 20 minutes or so, giving the other divisions to the east time to reform and make a credible defense. After the battle, Colonel William H. Jacobs, commander of the 26th, wrote a dispatch to the Milwaukee Herald in which he noted Carl's valor: "The palm of the day belongs to the young hero, Doerflinger."

And then the moment came which changed Carl's life forever. A minie ball struck his left leg about four inches above the inner ankle bone, broke his tibia and traveled downward, fracturing the astragalus bone and heel before exiting through the sole of his foot. Carl fell to the ground. Before losing consciousness, he was dimly aware of the Confederate soldiers rushing past him (among them was young Alexander Hawkins, who had recently mustered out of the 47th Virginia Infantry. He joined his former comrades as they raced by his house). Carl awoke sometime during the night. He had been left for dead and remained on the field for seventeen hours before he was picked up and taken to the field hospital that had been set up at the Hawkins house. Two surgeons and their orderlies were treating hundreds of surgical cases.

These wounded men, now captives of the Confederate army, remained where they were for eleven days, when they were paroled and transported in wagons to the United States Ford (a short, but agonizing trip for men with broken bones and internal injuries). From there, Carl was taken to the Stanton Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Douglas and Stanton Hospitals

The Douglas Hospital began its life as "Douglas Row," one of three large brick homes at I and 2nd Streets built in the 1850s through an investment by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, who lived in one of them. They were converted to hospital use during the war. The Stanton Hospital, named for the Secretary of War, was built in the vacant square in front of the Douglas Hospital.

For weeks, the only treatment Carl received were changes of his dressings and "a nutritious diet." Unlike most soldiers of that era, Carl asked the doctors to amputate his leg. For whatever reason, they decided not to do so, and by June 20 a massive infection had set in, extending up to his groin and involving his lymph glands. His treatment was slightly modified and some improvement was seen during the next few days. But by June 26 the swelling had increased again. This time action had to be taken quickly.

On June 27, 1863, Assistant Surgeon George A. Mursick, U.S. Volunteers, amputated Carl's left leg a few inches above the knee. Because of the amount of swelling present, the amputation proved to be quite difficult. An insufficient amount of muscle tissue was used to cover the end of the femur, and for five consecutive days five additional surgeries were attempted to adequately cover the end of the femur. All of them failed. The bone protruded two and a half inches beyond the muscle. For the next 45 years, Carl lived in constant, debilitating pain.

Carl was not well enough to be transported back to Milwaukee until January 1864. The following month, he was mustered out of the army. A new phase of his life was about to begin.

The German-English Academy, Milwaukee

The traumatic experience of his amputation caused Carl to give up his pre-war ambition to become an architect. Instead, he decided to become an educator, and began teaching children at the German-English Academy in Milwaukee. This he did for several years. After a trip to Europe in 1869, Carl began to write and publish a number of books, pamphlets and tracts on the subject of education. He was an advocate for the concept of kindergarten for children and he helped start the first kindergartens in Milwaukee. He also wrote books about his progressive ideas on restructuring the American educational model.

In 1872, as secretary of the Wisconsin Natural History Society, he began to urge the establishment of a public museum in Milwaukee. His vision became a reality in 1884 when the new building housing the Milwaukee Public Museum and Public Library opened its doors. For the next two years Carl served as the museum's first custodian.

In 1889, Carl Doerflinger traveled to France and Switzerland where he collected more than 1,000 prehistoric relics which he brought back to the Milwaukee Public Museum. Several years later, he traveled extensively throughout Mexico, studying the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, rubber and other products. The one-legged Carl, by now in his fifties, traveled by mule through the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Menasha Saturday Evening Press 12 September 1896

Milwaukee Public Library Digital Collections

In 1895, Carl bought a controlling interest in the artificial limb company founded by Richard Baty in 1872. In addition to Milwaukee, the Doerflinger Artificial Limb Company opened locations in Pittsburgh and Chicago, and was still in operation well into the twentieth century.

In 1899, Carl and other officers of his company were granted a United States patent for the creation of an artificial ankle joint.

Carl achieved all this, and much more, while suffering in quiet agony, night and day, for 45 years. He consulted prominent physicians both in America and in Europe. Some of these doctors recommended re-amputation, others did not. Some minor procedures were performed on his thigh over the years. But neither these operations, nor the narcotics that he had come to rely on, could alleviate his suffering. There were many occasions when he would have to absent himself from his work for extended periods when the unremitting pain would not allow him to carry on.

On October 5, 1873, Carl married Auguste Barkhausen. Auguste would for many years be affiliated with the German-English Academy. She and Carl had four children together. Their son Arno became manager and secretary of the artificial limb company.

In the 1880s, Carl and Auguste were visiting Washington, D.C. and decided to take a trip to visit the Chancellorsville battlefield. They took the train to Fredericksburg, where they rented a carriage and double team that Carl thought may have been old enough "to have served George and Martha Washington." Their driver was a convivial black man who, as a 12-year-old boy, "had been one of a posse or army of young children detailed after that very battle to collect every vestige of everything having any value, particularly tin canteens, that had belonged to our comrades."

Wilderness Church and Chancellor's Retreat, 1884 (National Park Service)

When they reached their destination, their driver introduced Carl and Auguste to Reverend Melzi Chancellor and his wife. Reverend Chancellor had built their home, Chancellor's Retreat, behind Wilderness Baptist Church after his previous home, Dowdall's Tavern, had burned in 1869. Carl was impressed by Chancellor's accommodation to the realities of post-war life in Spotsylvania. "Our intelligent and genial host took a very sensible and loyal view of the results of the Civil War. 'We know very well what ailed Southerners: We were not taught to work; we have learnt it now, and we are teaching our children that lesson; and we are all better for it.'"

(National Park Service)

The Doerflingers were left with a different impression of Reverend Chancellor's younger neighbors, the Hawkins family. At the time of their visit, the Hawkins house was home to Alex Hawkins and his wife and children, plus his six unmarried sisters. One of the sisters likely had on her mind the famously rash statement General Joseph Hooker made just before the Battle of Chancellorsville: "My plans are perfect, and when I start to carry them out, may God have mercy on General Lee, for I will have none." Carl was dismayed by her comment to him: "I should think you should not wish to see the place again, where you were defeated after boasting so."

Men of Progress: Wisconsin 1897

By 1908, the torture of his stump no longer responded to any mitigation by opiates or other therapies. On April 8 of that year, his regular doctor, Albert Herschman, and surgical specialist Dr. Reinekin re-amputated Carl's thigh by a few inches. This time, the surgery was a success. Carl lived the last three years of his life in relative comfort.

Carl Hermann Doerflinger died on November 9, 1911. He is buried in Forest Home Cemetery in Milwaukee.