I was searching Google using the names of the Texas Wendish settlers to see if any of them had been awarded patents. While looking at the results of the search for “Herman Julius Seydler patent” I found one that piqued my curiosity. However, it was not about a patent but about a book detailing a Civil War battle. In the description of the search result, there was the name Julius Seydler. So, to find out more I clicked on the link and started reading.
What I found was interesting. The book is titled Victory at Calcasieu Pass. The battle took place on May 6, 1864 between a small group of Confederate soldiers on land and two Union gun boats where the Calcasieu River feeds into the Gulf of Mexico in the Southwest corner of Louisiana only 40 miles from the border with Texas. Thinking about the proximity of this battle to Texas, my curiosity increased and I looked further into it to find out who the participants were. Scrolling down, I found that Cruezbaur’s Battery of the 5th Texas Artillery were participants.
The descrition of this group really caught my attention as “Almost to a man … were natives of Germany…[and] most were residents of Fayette County in Central Texas.” But I still had not seen anything about Julius Seydler so I scrolled the page some more and found rosters for all the units engaged in the battle. Scrolling down the list of the members of Cruezbauer’s Battery of the 5th Texas Artillery, in the list of privates was the name Julius Seydler.
As I went back and read more about the battle, I found some translated letters from some of the participants detailing the battle. One of the letters was written by a member of Cruezbaur’s Battery of the 5th Texas Artillery named Henry Kneip, “who settled in Round Top, Fayette County, Texas in 1852.” He had two brothers, “Adolf and Ferdinand, apparently twins at 17, [who] served in another Confederate unit, Waul’s Texas Legion.”
If you look at the Hot Project/Topics on the Wendish Research Exchange you will find a write-up about the Civil War and Waul’s Texas Legion. The particpation of the Texas 5th Artillery and their connection to Waul’s Texas Legion and Central Texas are strong indications that the Julius Seydler was one of the Wends who emigrated to Texas in 1849. Herman “Julius” Seydler was born July 7 1832 and would have been about 29 years old at the start of the Civil War (from Weldon Mersiovsky’s new book Passengers on the Ben Nevis and Their Families, page 123). I feel the information above is too coincidental to not be about the same Julius Seydler but I have not done any additional research to try to prove it. Could there be other Wendish men in this unit? Probably, but I have not delved into that.
To read about the battle of Calcasieu Pass look at the link http://library.mcneese.edu/depts/archive/FTBooks/jones-victory.htm
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