Colonel Adolph Dengler, 43rd Illinois Infantry
By Michael A. Peake

Adolph Dengler, born 1824 in Baden, served as second in command of the revolutionary forces in Freiburg defending against Prussian troops in 1848. Dengler’s activities placed a high price on his head, but he managed to elude Prussian secret police in 1850 by false reports of his death. He eventually escaped to New York, and by 1852, led a workers' strike for higher wages and against bad working conditions in the textile industry.

Dengler lived in Belleville, Illinois southeast of St. Louis, Missouri, with wife, two children and a mother in law in 1860. With war, he organized a company in 1861 that became Company “G,” of the three month 3rd Missouri Infantry, Franz Sigel's German regiment, seeing action at Carthage and Wilson's Creek.

After mustering out of the 3rd Missouri, Dengler helped raise the 43rd Illinois Infantry (Koerner Regiment), and on December 16, 1861, he received commission as major. The following April, he was with the regiment at Shiloh. It was there that he likely encountered Metzner, during a reunion with his old revolutionary comrade Willich. Dengler, having held command of the First Brigade, First Division, Seventh Army Corps, mustered out as colonel on November 30, 1865 at Little Rock, Arkansas. He died December 1884 at New York.

Identification provided courtesy of Dr. Wolfgang Hochbruck, Universität Freiburg, Germany.

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Library of Congress: LC-USZ62-129674