Albin Francisco Schoepf
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Albin Francisco Schoepf (March 1, 1822 – May 10, 1886) was an European-born military officer who became a Union brigadier general during the American Civil War, best known as the commanding officer of Fort Delaware, a wartime camp for Confederate prisoners of war.
[edit] Biography
Born in Podgórze, Poland, Schoepf graduated from the Vienna Military Academy and served in Hungary as a captain in the Austrian Army before resigning his commission and enlisting in the Hungarian revolutionary forces under Lajos Kossuth. When Kossuth abdicated in 1849, Schoepf was exiled to Turkey, where he served with and trained the Ottoman Empire's army before emigrating to the United States in 1851.
Befriended by Joseph Holt, Schoepf served as a clerk first in the U.S. coast survey and later in the U.S. patent office and the war department (working under Holt). While working in Washington, D.C. Schoepf married Julie Bates Kesley in 1855; they eventually had nine children together.
Appointed a brigadier general in September 1861, Schoepf fought his brigade coolly at Wildcat Mountain, repulsing Confederates under Felix Zollicoffer, and his troops later killing Zollicoffer at Logan's Cross Roads. Proving himself an aggressive and able field commander, Schoepf was promoted to division command in August 1862, but often found himself at odds with Army of the Ohio commander Don Carlos Buell, especially after being denied orders to attack until late in the Battle of Perryville. Appointed to a board of inquiry investigating Buell during the campaign, Schoepf made no secret of his disapproval of Buell's actions, so much so that Buell raised Schoepf's hostility as an issue. Not wanting his involvement to affect the Buell investigation's outcome, Schoepf asked army commander Henry W. Halleck to transfer him to another assignment.
On April 13, 1863, Schoepf was ordered to report to Fort Delaware as commanding officer and served the balance of the war in that command.
After the war, Schoepf returned to the patent office and died after a long illness, likely stomach cancer. He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
[edit] References
- Boatner, Mark Mayo, III. The Civil War Dictionary. New York: McKay, 1959; revised 1988. ISBN 0-8129-1726-X.
- Fetzer, Dale and Mowday, Bruce E. Unlikely Allies: Fort Delaware's Prison Community in the Civil War. Mechanicsville, PA: Stackpole Books, 2000. ISBN 0-8117-1823-9.
- Welsh, Jack D. Medical Histories of Union Generals. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-87338-552-7.
- Albin Francisco Schoepf at Find A Grave
