William Penn, 1963 (46. évfolyam, 5-23. szám)
1963-08-21 / 16. szám
PAGE 8 August 21, 1963 William Penn LINCOLN AND THE HUNGARIANS By EDMUND VASVARY Penn Fraternal Association and can not be reproduced in any way without permission.) (This is copyrighted by the William The population of the island was Chinese. Bettelheim probably could have had some success among the orderly and industrious people, if the Japanese authorities would not have done everything in their power to frustrate his efforts. Force was out of question, but the Japanese knew well how to make life intolerable for the missionary with every kind of small annoyances. Bettelheim, for instance, being a good linguist, prepared small leaflets and tracts in the language of the population for distribution, but no matter how many he distributed, in a fevy days he saw them again, in neat packages, every one of them placed at his door. He was unable to gain even a single convert, which fact understandably made him feel frustrated. Some years later, in 1852, after no foreign ship stopped at the port of Napa for a year and a half, a number of black ships appeared quite close to the residence of Bettelheim. They were the ships of the American Commodore MATTHEW C. PERRY, whose historic mission was to try to open Japan for the world trade. His flagship was the same “Mississippi” on which Kossuth and his followers were liberated from internment in Turkey. Bettelheim implored the Commodore, weeping copiously, to take him and his family back to civilization. This was granted to him. Bettelheim, who practiced medicine also in Okinawa, became a medical officer in the Civil War. After the conflict he settled in Brookfield, Missouri as a physician, where he died in 1869, aged 58. Fifty-seven years after his death a memorial was erected in his honor on the island of Okinawa. i) CRETE Crete, or Candia, is the largest Greek island in the Mediterranean. It was a notable place in ancient times as the center of the highly developed but long ago disappeared Minoan civilization. The mountainous island’s highest peak is the famed Mount Ida where, according to Greek mythology, Zeus, their principal deity, was raised. (Not to be confused with the other Mount Ida in Asia Minor, near ancient Troy, which figured in the Trojan war.) One single Hungarian veteran of the Civil War lived here for some years, as U. S. Consul HUGO HILLEBRANDT, a former young lieutenant of the Hungarian revolution. In the United States he was employed by the Coast Survey. He returned to Europe to join the forces of Garibaldi in Italy. After the occupation of Rome, he returned to the United States and became a lieutenant in the Garibaldi Guard of New York, which later was merged with the 39th N. Y. Regiment. As a major he participated in the battle of Gettysburg when he was wounded. After this, being incapacitated, he was honorably discharged from the army. For some years he worked in the Freedmen’s Bureau in North Carolina where he was known as a conscientious and efficient civil servant. In 18ÍÍ9 President GRANT appointed him U. S. Consul on the island of Crete. He remained here until 1874 when the consulate, on his own recommendation, was discontinued. On Crete he married the daughter of the Austrian consul. He died in the home of his old friend, General Robert Avery, in Brooklyn. His wife was on a family visit in Syria at the time of his death. j) MEXICO A handful of Hungarians went to Mexico. Probably the first of them was GABRIEL KORPONAY, who as a famous dancer came to the United States in 1844. As a captain of the 3d Missouri Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, he participated in the 1846-48 Mexican War. In the Civil War he became Colonel of the 28th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment and was discharged in 1863 on account of sickness. He was not the only Hungarian who took part in the Mexican war. The other was L. C. (Kálmán) LUCAS, whose original name was LUKÁCS. He came to the United States in 1847 and probably served together with Korponay in the Mexican war. In 1848 he returned to Hungary and fought in the revolution of his native country. Returning to the U. S., he lived for a while in Davenport, Iowa, with his brother, SÁNDOR LUKÁCS. He came from a very prominent Hungarian family and was closely related to Prime Minister László LUKÁCS, Minister of Education George LUKÁCS, Minister of Interior BÉLA LUKÁCS, and Minister of Justice Desider SZILÁGYI. In the Civil War Lucas became lieutenant of the 3d Missouri Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He lived in St. Louis, Missouri and died there May 17, 1903, aged 82. Felix NEMEGYEY and SAMUEL SZONTAGH studied the geographical conditions in the Tehuantepec region. The restless John XÄNTUS also worked there, diligently collecting specimens of many kinds of small animals for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Charles LÁSZLÓ and NEMEGYEY were also engaged in a successful business venture selling mahogany wood. After a few years, László married a young Mexican girl and, with his wife and a tidy dollar fortune, he returned to Hungary where he has bought an estate. Emery RADNICH, a member of the unfortunate Lopez expedition to Cuba, visited Mexico with John PRÁGAY where XÁNTUS met them. Two of the Hungarians were given a distinction by the U. S. government: XÁNTUS became U. S. Consul in Manzanillo, and NEMEGYEY in Tabasco. Among the Hungarians who lived in Mexico, five served in the Civil War: KORPONAY as colonel, XÁNTUS as an assistant surgeon, Emery RADNICH as captain and Stephen ZÁKÁNY as major. k) NICARAGUA The name of ÁGOSTON HARASZTHY is already legendary in California, since he started the immensely important grape culture in that state more than a century ago. His oldest son, GÉZA HARASZTHY, served in the Civil War as major. Years before the conflict he served four years in the1 regular U. S. Army. After the Civil War he went with his father to Nicaragua, where the elder Haraszthy died under mysterious circumstances. The son became a colonel in the Nicaraguan army, organizing the cavalry of which he was appointed commander. He died there as a bachelor in 1878. 1) RUSSIA A few Hungarians went to Russia before the American conflict to serve in the Crimean War. Almost all of them fought on the side of the British, but the Russians also secured the services of one of them. He was BÉLA ESTVÁN who in the Civil War became a colonel in the Confederate army. He has been mentioned previously in this study. We know of two Hungarian Civil War soldiers who espoused the British cause, fighting before Sebastopol. The well-remembered CHARLES SEMSEY later became major in the 45th New York Volunteer Regiment. As an elderly man he was employed in the immigration office in New York where he rendered valuable services to the Hungarian and other newcomers. He died, in New York in 1911, age 81. The other was László ZSULAVSZKY, the son of Emilia KOSSUTH, who in the Civil War became the Colonel of the 82d Negro Regiment. Brigadier General (by brevet) GEORGE POMUTZ, a former soldier and police official in the Hungarian Revolution, became U. S. Consul in the capital of Russia, St. Petersburg. The date of his appointment is February 16, 1866. Pomutz was one of the most outstanding members of the small Hungarian settlement, New Buda, in Iowa. In the Civil War he was an excellent officer about whom his former commander, General W. W. BELKNAP (later Secretary of War) wrote in most glowing terms. He conducted the affairs of his) consular offices for 12 years when in 1878 President Hayes recalled him. Pomutz, however, remained in St. Petersburg and died there in 1882, after living in reduced circumstances. Although he was of Romanian origin who spoke the language and belonged to the Orthodox religion, growing up and having been educated among Hungarians, living with them almost all his life, he became an ardent Hungarian patriot who always and everywhere professed to be a Hungarian. There is a long letter of his still extant, written in 1861 New Buda, in faultless Hungarian, in which he touchingly describes his loyalty to the Hungarian homeland, offering his services to further the cause of friendship between the Hungarian and Roumanian peoples. m) TAHITI This exotic and interesting place is the largest island of the Society Group in the Pacific. It is one of the most remote places in the ocean, mentioned quite frequently in our own times. The Hungarian Civil War veteran who went there after the conflict was JOSEPH VÁNDOR, a former major in the Hungarian Revolution and a colonel in the Union forces. Appointed by President LINCOLN, he worked there as U. S. consul. His past life was an interesting one. He came from a prominent family. His paternal grandfather was one of the tutors of the young Duke of Reehstadt, the only son of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of the Emperor Francis. Vándor’s grandmother was a lady-inwaiting for the Archduchess. When after the Hungarian Revolution his estate was confiscated, Vándor went to England and from the port of Glasgow he sailed to the United States, arriving there December 4, 1849. Thus he became one of the first Hungarians who reached America after the revolution’s collapse. He supported himself by teaching German and French. Later he became a fencing master, then managed to graduate from the law school of Harvard University. With his diploma, he started legal practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he married. At the start of the Civil War the Governor of Wisconsin, Alexander Williams RANDALL appointed him colonel, entrusting him with the organization of the 7th Wisconsin Regiment which later merged with the famous Iron Brigade. His appointment, however, became the cause of a very serious mutiny in the regiment. One night somebody took a shot at Vándor through the canvas of his tent, seriously wounding him on the shoulder. The wound developed into a malignant cancer. The military career of Vándor had to be terminated on account of this crime. He resigned his commission. On recommendation of people like General Carl SCHURZ, Secretary of Treasury Salmon P. CHASE, and Secretary of State William H. SEWARD, President LINCOLN appointed him U. S. Consul ön the Island of Tahiti. With his family Vándor settled in the largest town of the island, Papeete, but after a few years’ service, partly on account of his failing health and the proper education of his children, he resigned and in 1869 he returned to the United States, settling in San Francisco where he started a legal practice. In the middle of the 1870’s he went to Europe to visit the graves of his parents. He returned very sick and never left his sick bed again. He is buried in San Francisco. One of his sons, Paul E. VÁNDOR, who was born in 1858 in Milwaukee, became a well known attorney and newspaperman who wrote several books about the history of several counties in California. n) THE FAR WEST The far Western part of the United States, which was a primitive, undeveloped territory at the time of the ‘Civil War, was counted as an almost foreign land to which expeditions had to be sent. Hardly a handful of Hungarians dared to go beyond Chicago, but there were a few adventurous young men who were willing - to face the uncertainties and dangers of that unknown land. John XÁNTUS was urged by his unqenchable thirst for knowledge of nature. Ágoston HARASZTHY saw much possibility in manufacturing gold coins for the U. S. Government, and later in grape culture. Count Samuel WASS and his friends, MOLITOR and URNAY, also made gold coins. Gabriel KORPONAY went to Mexico from there to fight in the Mexican War. John FIALA and Joseph VÁNDOR settled as civilians after the Civil War in California, where the CZAPKAY brothers already were well-established. Two young men, Charles BARÓTHY, who became the oldest living Hungarian Civil War veteran, and Stephen SPELLETICH, the erstwhile “hero of Fort Donelson,” not having enough fighting in the past conflict, went there to fight the marauding Indians. Thus there is hardly any part of the United States which did not have its small share of the adventurous spirit and will power of the Hungarians. (To Be Continued)
