Gustav Struve - Post-revolutionary Life

Post-revolutionary Life

Gustav Struve, along with other revolutionaries, managed to escape execution, fleeing to exile, first in Switzerland and then in 1851 to the USA.

In the USA, Struve lived for a time in Philadelphia. He edited Der Deutsche Zuschauer (The German Observer) in New York City, but soon discontinued its publication because of insufficient support. He wrote several novels and a drama in German, and then in 1852 undertook, with the assistance of his wife, the composition of a universal history from the standpoint of radical republicanism. The result, Weltgeschichte (World History), was published in 1860. It was the major literary product of his career and the result of 30 years of study. From 1858 to 1859, he edited Die Sociale Republik.

He also promoted German public schools in New York City. In 1856, he supported John Frémont for U.S. president. In 1860, he supported Abraham Lincoln. At the start of the 1860s, Struve joined in the American Civil War in the Union Army, a captain under Blenker, and one of the many German emigrant soldiers known as the Forty-Eighters. He resigned a short time later to avoid serving under Blenker's successor, the Prussian Prince Felix Salm-Salm. Struve was an abolitionist, and opposed plans to create a colony of freed slaves in Liberia because he thought it would hinder the abolition of slavery in the United States.