Francis Lieber was a Prussian-American jurist and political philosopher. He is most well known for the Lieber Code, the first codification of the customary law and the laws of war for battlefield conduct, which served a later basis for the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and for the Geneva Conventions. He was also a pioneer in the fields of law, political science, and sociology in the United States.

Charles (Karl) Theodor Christian Friedrich Follen was a German poet and patriot, who later moved to the United States and became the first professor of German at Harvard University, a Unitarian minister, and a radical abolitionist. He was fired by Harvard for his abolitionist statements.