Gustav Philipp Koerner, also spelled Gustave or Gustavus Koerner, was a German-American revolutionary, journalist, lawyer, politician, judge and statesman in Illinois and Germany, and a Colonel of the U.S. Army who was a confessed enemy of slavery. He married on 17 June 1836 in Belleville Sophia Dorothea Engelmann ; they had 9 children. He belonged to the co-founders and was one of the first members of the Grand Old Party, and was a close confidant of Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd, and had an essential role in his nomination and election for president in 1860.
Koerner in his youth.
Sophie Koerner, née Engelmann (1815–1888), spouse of Gustav Koerner
Replica of the coffin of Abraham Lincoln, Museum of Funeral Customs, Springfield, Illinois, 2006.
Koerner in his last years.
The Hambacher Festival was a German national democratic festival celebrated from 27 May to 30 May 1832 at Hambach Castle, near Neustadt an der Weinstraße, in present-day Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The event was disguised as a nonpolitical county fair. It was one of the main public demonstrations in support of German unity, freedom and democracy during the Vormärz era.
Procession to Hambach Castle, lithograph about 1832. The flag used by the procession would later become the German flag but with the colours in a different order.
Rebuilt Hambach Castle today
