FRANK PFAFFENSCHLAEGER, Forgotten CSA Soldier - An Unusual Man With an Unusual Name

In the fall of 1862, the 38th Alabama Infantry Volunteers under the command of Colonel Charles T. Ketchum were entrenched in the line of fortifications protecting the strategic Confederate Seaport of Mobile, Alabama. Their position was a few miles west of the town at Camp Holt on the south side of Dauphin Way. Not much was happening in their vicinity except drill and rumors, and they must have wished for some activity. Plenty was to come later. Federal threats in Tennessee and into north Mississippi alerted commanders to consider a stronger show of strength for the arsenal and works at Columbus, Mississippi. The southern troop withdrawal after the Battle at Corinth had left the area exposed to the danger of capture.

The 38th was ordered out and proceeded to the fairgrounds in the town of Columbus where they used the buildings at the fairgrounds for quarters rather than pitch their tents. The 38th Alabama had a fine band with a notable German drummer by the name of William Hartmann. He was known as "Zou." Zou came to the adjutant one morning and requested a two-hour pass to visit the camp of a Tennessee artillery battery within a mile of the barracks. He said that there was a bugler that he wanted to get transferred to the regiment. Zou reported that he had not seen the man but had heard him "blay the pugle" and sound the German bugle calls very skillfully.

The next day Zou brought the man for introductions. Somehow he had been persuaded to make the transfer if he was acceptable. It was two weeks before anyone could spell the new bugler's name, Frank A. Pfaffenschlaeger. He was a small man with a short neck, round shoulders, crooked legs, thin face, hooked nose, thin brown mustache and sharp eyes. He was asked if he ever played the fife. "No try" was his reply. This discouraging comment was soon dispelled when he was given "trial" at dress parade that afternoon. The 38th had lost Old Dave their colored fifer when he left them at the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Depot as they moved out north. The new man was forgotten until ''beat off" was given. The drums rolled and the band stepped out.

Frank had no fife of his own but Zou had loaned an old one that he claimed to have captured at Seven Pines with the 3rd Alabama. Frank played the "Bonnie Blue Flag" and a tune that no one recognized while Zou touched the drums lightly as the officers saluted the colonel. He played the broken- winded, uncleaned, husky-toned instrument that would not even sound all the notes so soft and sweet on the still evening air that the trial was ended right there. The commander remarked, "We must get that fellow; he hasn't a very commanding appearance has he?"

Frank, after the parade, said the tune he played was called "Die Schlingenschlagen Verschlichtden Lieberhausen" or "words to that effect" he said. The regiment never tired of the tune. After a couple of weeks, the threat to Columbus subsided for a time, and the regiment returned to Camp Cumming in Mobile and the temporary dull life they were accustomed to. A few days later, Zou and Frank P. were observed sitting in the sun in the rear of camp, and Zou was whistling while Frank was writing the whistled tunes on a scrap of paper upon his knee. Zou was teaching Frank the tunes of reveille as he was accustomed to in the Virginia bands. As the notes were whistled, Frank would enter them strain by strain just as a reporter might take down a speech.

Frank soon borrowed enough money to buy a piccolo or octave flute with six keys and a beautiful tone. Dr. Hulse, the regimental surgeon, also played the flute, and soon Frank was accompanying Dr. Hulse's flute with a violin and at times with a guitar. He once responded to his being asked if he were able to play the piano by sitting down and producing a loud thundering waltz. The regimental band increased and became noted for its excellence, and Frank soon was appointed principal musician.

He was also noted for other talents. Frank sketched the quarters of the field and staff officers and produced a large and beautiful design of the regi-mental quarters with a German text. The work was bordered by latticework, with vines bearing flowers, twining through the lattice. Frank hung it in his cabin until the officers chipped in and bought it to present to Colonel Ketchum.

He purchased a heavy hunting rifle and had the bore enlarged to his satisfaction. A local silversmith manufactured a bullet mold to fit the bore. Frank would practice at long and short range until pleased with his ability. In 1863 when the 38th went north with Clayton's Brigade to its assignment with the Army of Tennessee, the rifle went along with Frank's instrument. Once during the heaviest fighting at Chickamauga, Frank was found standing alone between two Confederate regiments. The enemy before him was lying down and standing behind trees. He had just fired his rifle and was coolly reloading. Frank thought he had killed a Yankee colonel. "There was a big rumpus about over dere," he reported. He fought with the gun at Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge and Rocky Face Mountain. At Missionary Ridge when almost all the 38th were captured and as the Federals closed on the regiment and called for surrender, Frank ran out and yelled back, "Go to Hell." He evaded capture and made it through all this and the remainder of the war unscathed. He was among the final 80 men, out of 830 in the 38th, which remained after the Battle of Spanish Fort, when CSA Lt. General Richard Taylor surrendered the 38th to US Major General E. R. S. Canby at Citronelle, Alabama, in May 1865.

Once Frank was visited in camp by the Italian violinist Carlo Patti. The entire Patti family was famous and talented performers of the time. Carlo had written Frank a note asking him to assist in giving a serenade. Carlo was enlisted in the Confederate signal corps, and Frank kidded him about joining the signal corps to get out of the way of "de pullets." Frank had mentioned his association with Carlo and his sister, Carlotta Patti, and this visit confirmed his earlier statements.

Frank was an easygoing person with dignified manners and expressions. Sometimes he came up with profound remarks that seemed out of place for a musician and a private soldier. He occasionally drank hard, played cards and amazed his fellow soldiers with card tricks.

After the war, Frank Pfaffenschlaeger married a widow with children, but they had none of their own. It was said that he had no family "on this side of the water." In March of 1882, Frank killed himself in Birmingham, Alabama, where he taught music and was known as Professor Pfaffenschlaeger. He shot himself in the right temple with a derringer while among friends. The reason, as it usually is, was obscure. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery just north of downtown Birmingham. A close friend, after his death, disclosed that Frank was an Austrian nobleman who had been banished by the Emperor after the 1848 revolution. His title was Lord Seeau of Seeau in north Austria. His life had been spared, and his sentence changed from death to that of perpetual banishment because of the long and great service that his family had given the House of Hapsburg. His son, Fransicus Adolphus, the seventh Lord of that name held the position of Lord Seeau at that time. Who would ever guess that a lowly Confederate private and a musician to boot would be a European nobleman? (* See note below.)

F. A. Pfaffenschlaeger appears on the rolls of Bankhead/Scott's Battery of Light Tennessee Artillery as chief bugler and as having joined the battery on July 29, 1861, at New Madrid, Missouri.

This statement by LAROCHE JACQUELEIN was added to the narrative of the circumstances attending Pfaffenschlaeger's death. It follows an article from the Birmingham "Age" of March 14. (Excerpt)

"Professor Pfaffenschlaeger" was about sixty odd years of age, but had been a resident of Birmingham not longer than two years. Since he came here he has been engaged teaching music, in which art he stood excellently well.

"A very intimate friend of the deceased tells us that the real name of the gentleman is Lord Seeau - and he was banished from Austria after the revolution in 1848..."

There is a wonder and a mystery in all this and, it is now hidden in the grave he sought as a relief from trouble that made his old age miserable. He was good and kind and tender. He was brave and honest. The vengeance of the royal governments followed him. There was no mercy or forgiveness or pardon with them for those that oppose their prerogatives or resist their claims. He is gone to stand before a throne and tribunal where king, noble and peasant are alike judged. Not one of all who shared the privations of camp, the weariness of the long marches, and the dangers of battle with him - not one of us can recall an unkind word spoken or a mean act done by him. May he rest in peace.

* Note: The Stiftung Seeau, has a genealogical web site about noblemen in the Seeau area of Austria. The author says (translated from the German): There never was a count Franciscus Adolphus Seeau; since 1699 the correct name of the family of counts has been Seeau von Muehlleuten and not Seeau von Seeau; there is no North Austria; and the Seeau counts did not produce a male child in 1818/1819 when Pfaffenschlaeger was born. Pfaffenschlaeger is either a surname or describes someone who comes from a town called Pfaffenschlag.