THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CARL SCHURZ

A fascinating story and the fervent testament of a fighting idealist""- so Nevins epitomizes this reissue of the autobiography of a German-American who was ""revolutionist, patriot, orator, journalist, general, statesman and reformer"". And yet he is a little more than a name to today's generation. Nevins provides something of the German background- and something of Schurz' later years in his Introduction. The text proper records chiefly his share in the American scene, the struggle between slavery and freedom. It is an amazing story of a young German, who with other liberals fled his native land in 1848 to find freedom here. Some of his early adventures read like a dime novel of the past; they capture the reader's unflagging attention. Once here, his zeal, his magnetism, his versatility brought him into intimate touch with the great of his day. His apt pen portraits will live long in memory:- Jay Cooke, Stephen Douglas, Chase, Seward, Summer, McClellan and other figures of the Civil War. But chiefly his picture of Lincoln, whom he grew to venerate and love. He spoke for Lincoln in German and in English- and held forth at New York's Cooper Union for three impassioned hours. He was sent as Ambassador to Spain but resigned to come back to active service as a General in the Union forces- not perhaps as brilliant a role as some of his others. Here is a rich story of a truly outstanding American. It deserves to be made again available.