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Federal (USV)

Captain

Friedrich Schambeck

(c. 1827 - 1864)

Home State: Illinois

Command Billet: Commanding Detachment

Branch of Service: Cavalry

Unit: Schambeck's Company, Chicago Dragoons

Before Antietam

He was Captain of a small Chicago militia unit, the Washington Light Cavalry, before the war. He enrolled with them for war service in Chicago on 18 April 1861 and was commissioned Captain of the independent cavalry Company afterward known as the Chicago Dragoons on 3 July.

On the Campaign

He commanded his Company in Maryland.

The rest of the War

His dragoons became Company C of the new 16th Illinois Infantry in June 1863 and he was commissioned First Major of the regiment (to date from 17 April 1863). He was killed by a gunshot to his head - "by an estray ball" - in camp near Atlanta, GA on 3 August 1864.

References & notes

His service from the Adjutant General,1 as Frederick Schambeck, the Register,2 which says he was killed in action, and T.M. Eddy's The Patriotism of Illinois (Vol. II, 1866). Personal details from family genealogists, Alfred Theodore Andreas's History of Chicago (Vol. II, 1885), and from his widow's 1864 pension application, online from fold3. He's also seen as Frederick Schaumbeck. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Susanna "Susan" Ewald (b. Hesse 1836-1885) in Louisville, KY in April 1854 and they had 3 children between 1855 and 1860. She received a Federal widow's pension after his death.

Birth

c. 1827; Baden, GERMANY

Death

08/03/1864; Atlanta, GA; burial in Marietta National Cemetery, Marietta, GA

Notes

1   State of Illinois, Adjutant General, and J.N Reece, Brig. Gen, Adjutant General, Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Illinois (1861-66), 9 volumes, Springfield: Journal Company, Printers and Binders (State Printer), 1900-1902  [AotW citation 26182]

2   US Army, Adjutant General, Official Army Register of the Volunteer Forces, U. S. Army, 8 vols., Washington, DC: Adjutant General's Office, 1867, Part VI, pg. 205  [AotW citation 26183]