Guide to the Archival Collections.pdf - Missouri History Museum

of major general in the Union army. Following the war he worked as a United States consul in
France and Germany. He died January 2, 1917, in Duisburg, Germany.
Collection contains diary (163 pages) of General Osterhaus while commanding the 1st
Division, 15th Army Corps, dated January 1 to December 15, 1864. (Osterhaus was traveling and
away from his command from early January to February 19; he did not record any entries for the
period July 19 to August 24.) Diary contains occasional accounts of operations in northern
Alabama while encamped at Woodville, January to April; accounts of operations during the
Atlanta and Savannah Campaigns; and regular accounts of the number of miles marched.
Collection also contains pardon granted by President Johnson to G.R. Wilson, dated July 26,
1865; Military Order of the Loyal Legion certificate of Osterhaus, dated 1904; several obituaries
of Osterhaus; and newspaper article (with typescript English translation) from the New York
Staat-Zeitung und Herold, April 5, 1925, titled “The Germans in the Civil War: Recollections of
Generals Osterhaus, Sigel, Schurz, von Steinwehr and Willich.” Also includes letters,
documents, clippings and genealogical material regarding the Osterhaus family; and five letters
of P. Joseph Osterhaus, 1915-1916, to Sen. Hugo regarding entrance of U.S. to World War I.
Cite as: Osterhaus Family Papers, Missouri History Museum Archives, St. Louis.
A1168
Osterhorn, Johann Wilhelm (1830-1874).
Papers, 1849-2000 (bulk 1862-1865). 1 box; 1 volume
Johann Wilhelm Osterhorn was born January 14, 1830, in Allendorf, Germany. He left
Germany without government permission and worked and traveled extensively in the United
States from 1855 to 1860. He met Juliana Gertrude Wilhelmine "Minna" Buhner (born 1839) in
Marburg on the Lahn (Germany) around 1860, and they agreed to travel to America together.
They emigrated to St. Louis, Wilhelm in 1861 and Minna in 1862, and were married there June
5, 1862. In April 1861 he was elected 1st lieutenant of Company A, 3rd Missouri Infantry
(Union). He resigned due to poor health in early 1863, but in July of the same year he reentered
the service as captain of Company G, 31st Missouri Infantry. He was discharged in January
1865. Following the war he moved with Minna to Bismarck, Missouri, where they operated a
hotel and restaurant. They had four children. Wilhelm was shot and killed by a tenant in
Bismarck in 1874. Minna later married Herman Hasenpatt. She died in 1915 in Bismarck.
This collection contains letters between Wilhelm and Minna Osterhorn, and from friends and
family. The letters from Wilhelm to Minna sometimes give first-hand accounts of conditions in
the U.S. Army during the Civil War. The letters from the Buhner family in Marburg consist
mostly of news about family and friends. The collection also contains Wilhelm's journal, which
has untranslated receipts in the front, and his account of his own personal history in the middle,
the rest is blank. There is also a bound booklet titled "The Genealogy of the Spielman Family,"
compiled by Armand Spielman, the great grandson of Wilhelm and Minna Osterhorn.
In German, some translations available.
Finding aid available.
Cite as: Johann Wilhelm Osterhorn Papers, Missouri History Museum Archives, St. Louis.
A1169
Oversize collection. 5 (20x24) flat storage boxes; 10 map drawers
Contains items from other collections that are too large to be housed in manuscript boxes.
List of items in each box.
A1170