The Forty-Eighters on Possum Creek is a Texas-German novel by W.A. Trenckmann titled in German Die Lateiner am Possum Creek, The novel deals with the plight of the educated German farmers during the Civil War and its aftermath who had settled in and around Millheim in Austin County, Texas. Trenckmann serialized the novel in his newspaper, Das Bellville Wochenblatt [The Bellville Weekly] beginning January 1908 and continuing on the back pages throughout the year. Born at Millheim in 1859, Trenckmann was a boy during the Civil War, but the tensions occasioned by the conflict, experienced acutely in his own family as well as the wider German community, left an indelible impression upon him.
Possum Creek is the fictional name given to Millheim by the author. Millheim was never a town in the normal sense; it was rather a cluster of educated German immigrant families who set up small subsistence farmsteads in walking distance from one another. To be sure, the community included in time a store, a doctor’s office, a school, a community hall, and several small shops, but these venues were often adjuncts to the more or less self-sufficient farmsteads. There were about thirty families associated with the community in its heyday. Most of the characters in the novel can be linked to real-life individuals and will be identified in footnotes during the course of the narrative.
Millheim counts as one of the principal Lateiner communities in Texas, that is, towns and communities where educated German immigrants tended to concentrate. The word Lateiner came about because in the 19th century knowledge of Latin was considered to be a sine qua non for an educated person, and this was especially true in Germany. Unfortunately, the closest English equivalent for Lateiner, “Latinist,” lacks the rich associations of the German term. The reader will quickly notice the prevalence of Latin words and phrases sprinkled throughout the novel, which reflects the classical grounding of most of the principal characters in the book. Charles Nagel, who also grew up in Millheim and subsequently became Secretary of Commerce in the Taft Administration, recalled that he had never known such a concentration of university-trained men in a single community.
The little community enjoyed an amazing amount of forbearance and independence in the decade prior to the outbreak of war. The Germans were left alone, for the most part, to go and do as they wish. Nor were they hassled for speaking German, as happened at a later date. On the contrary, they were feted for their industriousness and the fact that they paid their bills on time. Moreover, many of them brought with them valuable skills acquired through the centuries old German apprentice system (Zunftwesen). German carpenters, cabinetmakers, tailors, shoemakers, saddle and harness makers, etc., came to be highly prized in the quasi-frontier setting of the period.
But this situation of mutual tolerance was bound to come to an end. The simple fact that most of the Germans farmed on the free labor model was cause enough for suspicion in the early stages of the conflict. The vote for secession exacerbated mutual distrust because it showed the great majority of German settlers at Cat Spring and Millheim remained loyal to the Union in a way that was quantifiable and unmistakable. Ninety-nine votes were cast against secession and only eight for at the Millheim-Cat Spring box. The situation worsened markedly, however, after the imposition and enforcement of conscript laws in the spring of 1862. Prior to this, the South had relied on volunteers or called up militias, which were at root also voluntary. Thus, those who were opposed to the war could simply side step the conflict. With the imposition of the conscription laws in 1862, however, this became increasingly more difficult.
A large literature has arisen concerning the attitude of the German settlers toward slavery and secession in Texas during the Civil War, especially in regard to the more spectacular incidents, such as the Battle of the Nueces, which took place between a group of sixty-four (largely) disaffected Germans seeking to make their way to Mexico and a larger contingent of Confederate forces, who overtook and ambushed them at a remote stretch of the Nueces River in August 1862. For the purposes of this introduction, let it be noted that scholars still disagree as to the true nature of German dissent, which remains elusive. What has been largely overlooked in much of the secondary literature, however, is that Texas Germans themselves had a lot to say on the subject. Their voices offer a true window into the nuances and complexities of the situation. Unfortunately, much of their commentary (whether in the form of essays, memoirs, or historical romance) has remained inaccessible. It is the purpose of this translation to present a work of literature to a wider audience that is gripping and entertaining in its own right even as it contributes to our appreciation for the hard choices faced by the educated German farmers in Texas at the time.
The Novel
The novel, however, can be read and interpreted in distinct ways, and therein lies the richness of the work. It can be read as a historical romance, as a roman a clef, or as a coming-of-age story, what in German is termed a Bildungsroman. Most will praise the novel for the clear window it offers to the very complex situation of divided loyalties experienced by the German settlers of Millheim and, by extension, to the wider German community in Texas during the war. But the novel can also be read in a completely different way; namely, it casts light on the complexity of late 19th German society as well and the many diverse causes for emigration. The novel presents a whole host of easily recognizable German stereotypes–the absent-minded and eccentric German professor, the self-made teacher, the titled aristocrat, the skilled tailor, the money grubbing opportunist, the clueless student of theology, the soldier of fortune, the titled Prussian officer, the dedicated school teacher, the simple farm laborer, etc., set against the unique stresses posed by the American Civil War. Their varied reflexes offer a narrative that also illuminates the complex class structure of post-revolutionary and pre-Second Empire Germany, a period that is usually referred to as Biedemeyer.
That this was a conscious purpose of the novel gains support from the many extensive digressions in the novel explaining in great detail the European side of the story that led most of the principal characters to emigrate. Thus, the tale becomes consciously a two-continent commentary illuminating the history of both Texas and Germany of the period.
But in the final analysis, I have concluded that the novel is a parable for the evolution and transformation of the Forty-eighters and their republican ideals as they clashed against new realities on both sides of the Atlantic and evolved over time. In Texas their idealism clashed with the fact of slavery and the war to preserve it; In Germany, the old idealism melted away before the rise of Nationalism and the pride all Germans felt after Prussia defeated France in the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, which allowed Germany to unite albeit under an aristocratic and anti-democratic form. The novel ends, in fact, with the marriage of the young hero, Kuno, and his childhood sweetheart, Hedwig. The ceremony brings together men who had remained true to their youthful idealism and had been steadfast in their opposition to the war and those who had modified attitudes in respect to slavery and the Confederacy. In the novel, Kuno’s teacher and his own father represented embodied these two antipodes. They had disagreed bitterly during the war and refused to speak even once the war had ended. But then a herald brings news of Prussian victory and the proclamation of the second German Empire during the celebration. All join together then in a rousing rendition of “Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles,” the new German national anthem, and all the old disagreements and divisions are forgotten.
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