Monument to 32nd Indiana's Soldiers Killed at Rowlett's Station,Ky.

The Thirty-second Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry, also called

the First German, was composed of German immigrants (many of them

Turners) and the descendants of local German settlers. Several of

the ten companies which comprised the 32nd Indiana were formed by

Turner Clubs from all over Indiana--Indianapolis, Madison, Lafayette,

Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, Aurora, Evansville, Lawrenceburg--of

Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, Ohio. On August 24, 1861 these

volunteers were mustered at Camp Morton, Indianapolis.

August (von) Willich, the regimental commander was born November 19,

1810, in Braunsberg, Prussia. He entered the cadet house at Potsdam

when he was twelve years old and, at fifteen, the military academy

in Berlin. By the age of eighteen, he was a lieutenant in the

Prussian army and a captain three years later. Willich fought

with revolutionaries in Baden in 1848, then fled to the United

States, where he settled in New York and worked as a carpenter

in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 1853, he edited a labor newspaper

he founded in Cincinnati for the German speaking community. At

the request of Governor Oliver P. Morton, he assumed command of

the Thirty-second Indiana. Willich drilled his regiment, to a

high degree, in German. He earned the reputation of disciplinarian

and would direct his regiment by Prussian bugle calls on the parade

ground and battlefield.

Rebels, more than 3,000 strong, were beaten into flight from

the battlefield at Rowlett's Station by 500 German soldiers.

Lieutenant Max Sachs, leading Company "C" on the Union left

during the battle, was the one officer among the thirteen men

killed. Surrounded by Texas Rangers, Sachs and four of his men

were struck down in a blaze of gunfire after defiantly choosing

to fight rather than to surrender.

In the days following the engagement, Private August Bloedner

of Company "F," 32nd Indiana procured a large tablet of outcrop

limestone from the fields around the Green River town. He expertly

carved an account of the battle in German, including the names,

places and dates of birth of those men killed. Bloedner surmounted

the monument with a recess in which he placed patriotic symbols

including an eagle clutching a brace of cannon flanked by National

flags. The regiment placed the memorial to their comrades at the

hilltop burial site west of Munfordville, KY on the north side

of the river sometime in January 1862. In response to directives

to gather all Union dead to National Cemeteries the remains, along

with the monument, were removed from Munfordville to Cave Hill in

June 1867. The monument was mounted upright on a commemorative

base stone with the English inscription, "In memory of the First

Victims of the 32. Reg. Indiana Vol. Who fell at the Battle of

Rowlettd [sic] Station Dec. 17, 1861."

On February 2, 2002, John M. Trowbridge of the Kentucky

Military History Museum at Frankfort, directed a grave side

memorial ceremony at Cave Hill National Cemetery, located at 701

Baxter Avenue, Louisville, Kentucky. Reenactors of the 32nd

Indiana and the Bluegrass Mountain Artillery of Fort Duffield

Camp #1 were on hand to honor those men killed at the battle

of Rowlett's Station on December 17, 1861. A posting of the

colors, invocation, and dignitary remarks culminated with

a military salute and benediction.

At 1 p.m. that afternoon a symposium examined the history of the

monument, the battle and the regiment, at the German-American

Club located at 1840 Lincoln Avenue in Louisville.