Francis Huebschmann
Francis Huebschmann was a German American physician and politician, and a noted surgeon of the American Civil War for the Union Army.Biography
Francis Huebschmann was born in Riethnordhausen, in what was then the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. He was educated at Erfurt and Weimar, and graduated in medicine at Jena in 1841.
He came to the United States in 1842, and settled in Milwaukee, where he resided until his death.
He was school commissioner from 1843 until 1851, a member of the first Wisconsin Constitutional Convention of 1846, and served on the committee on suffrage and elective franchise. He was a special champion of the provision in the constitution granting foreigners equal rights with Americans. He was Democratic Party presidential elector in 1848, for Lewis Cass, a member of the Milwaukee City Council and a Milwaukee County supervisor from 1848 until 1867, and Wisconsin State Senator in 1851/2, 1862, and 1871/2. From 1853 until 1857, he was superintendent of the affairs of the First Nations of the northern United States.
During the Civil War, he entered the Union Army in 1862 as surgeon of the 26th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. He was surgeon in charge of a division at the Battle of Chancellorsville, and of the XI Corps at Gettysburg, where he was held by the Confederates for three days. He was also at the Battle of Chattanooga, in charge of the Corps hospital in Lookout Valley in 1864, and brigade surgeon in the Atlanta Campaign. He was honorably discharged in that year, and, returning to Milwaukee, became connected with the United States General Hospital.
