April 15
On this day in 1861, Christian Cornehlsen, the 33-year old captain of a Wilmington militia company known as the “German Volunteers” (named for the large number of German-born residents of the city who served in it) called his unit to assemble in front of the Carolina Hotel in the afternoon armed and ready for action. Excited by the prospect of war after Fort Sumter had surrendered two days earlier, men flocked to the hotel. Captain Cornehlsen–co-owner of the city’s prosperous Sharpsteen and Cornehlsen Saloon, owner of nine slaves, and breeder of champion thoroughbred race horses–signed 49 soldiers into state service this day as 12-month volunteers. After seizing Fort Caswell, guarding the mouth of the Cape Fear River, the unit transferred into Confederate service and became Company A, 18th North Carolina Infantry. This was a heady moment for Cornehlsen. Born in Lamstedt, just west of Hamburg, Germany, in January 1828, Cornehlsen had immigrated to America by the 1850s and established himself as a respected member of local Wilmington society. He became captain of the prestigious “German Volunteers” by July 1858. Local newspaper editors celebrated him as a “popular commander” and “gallant captain” (and even reported his trip to Europe in the fall of 1859, where he got married). Excited by the prospect of being an officer in the Confederate army, the 5’10, brown-haired, blue-eyed Captain splurged on a uniform and its accoutrements, spending an astonishing $1024 (the equivalent of nearly $37,000 in 2025) at the Wilmington establishment of S.B. Kahnweiler & Company, “Dealers in Silk and Fancy Dry Goods.” The uniform became an expensive souvenir of his service, however. He was defeated for reelection, when the regiment re-organized as 3-year volunteers on April 24, 1862.
Picture of Hanke Vollers, a First Lieutenant
who served under Cornehlsen and was also
defeated for reelection on April 24, 1862.
Sources
Weymouth T. Jordan, Jr., comp., North Carolina Troops, 1861-1865: A Roster, 6:308; 1860 U.S. Census: New Hanover County; Compiled Military Service Record; Wilmington Daily Journal, January 1, 1855; Wilmington Journal, July 9, 1858, October 29, 1858, November 11, 1859; April 15, 1861.
