An Exchange of Letters with Longfellow

Niclas Müller, obscure printer, minor poet, and earnest patriot, belonged to the band of Forty-Eighters, whose love of liberty led them to transplant their ideal from the fallow soil of the old world to the fertile fields of the new, where, finding it flourish and flower, they were not content to enjoy its fruits by themselves but sought to share them with others who had as yet not tasted them. A typical member of this consecrated band, Müller, in the words of the Reverend Charles Timothy Brooks, had “always been at hand during the struggles for liberty on both sides of the water,” having been involved in both the German Revolution of 1848 and the American Civil War. As publicist and poet he supported the liberal movement in Germany and the abolition movement in America. “He wrote,” Brooks remarked, “several stirring songs during our war.” Foremost among them was a cycle of sonnets entitled Zehn gepanzerte Sonnete, Mit einer Widmung an Ferdinand Freiligrath, und einem Nachklang: “Die Union, wie sie sein soll,” Von Niclas Müller, Im November 1862 (New York, Gedruckt und zu haben bei Nic. Müller, 48 Beekman St.), which Brooks himself translated into English but never published.