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Alexander Schimmelfennig (July 20, 1824 – September 5, 1865) was an American Civil War general. He belongs to the Forty-Eighters. At the Battle of Gettysburg he commanded a brigade in General Shurz's 3rd division of the 11th corps. His brigade suffered greatly mostly due to the high prisoner rate. It and Generals Coster's brigade did their best to cover the retreat of the rest of the 11th Corps, but it soon became disorganized and fled too. For a short time he took command of the 3rd division after Carl Shurz was shortly in command of the 11th corps. During the retreat through the town, he was trapped in a pig barn, and wanting to avoid capture, stayed there for the rest of the battle. After the battle he rejoined the corps to the pleasure of the troops, who thought he was dead. He went in 1863 west along with the eleventh and twelfth corps. He served well out west and commanded the District of Charleston in Sherman's March to the Sea campaign.
At the time of the Civil War, there was strong nativist sentiment in the Union. This sentiment was especially directed on the German troops of the 11th corps, who engaged in a mass retreat after they were ambushed by Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville. The mostly German 11th corps took the brunt of the scorn that poured forth from the press. After Gettysburg, Schimmelfennig's story was seized upon the press and was promulgated as yet another example of German cowardice.
