Death of an assassin : the true story of the German murderer who died defending Robert E. Lee / Ann Marie Ackermann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ackermann, Ann Marie, author.

Series:

True crime history series.

True Crime History Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rieber, Johann Heinrich, -1835.

Rieber, Johann Heinrich.

Lee, Robert E. (Robert Edward), 1807-1870.

Lee, Robert E.

Murder--Germany--Bönnigheim--Case studies.

Murder.

Murderers--Germany--Bönnigheim--Case studies.

Murderers.

Alvarado, Battle of, Mexico, 1846.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, 2017.

Summary:

From the depths of German and American archives comes a story one soldier never wanted told. The first volunteer killed defending Robert E. Lee's position in battle was really a German assassin. After fleeing to the United States to escape prosecution for murder, the assassin enlisted in a German company of the Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Mexican-American War and died defending Lee's battery at the Siege of Veracruz in 1847. Lee wrote a letter home, praising this unnamed fallen volunteer defender. Military records identify him, but none of the Americans knew about his past life of crime. Before fighting with the Americans, Lee's defender had assassinated Johann Heinrich Rieber, mayor of Bönnigheim, Germany, in 1835. Rieber's assassination became 19th-century Germany's coldest case ever solved by a non-law enforcement professional and the only 19th-century German murder ever solved in the United States. Thirty-seven years later, another suspect in the assassination who had also fled to America found evidence in Washington, D.C., that would clear his own name, and he forwarded it to Germany. The German prosecutor Ernst von Hochstetter corroborated the story and closed the case file in 1872, naming Lee's defender as Rieber's murderer. Relying primarily on German sources, Death of an Assassin tracks the never-before-told story of this German company of Pennsylvania volunteers. It follows both Lee's and the assassin's lives until their dramatic encounter in Veracruz and picks up again with the surprising case resolution decades later. This case also reveals that forensic ballistics--firearm identification through comparison of the striations on a projectile with the rifling in the barrel--is much older than previously thought. History credits Alexandre Laccasagne for inventing forensic ballistics in 1888. But more than 50 years earlier, Eduard Hammer, the magistrate who investigated the Rieber assassination in 1835, used the same technique to eliminate a forester's rifle as the murder weapon. A firearms technician with state police of Baden-Württemberg tested Hammer's technique in 2015 and confirmed its efficacy, cementing the argument that Hammer, not Laccasagne, should be considered the father of forensic ballistics. The roles the volunteer soldier/assassin and Robert E. Lee played at the Siege of Veracruz are part of American history, and the record-breaking, 19th-century cold case is part of German history. For the first time, Death of an Assassin brings the two stories together.

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface: The Murder Case That Broke All the Rules

Acknowledgments

Chapter One: A Nameless Hero

Part One: Murder in the Kingdom of Württemberg: 1835-36

Chapter Two: Crime Scene Bönnigheim, 1835

Chapter Three: Portents of Rebellion

Chapter Four: A Town Reacts

Chapter Five: The Detective's Hourglass

Chapter Six: Queen of the Carolina

Chapter Seven: Buckshot in the Scales of Justice

Chapter Eight: Like Cain Will You Wander

Chapter Nine: Witness!

Chapter Ten: The Birth of Forensic Ballistics

Chapter Eleven: Celestial Metronome

Chapter Twelve: A Note in the Woods

Part Two: Exile in the United States: 1835-46

Chapter Thirteen: Hunter and Prey

Chapter Fourteen: Escape to America

Chapter Fifteen: Changing Course

Chapter Sixteen: F-major Captain

Part Three: Heroism in Mexico: 1847

Chapter Seventeen: Island of the Wolves

Chapter Eighteen: River of Gold, Fortress of White

Chapter Nineteen: Amphibious Wager

Chapter Twenty: Roar of Tornadoes

Chapter Twenty-One: One Man Worth All of Mexico

Part Four: An International Solution: 1872

Chapter Twenty-Two: Post from America

Chapter Twenty-Three: New Investigation and Case Closure

Epilogue: Unpaid Debt: 2017

Appendix A: Sources Indicating Lee Wrote His Letter about Gottlob Rueb

Appendix B: Additional History of Pennsylvania's German Company in the Mexican-American War

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-63101-259-2

1-63101-258-4

OCLC:

979055258