Albin Francisco Schoepf

Albin Francisco Schoepf was born in Podgorze, Poland, on March 1, 1822. In 1837, Schoepf graduated from the Vienna Military academy, after which he joined the Austrian artillery as a Lieutenant. During the turbulent revolutions of 1848, Schoepf joined the Hungarian revolutionaries and helped create the Hungarian state, which only lasted a year. After the failed revolt, Schoepf moved to the Ottoman Empire in present-day Turkey, where he joined the Ottoman Army as an artillery instructor. By the 1850s, Schoepf moved to the United States, where he became a coastal surveyor and then to the U.S. Patent Office.

At the turn of the Civil War, Schoepf joined the Union army and was made a Brigadier General. Schoepf was sent to the growing front in Kentucky, where he drilled his men at Camp Dick Robinson. In the fall of 1862, Schopef was sent to defend the Federal post along the Rockcastle River at Camp Wildcat. However, He and his men arrived the day before the battle but proved vital in the Union victory there.  In January of 1862, Schoepf and his men were again crucial in the Union victory in the Battle of Mill Springs, where his brigade launched a devastating attack on the Confederate right flank. 

In the late fall of 1862, Schoepf was placed in command of a division in the Army of the Ohio. On the night before the Battle of Perryville, Schoepf, along with many other army senior officers, drafted and signed a letter to President Abraham Lincoln asking him to relieve General Don Carlos Buell from command of the army and replace him with General George H. Thomas. 

Though his division did not see heavy action at the Battle of Perryville on October 8, 1862, several of his brigades did see light fighting at the Russell House and Peters Hill. 

After the battle, Schoepf was placed over the Buell Inquiry on his conduct after the Battle of Perryville. Which was done to judge whether Buell’s actions during and after the battle were worthy of dismissal from the army. Though Schoepf did not like Buell, he requested a transfer to another assignment after Buell raised the question of hostility during the proceedings. Accordingly, Schoepf was sent to Fort Delaware, a Confederate prisoner-war camp. Schoepf held the post for the rest of the war. After the war, Schoepf returned to the Patent Office but died in 1866 from stomach cancer.