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Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee

de Ann Marie Ackermann

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History. True Crime. Nonfiction. HTML:

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 t… (mais)

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Death of an Assassin by Ann Marie Ackerman is a well plotted and researched book of crime, war, and intrigue. The pages are filled with historical facts as well as reenactments of events as they are thought to have occurred. The solving of one of the oldest cold cases in history and the link to the USA’s past is fascinating.

Follow along as Ann Ackermann takes you through history and a crime that went unsolved for over 40 years, leading directly to one of America's most famous Generals of all time.
--
Genre: Non-Fiction/Historical/True Crime
Publisher: The Kent State University Press
Publishing date: September 1, 2017

This is the story of the murder of Mayor Johann Heinrich Rieber in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg, Bonnigheim, now known as Southwest Germany. As well as the man who murdered him, Gottlob Rueb. Rueb played a role in US history while protecting Robert E. Lee during the Mexican-American War.

Lee wrote to numerous colleagues and household members regarding a deceased soldier that he admired for his strength while enduring considerable pain. It is not known whether Robert E. Lee ever learned Rueb’s name. Evidence suggests that Lee had no personal contact with Rueb, and most likely never knew Rueb was a murderer.

Much of the investigation into the murder of Rieber can be attributed to the birth of ballistics forensic. This case may well have served as the jumping off point in today’s modern forensic studies and is a look into the world of crime and investigation as it was hundreds of years ago.

In 1872, after stringing together all of the evidence and documentation of the day Frederick Rupp concluded that Mr. Rueb was the killer. Mr. Rupp, who was once a suspect in the murder wrote a letter to Bonnigheim’s city council stating that he believed Rueb to be the murderer of Mayor Rieber. Unfortunately, Mr. Rueb deceased by then could not be punished for the crime. The cold case of who killed Mayor Rieber was solved thanks to Mr. Rupp. Those who were wrongly accused, including Mr. Rupp were vindicated.

Death of an Assassin is an interesting read, the pages filled with historical value. It is well written as well as entertaining. Ms. Ackermann has crafted an easy to follow story that will leave the reader wanting more. The insights into the mind and life of Robert E. Lee are captivating and give the reader a new take on what Lee felt and thought during his first real battle. History comes alive through this story and sends the reader on a trip back through time.

This book is highly recommended to all of those who enjoy crime, and a historical who-done-it. Death of an Assassin takes readers on a trip into a world no one alive today remembers. ( )
  GinDuperre | Jan 4, 2019 |
For the second time in a year, I’ve had book encounters with 19th century European assassins who eventually fled to the United States and began new lives under different names. The first was Sergei Degaev, who assassinated the chief of Tsar Nicholas's security organization in 1883. Sixteen years later he would become a popular professor at the University of South Dakota. Most recently I was introduced to a man who assassinated the mayor of Bönnigheim, Germany, in 1835. His potentially greater impact on U.S. history is explored in Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee.

Author Ann Marie Ackerman unravels a real life mystery. Not only is this an engaging piece of history, the former prosecutor uses an appendix to present the compelling evidence and reasoning behind her identification of a 19th century German murderer. Ackerman also makes a strong case that the initial investigation may have seen the first use of forensic ballistics as a law enforcement tool.

Death of an Assassin begins on the night of October 21, 1835, when the mayor of Bönnigheim, Germany, was shot just a few steps from his front door. The mayor did not see his assailant and died about 30 hours later. Using the original investigative file, Ackerman details the investigation, providing a rare look inside the techniques and legal standards of the time.

Despite a thorough investigation and examination of several potential suspects, the case was essentially closed without resolution in 1837. At some point, the actual assassin emigrated to the U.S. illegally. (Ackerman doesn't identify him until approximately halfway through the book so his name isn't used here.) In January 1840, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, then a force of only 7,000 men.

At the time of the assassination, Robert E. Lee was 28, a lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. That same month, the Texas Revolution against Mexican rule began, eventually leading to the Mexican-American War a decade later. And, Ackerman maintains, that would bring Lee and the German assassin together during the siege of Veracruz in March 1847, Lee’s first battle experience.

In April 1847, Lee would write his 15-year-old son about his experiences. He described a soldier in a company protecting him and the battery he commanded during the bombardment of Veracruz. The soldier’s thigh was shattered by a Mexican cannonball and he lay in agony most of the day. When finally being borne off in a litter, he was killed by an incoming shell. “I doubt whether all Mexico is worth to us the life of that man,” Lee wrote. (It seems somewhat ironic that an account of Lee's military activities more than a decade before the Civil War is released when the nation is debating Confederate statues.)

Currently living in Germany, Ackerman’s experience as a prosecutor in America shows through. Poor military record-keeping at the time forces her to say the assassin “probably” was the soldier mentioned in Lee’s letter. Yet she musters and builds a strong case for naming him. Although there are a few instances of repetition and the actual events surrounding the man's death are muddied by time, Death of an Assassin is a cogent work.

In 1872, the assassin was identified, ironically, by a Bönnigheim resident who emigrated to the U.S. in 1836 after unfounded rumor said he killed the mayor. In a letter to authorities, he relayed that a friend told him that shortly after arriving in the U.S., the assassin admitted to killing the mayor for rejecting his application to be a game warden. While they were aware the killer died in combat in Mexico, it took Ackerman to make the connection to American history.

(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie.)
  PrairieProgressive | Aug 30, 2017 |
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History. True Crime. Nonfiction. HTML:

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 t

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