Adolph Schwartz New York (1829-1872) TWO WORKS: HOUSES AND YARD and HOUSE WITH THATCHED ROOF pencil, framed, dated: lower right, 1843 paper sizes: H6 3/8" W9 1/8" and H6 3/4" W8 7/8" *Provenance: From the estate of the artist. *Artist biography: Adolph Schwartz was born in Karlsruhe, in the duchy of Baden, Germany, where his father, Karl Anton Schwartz, was a high-ranking military officer. By the time he was twenty, young Schwartz was a lieutenant of the artillery. His German military career ended abruptly, however, when he joined with the idealists of his generation in supporting Franz Siegel's Badische Freiheitsarmee (Baden Freedom Brigade). The revolution was crushed and the young lieutenant was sentenced to a five-year prison term. In May 1850 Schwartz escaped from his prison cell in Kislau Castle, and, in a manner worthy of a romantic adventure story, succeeded in crossing the border from Germany to France. Schwartz sailed from Le Havre to the United States and arrived in New York in July 1850. From 1856 to 1857, Schwartz served in the expeditionary army of American General William Walker, who had overtaken Nicaragua and proclaimed himself the country's president. When Walker's military dictatorship was overthrown, Schwartz fled to San Francisco. Perhaps armed with an introduction from Walker, who had been in California in 1850, Schwartz made friends with Johann August Sutter, a fellow German and the owner of Sutter's mill in Coloma, where gold had first been discovered. Schwartz also worked for a time with The Pathfinder, John Charles Fremont, a politician, military man, mining entrepreneur, and explorer of the country west of the Rocky Mountains. His illustrations of Fremont's gold-mining venture in and around Mariposa, California, are remarkable. They offer the historian a rare visual record of hard-rock mining operation during the California Gold Rush. When the Civil War broke out, Fremont was made Commander of the West and Schwartz received permission to organize an artillery company. In the course of what seems to have been a distinguished Civil War career, Schwartz served with distinction with Generals Grant and McClellan in activities on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, in Kentucky and Tennessee. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Shiloh while he was serving under General Sherman. Schwartz returned to active duty and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and Inspector General. He followed McClellan to Arkansas, the Texas border, and the Red River, resigning when McClellan did in 1864. Schwartz died from complications of his war injuries, in 1872, when he was only 45 years old.