behind AotW

26 year old merchant Alois Zwick arrived in New York City from Le Havre, France on 14 February 1850 aboard the packet Bavaria. He was probably coming from his home in Gruningen in Wuerttemberg, Germany. That’s Bavaria above, in an 1857 watercolor by Eugene Grandin, sold at auction in 2017.

Private Zwick enlisted in Company A, 103rd New York Infantry in August 1862 and was wounded by a gunshot to his back at Antietam a month later. He was discharged for wounds in November 1862 in New York City, became an American citizen in 1866, and then lived in Milwaukee.

In 1879 he was out walking along a viaduct, reportedly under the influence of liquor, fell and struck his head on a sharp stone, and died shortly afterward at age 54.