behind AotW

16 year old Fifer Hermann Perls, 103rd New York Infantry, was wounded by a gunshot to his left leg in action at Antietam in September 1862 and was discharged as disabled in December. He lived in Lincoln, Nebraska for some years, but was in Washington, DC by 1893 …

Herman Perls, a veteran of the late war, one of the owners and publishers of the Deutsche Presse, the leading German newspaper at the Capital, fell and broke his leg on Wednesday, Sept. 6. What makes this accident especially severe to Comrade Perls is the fact that when a soldier in a Now York regiment he was wounded so severely in his other leg at Antietam that he could hardly navigate. This accident, therefore, is especially unfortunate, because the good leg is the one that was hurt this time.

Pictured here is his birth record from a c. 1847 census of the Jewish population of Pless, Prussia (now Pszczyna, Poland), online from the Centralna Bibliotka Judaistyczna.

Below is Pless on a map. You’re welcome.