Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-09-03
Prince Felix saIm-saim.

the United States by the news that at
the battle of Gravelotte, on the 18th ult.,
Prince Felix Salm-Salm, Major in the
Fourth Regiment of Dragons of the
Royal Prussian Guard, was killed while
charging at the head of his cavalry:
Felix Constantine John Nepomuc
Salm-Salm, born in 1928, was the second
son of Prince William Florentin Salm-
Salm, and the brother of Prince Alfred,
the actual head of the once sovereign
family of that name. He early entered
the Prussian service; passed thence into
the Austrian; and having exhausted the
patience, if not the purse, of the Prince,
his elder brother, who thrice paid his
debts for him at Berlin and Vienna, he
came to America on sort Of desperate
military adventure at the outset of our
civil war. Here he made himself better
known than esteemed in the too famous
camps of Blenker and about the hotels
of Washington, till, fortunately for him
self, he fell an with, found favor in the
sight of, and married handsome, dash
ing and spirited girl of Creole origin,
Miss LeClerc. The new princess made
up her mind to be princess indeed
Through her indefatigable exertions of
all kinds, her husband was made Brig
adler in the United States Army. He
served in Alabama and Georgia with no
particular distinction, but not without
credit.
After the war was over he hesitated
some time between accepting a position
in our regular army and going back to
Europe, and finally decided on trying
his fortunes in Mexico. He was not at
first well received by Macmillan, then
near the close of his hopeless imperial
experiment But the calamities of 1867
threw him into close relations with the
unfortunate Emperor, who finally made
him his first aid-de-camp. He went
with Maximilian-to Queretaro; behaved
most faithfully and gallaptly in that
dark hour of treachery and despair;
was captured with his master, and
would doubtless have been shot with
him had not his wife displayed, in the
service of both her luckless husband
and of his more luckless Emperor
fertility Of resources, a daring, perse-
verance, and skill worthy OF any
of the heroines of romance. The Prin-
cess finally succeeded in saving her
husbands iifs He suffered an imprison-
ment Of nearly a year at Vera Cruz,
from which also by her influence and
energy he was released in 1868. She
then went with him to Europe, where she
fought and won a still more arduous
battle for him by securing not only his
readmissioh te The social privileges of
his order, but his appointment to the
high rank which he held at the time OF
kig death in the Prussian army. His
brother WAS induced by her to make this
possible hy paying once more the
princes debts in in;.ssia 1S:si... His debts in
Austria, it would have been too muc,h, to
expect should be unnecessarily settled;
and Prince Felix took up on his return
an attitude toward the House of Haps- |
burg which made such settlement un-
necessary by making it practically inn |
possible for hun to reside, if he had |
wished to, in Vienna. He published last
year q curious sketch of the career
Of Maximilian in Mexico, in two volumes,
which is full Of interesting personal in
cident, and may be considered under |
proper reserves" as a valuable contri-
button to the history of one of the most
dramatic and least understood episodes
p the annals of our time. Prince Felix
claimed to have been named by the
Emperor Aaximiiiau the executor of
his character and his correspondence.
This claim he pressed, but pressed in
vain, on the Emperor Francis Joseph,
who declined to surrender to him the
etters of his murdered brother. The
Princess survives her husband, and re-
sides with the family of his brother, at
Anhalt, in the Frussian States