Friedrich Hecker Monument, Benton Park

The obelisk rising here in Benton Park honors a man who tried to overthrow a German monarchy and then fought to save the American Union. Friedrich Hecker was a fiery lawyer and orator in the Grand Duchy of Baden. In April of eighteen forty-eight he led an armed uprising to found a German republic. He expected tens of thousands to rally to him. Only a few thousand came, and his rebellion was crushed at Kandern. He fled to Switzerland, then bought a farm near Belleville, Illinois, that same year, one of the German exiles known as the Forty Eighters.

When the Civil War came, Hecker helped raise and command two Illinois regiments full of German, Hungarian, and Czech immigrants. He was badly wounded at Chancellorsville. He died on his farm in eighteen eighty-one. The next year, before a crowd of more than fifteen thousand, this monument was dedicated. The carved dates eighteen forty-eight and eighteen sixty-one mark his two revolutions.