As early as 1851, at the Philadelphia Convention, the _Turnerbund_ had announced itself in favor of the Free-soil party platform. The delegates to the Pittsburgh Convention in September of 1856 announced their adhesion to the platform of the new Republican party and to its candidates, Fremont and Dayton. In October of 1860 the Executive Committee, now located in Baltimore, sent out letters calling upon societies everywhere to support the Republican platform and vote for Lincoln in the coming election. This advice was generally followed, even in the slave states. The next spring, during the riot of April 19 and 20, a mob sacked the hall of the Baltimore society when their demand that the national flag floating above it be replaced by the state one was refused, and on the 22nd the office of the _Turnzeitung_ met a like fate. The editor and most of the members of the _Turnverein_ were forced to flee from the city. The _Turnerbund_ was therefore left without headquarters or official organ, and since no attempt at recovery could prove effective in the face of the approaching struggle, which engrossed all attention, each society was left to shift for itself throughout the years of Civil War as best it could. President Lincoln’s call for volunteers, issued just before these events in Baltimore, met with an immediate response among the German-Americans, whose actions at this time demonstrate beyond question the sincerity of their enthusiasm for freedom and human rights. Exact figures are not available, but it seems tolerably certain that out of the total membership of nine or ten thousand at the outbreak of the war between five and six thousand turners joined the Union army, and to this number should be added about two thousand more who had formerly belonged to societies and now fought side by side with their old comrades. In the St. Louis _Turnverein_ three full companies, well drilled and completely equipped, were ready to take the field at once. The Seventeenth Missouri Regiment was made up chiefly of members of societies in the Southwest and was therefore known as the Western _Turnregiment_. The Twentieth New York State Volunteer Regiment, twelve hundred strong, contained three companies of New York turners, two from Williamsburg, one from Newark, and others from societies along the Hudson and in the interior of the state, with some men from Boston and Philadelphia. More than half the membership of the Cincinnati _Turngemeinde_ enlisted at the first call, and these and other turners from neighboring cities composed a large part of the Ninth Ohio Volunteer Infantry. On the evening that the Philadelphia _Turngemeinde_ decided to raise a battalion of volunteers 86 men out of a membership of about 260 signed their names to the roll, and within eight days four companies were formed. These were attached to the Twenty-ninth New York or Astor Regiment. The Chicago _Turngemeinde_ met in extra session the day following Lincoln’s summons to hear the