Jacob Philip Wingerter: Confederate Veteran and Brazilian Immigrant

When I researched the history of the 28^th Texas Cavalry (dismounted) I had hoped to include a chapter that discussed the soldiers’ postwar lives, however, I found it challenging at best to trace them into the postwar years. When I conducted my research, the internet was not yet available which meant I had to rely on printed indexes and microfilm. To say the least, scrolling through reels of microfilm is a tedious business, and after a time I gave up on following these veterans into the postwar years. Admittedly, weariness settled on me since I had tried to locate all 1,000 plus men in the 1860 U. S. census and the Texas tax rolls—enough was enough! Since writing my history of the 28^th Texas Cavalry, I have heard regularly from descendants of men who served in the regiment. In this way, I have met a number of helpful and interesting people who have shared stories of their Confederate ancestors. The accounts about their wartime service interest me, but what happened to them after the war is often even more fascinating.

Most recently, Neusa Maria Wingeter di Santis of Brazil contacted me through the Texas in the Civil War Message Board, and what followed was a fascinating exchange about Neusa’s g-g-grandfather, Jacob Philip Wingerter. Private Wingerter enlisted in the spring of 1862 in the Freestone Freemen that soon became known more officially as Company H of the 28^th Texas Cavalry. A Texas state official listed him as having zero taxable property in the state’s tax rolls, and that was the extent of my knowledge concerning Private Wingerter.

Neusa informed me that her ancestor was part of a colonizing group led by Frank McMullen to Brazil in 1867. The McMullan-Bowen Colony, according to a census of the group, consisted of 97 hardy souls; many of the men were Confederate veterans. Most traveled as families to Brazil; Jacob traveled there with his second wife, Susan, and his ten year old daughter, Amy. Jacob had already lived an exciting life; born in Bavaria, he immigrated to the United States around 1854. Settling first in Illinois, he eventually moved to New Orleans and then to Texas. His first wife and their children died as the result of an accidental poisoning, and then he experienced many hardships while serving in Walker’s Texas Division in the trans-Mississippi.

The members of the McMullan-Bowen Colony left Galveston, Texas, on the Derby, an old British vessel. These southerners left for a variety of reasons—some were concerned about postwar unrest, others hoped to escape poverty, and for others there was the lure of fertile land in a country that had some cultural similarities to the South. The little group encountered many difficulties on their journey to Brazil. They were shipwrecked near Cuba and were forced to find other transportation—this led to a trip to New York City and then, finally, to their colony near São Paulo. This fascinating story is told by William Clark Griggs in The Elusive Eden: Frank McMullan’s Confederate Colony in Brazil (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987).

Luckily, Neusa shared even more information with me about her ancestor. Before the war, he distributed religious tracts in New Orleans, and I suspect that he continued doing so in Texas and perhaps even when he served in the 28^th Texas. Several years after arriving in Brazil, Dr. Edward Lane, Confederate veteran and founder of the very first Presbyterian church in Brazil, hired Jacob as a colporteur. In other words, Wingerter distributed and sold religious tracts and Bibles. According to a letter written by Mrs. Lane, “It has been no unusual thing for the colporteur to leave one copy of the Bible in a village or neighborhood, going back in six months or a year, he has been able to sell a dozen copies.” After Jacob found it difficult to ride in his later years, he worked for the American Bible Society. An admiring Mrs. Lane wrote that Jacob was “humble, patient, earnest, self-sacrificing, laborious, untiring, willing to toll anywhere, or at anything that the emergencies of the work demanded, but happier in proportion, as he was more directly engaged in extending a knowledge of the gospel.” Much of this religious information, according to Neusa, is from a book written by Dr. Alderi S. Matos who is the official historian of the Presbyterian Church in Brazil.

Neusa gave me permission to use the accompanying photograph of Jacob. It depicts him in 1914; he died two years later at the age of 83. He certainly lived a long, active, and fruitful life!

By the way, if you’re ever in Brazil on the second Sunday in April, you may wish to attend the Festa Confederada; Neusa reported that she attended the most recent one. The Festa Confederada is held alongside the Confederate Cemetery in Santa Barbara D’Oeste, São Paulo. Southern foods are served, many attendees dress in antebellum style clothing, and the heritage of the Confederacy is celebrated.