Thanks for the good information. I had done the Google search and found next to nothing. I had also searched ancestry.com, heritagequest, footnote and the newspaper archive. I found some information but don't know if it's for the Union army engineer Franz Kappner. He apparently served under Fremont in St. Louis, but I've found nothing but sketchy detail about that. He testified in a Court of Inquiry into charges against Major General McDowell in late 1862 and early 1863. He required an interpreter, which must mean he didn't understand English well. A Franz Kappner was born about 1836, arrived NYC 11/23/54, age 18, naturalized 7/7/59, former nationality Austria; 1854 NYC directories list a Franz Kappner as an engineer. If that's the Union army engineer, I'd think he would be speaking English by 1862-3.