Joseph P. Gerhardt (May 25, 1817 – August 19, 1881) was a German American restaurant and bar owner who became a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was breveted a brigadier general in 1863 for gallantry in the field. Life and career Gerhardt was born in Bonn, Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany) in 1817, and educated at the University of Bonn. A committed socialist, he took part in the Revolutions of 1848 in the city of Rastatt, where he led a battalion of revolutionaries. After the collapse of the revolution, he was forced to leave the country for his own safety and fled to the United States via Switzerland, arriving in America in 1850. Gerhardt took up residence in Washington, D.C., which at the time had a large immigrant German population. A prominent Forty-Eighter, he established the Capitol Garden Restaurant, a beer garden, bar, and restaurant at 2nd Street and Maryland Avenue. He was frequently arrested for selling liquor on Sundays in violation of Sunday closing laws. Gerhardt was politically active and favored the nascent Republican movement, although he largely hid these affinities due to their controversial nature. He later co-founded the German Republican Association in the city. In June 1857, a mob assaulted Gerhardt's business. Gerhardt shot one of the attackers, Henry Schoulte, and was himself shot and severely wounded. Gerhardt was tried for murder, although the prosecution ended in a hung jury. At a second trial, Gerhardt was found not guilty. In 1860, Gerhardt was elected a delegate to the Republican National Convention as a supporter of Abraham Lincoln. Military career After the election of Lincoln as President of the United States in November 1860, the slave-holding states threatened to secede. Anticipating the outbreak of war, Gerhardt helped organize a 65-member company of volunteer infantry known as the "Turner Rifles" on January 11, 1861. He was elected captain of the company. He was promoted to major and placed in command of the 46th New York Volunteer Infantry on September 16, 1861. He accompanied the regiment to its temporary station at Annapolis, Maryland, and then in November to its staging area at Hilton Head, South Carolina. From December 1861 to May 1862, he led the unit in the Siege of Fort Pulaski at Tybee Island, Georgia. On June 8, the unit was sent to James Island near Charleston, South Carolina, where Gerhardt led the