Legler—A Wisconsin Group of German Poets. 473 
time Bernhard Denis dike issued the initial numbers of the 
Corsar and Christian E'sselen launched his high-class periodical 
called Atlantis, The most intellectual and gifted German- 
Americans were spurred to renewed literary endeavor, and 
naturally an interesting literary group was formed in Wiscon¬ 
sin. Some of its members, have found a permanent niche in the 
German hall of letters. A curious' literary war was waged about 
this time in the United States, with the storm center in Mil¬ 
waukee, known as the war of the Grays and the Greens. 5 The 
former were represented by the old conservative Germans, lead¬ 
ers of the earlier immigration, whose ideas were rooted in 
religion. The Greens were the Forty-Eighters, chiefly idealists 
and extreme radicals whose bitter sarcasm and vitriolic humor 
disturbed, but did not vanquish, the less ready-tongued Grays. 
Old residents of Milwaukee will recall a, favorite tavern on 
M]arket street where the Grays and Greens were wont, to for¬ 
gather to pursue with tongue the arguments begun with pen. 
The Grays did not lack earnestness and faith, but. what they 
wrote was not literature. The Greens clothed their effusions in 
form to please the ear as well as to appeal to reason. 
It was indeed a notable group of literary writers. Some' years 
ago, under the auspices of the leading Chicago German-Amer¬ 
icans, there was compiled a critical anthology of German-Amer¬ 
ican. literature. 6 In the period devoted to the Forty-Eighters, 
thirty-one poets have been deemed worthy of representation. 
Sbven of them were residents of Wisconsin, including Miadame 
Mathilde Anneke, Konrad Krez, Edmund Mlaerklin, Ernst An¬ 
ton Zuendt, Augustus Steinlein, Budolph Puchner and Henricus 
vom See (Wilhelm Dilg). The heart and soul of this notable 
group, which included many other member s of minor poetic t alent, 
was Madame Anneke. This gifted woman, whose energetic nature 
and rare sympathies were freely at the disposal of the weary 
and heavy-laden, exerted an influence upon those who came 
within her circle that was truly remarkable. Sorrow and dis¬ 
appointment pursued her from childhood, but. she faced every 
succeeding misfortune with cheerful courage, inspiring her asso- 
sWilhelm Otto Soubron in The Sunday Sentinel, May 10, 1903. 
c Zimmermann’s Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Beutsch-Amerikan- 
ischen Literatur. Chicago, 1902. 
