Albin Francisco Schoepf

Albin Francisco Schoepf (; March 1, 1822 – May 10, 1886) was a Polish-born artillery officer who became a Union brigadier general during the American Civil War. Obtaining professional military training in Austria, Schoepf briefly fought in the Austrian Army, then served as an officer in the Hungarian Revolutionary Army in the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. Schoepf came to America after his service, lived in Washington, D.C., and worked in various United States government bureaucratic positions before the Civil War. Appointed Union Army brigadier in late 1861, Schoepf was eventually raised to division command in the Western Theater. Personal conflicts with his commanding officer caused his transfer to administrative service in the East. Given command of the camp at Fort Delaware, Schoepf became responsible for Confederate prisoners of war. After the war, he returned to government service in the U.S. Patent Office.

Early life Schoepf was born in Podgórze, Poland, which was then part of the Austrian kingdom of Galicia. became a lieutenant of artillery four years later, then served in Hungary as a captain in the Austrian Army. At the beginning of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, he resigned his commission and enlisted as a private in the Hungarian Revolutionary Army under Lajos Kossuth. When Kossuth abdicated in 1849, Schoepf was exiled to Turkey, where according to Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography he may have served under General Józef Bem against Bedouin insurgents at Aleppo and then was raised to major and instructor of artillery in the Ottoman Empire's army. The prisoner complex held up to 11,500 at its peak (July 1863), with a cumulative population of 33,000 by war's end. According to "They Died at Fort Delaware 1861–1865" by historian Jocelyn P. Jamison and compiled from NARA records, about 2,460 prisoners died, 109 guards and 39 civilians.

Postbellum career Schoepf was mustered out of service on January 15, 1866. After the war, Schoepf returned to the U.S. Patent Office and died after a long illness, likely stomach cancer in Washington DC . He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.