Author: Henningsen, Charles Frederick
Biography:
HENNINGSEN, Charles Frederick (1815-77: ANBO)
pseudonym Britannicus
Though he became a famous soldier and adventurer, his origins remain obscure. In the US Census of 1860 and again in 1870 he gave his birthplace as England, but his gravestone gives his place of birth as Brussels, Belgium. No records of birth or baptism have been found to support either claim. According to Appleton, he was born in England to Swedish parents. What is certain is that he wrote in English and published by preference in London throughout his life. And he was writing very well in English even as a teenager: the Monthly Review in 1832 described his second book as “extraordinary.” In 1834 he fought as a volunteer for the conservative Carlist faction in the civil war in Spain, rising to the post of cavalry captain. He later fought with the Russian army and with revolutionaries in Hungary, and drew on his experiences for books on European history and two novels, The White Slave (1845) and Sixty Years Hence (1847). In 1851 he travelled to the US in the entourage of the Hungarian leader Lajos Kossuth. He married Wilhelmina (“Willy”) Belt Connelly (1820-80), a well connected Georgia widow with at least four children, probably in 1855, then by 1856 was in active service again—as a munitions expert with the rank of Brigadier General--with an American enterprise that aimed to invade and colonise Central America. Henningsen bought land in Nicaragua and wrote about the country. They were defeated, however, and surrendered to the US navy in 1857; from his base in New York, where he was given a hero’s welcome, Henningsen continued to explore possibilities of colonization. In the American Civil War he joined the Confederate army as Colonel of a regiment. He died in Washington on 14 June 1877 and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery; obituaries identify him as English by birth. His wife survived him by three years and was buried in the Belt family plot in Augusta GA. (ANBO 29 Apr. 2022; ancestry.com 29 Apr. 2022; findmypast.com 29 Apr. 2022; Appleton; New York Herald 15 June 1877)
Other Names:
- C. F. Henningsen