Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Kapp, Friedrich

KAPP, Friedrich, German author, b. in Hamm, Prussia, 13 April, 1824; d. in Berlin, 27 Oct., 1884. He was at the University of Heidelberg from 1842-'5, and studied law in Berlin, practising his profession in Hamm and Unna till 1848, when he removed to Frankfort-on-the-Main. He then spent some time in Belgium and Paris, and translated two works of Alexander Herzen, who entrusted him with the charge of his son. In 1850 he came to New York, where he practised law till 1870. In 1860 he was a presidential elector, and in 1867 he was appointed commissary of emigration, which office he held till his return to Germany in 1870. In 1871 he became a member of the German diet. He received the degree of doctor of philosophy from the University of Bonn on 4 Aug., 1868. He was the author of “The Slave Question in the United States” (Göttingen, 1854); “Life of the American General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben” (Berlin, 1858; New York, 1859); “History of Slavery in the United States of America” (New York, 1858); “The Trading in Soldiers of the German Princes with America, 1775-'83” (Berlin, 1864); “A History of the German Migration into America” (New York, 1867); “On Immigration and the Commission of Emigration” (1870); “Life of the American General Johann Kalb” (Stuttgart, 1862; New York, 1870); and “Frederick the Great and the United States” (Berlin, 1871). At the time of his death he was engaged in writing a history of the German book-trade, which was subsequently published (1886).