On his death in 1589, he left behind him, by his marriage with Anna von Wenckstern, three sons and a daughter. The race of the youngest son, Abraham, and of his wife Anna Schenck von Flechtingen, perished in the next generation. The second son, Pantaleon, married to Anna von der Schulenburg, is the ancestor of the flourishing and numerous branches of the Bismarcks of Crevese.
The Schönhausen branch was continued by Frederick’s eldest son, the Captain Ludolf von Bismarck. In 1560 he joined in a campaign against the Turks under the command of Wolff Gleissenthaler, who commanded a troop of 1,300 horse in the name of the Elector of Saxony, in the imperial army. Ludolf married Sophie von Alvensleben in 1579, and died in 1598. He was succeeded in the possession of Schönhausen by his only son Valentine, who married Bertha von der Asseburg[10] in 1607, and died on the 12th of April, 1620. His second son, August von Bismarck, succeeded him at Schönhausen. He was born on the 13th of February, 1611, and died the 2d of February, 1670, a Colonel in the Elector of Brandenburg’s army, and Commandant of the fortress of Peitz. Having entered the army in his earliest youth, he took service under the Rhinegrave in 1631. After the battle of Nördlingen, in 1634, he served in the army of Duke Bernhard of Weimar; served also till 1640 in Lothringen, Burgundy, and France, but then passed over into the service of Brandenburg. He was thrice married, first to Helene Elizabeth von Kottwitz, then to Dorothea Elizabeth von Katte,[11] and lastly to Frederica Sophia von Möllendorff.[12]
A young brother of this August was Valentine Busso; born 1622, died 18th of May, 1679; had issue by his wife, a Von Bardeleben,[13] the General Frederick Christopher von Bismarck, who died in command of Küstrin in 1704. The second son of the first marriage of Christopher Frederick with Louise Margarethe von der Asseburg, was Ludolf August, the only adventurous member of the family of the Bismarcks of Schönhausen.
Ludolf August von Bismarck was born on the 21st of March, 1683, entered the army at an early age, and as a valiant soldier, a handsome person, of rare intellect, he made a great figure. Something uneasy and adventurous was early observed in his character. On the 22d of November, 1704, he married Johanna Margarethe von der Asseburg, who died in 1719, only leaving him a daughter, Albertine Louise, and who married, in 1738 or 1739, a Prussian officer, named Frederick William von der Alben. When a lieutenant-colonel in garrison at Magdeburg, Ludolf August had the misfortune to kill a footman, either in anger or when intoxicated. He concealed the corpse under the bed, and fled. Nevertheless, he obtained a pardon through his great patron General Field-Marshal Gneomar Dubislaw von Natzmer,[14] who possessed great influence with King Frederick William I., and had won great fame in battle against the Swedes, Turks, and French, and was also distinguished for exemplary piety. He was the stepbrother of Count Zinzendorf, the founder of the Moravians, through his second wife, born a Von Gersdorf. Bismarck was pardoned for his desertion, and reinstated; but promotion did not ensue. Bismarck was thrice passed over on regimental changes; for the King entertained some anger against him, despite of his experience. Bismarck did not bear this long; he sold his estate of Skatiken in Prussian Lithuania, quitted the army, and entered the Russian service in 1732. In the next year, on the 26th of May, 1733, he married a Mademoiselle Trotte von Treyden, whose sister was the wife of Biron,[15] the favorite of the Empress Anna, and afterwards Duke of Courland. He combined his fortunes with those of that remarkable personage; but shared his disgrace, and was banished to Siberia. But by means of his considerable talents he seemed to have made friends outside of the Biron party, for he was soon recalled, and appointed a General. Bismarck governed several districts with ability, and fulfilled some diplomatic missions, especially at the court of London, to the perfect satisfaction of all, and seems to have conducted himself with peculiar tact, so as to come into collision with no party; and he succeeded in maintaining the position he had earned in the service of the State. He finally became General in the Ukraine, and died in October, 1750, at Pultawa. He left no issue by his second marriage, with the sister of the Duchess Biron of Courland.
A century after Ludolf August, a second Bismarck of Schönhausen visited Russia, under specially honorable circumstances. This was Frederick William von Bismarck, the famous Cavalry General of Würtemberg, also known as an esteemed military author. He was born on the 28th of July, 1783, at Windheim on the Weser, and joined the Brunswick service in 1797. He afterwards served in England, and finally in Würtemberg, where he very greatly distinguished himself, and rose to the rank of General. He was the Würtemberg ambassador to Berlin, Dresden, Hanover, and Carlsruhe. He aided in the reconstruction of the Danish army in 1826, and was esteemed so high an authority on cavalry matters, that the Emperor Nicholas summoned him, in 1835, to Russia, to inspect his cavalry. In 1818, Bismarck was created a Count by the King of Würtemberg, which title he transmitted after his marriage with the Princess Augusta Amalia of Nassau-Usingen (born 30th December, 1778; died 16th July, 1846, the last of the line Nassau-Usingen),[16] on her bringing him no issue, to the descendants of his deceased elder brother, John Henry Ludwig. On the 3d of April, 1848, he again married Amalia Julie Thibaut, and died on the 18th of June, 1860. His descendants by this marriage, a son and a daughter, form the second lines of the Count Bismarcks of Würtemberg, the other line existing in the family of his deceased brother.
The third Bismarck of Schönhausen, who went to Russia as the representative of His Majesty the King of Prussia, is our Minister-President.
Colonel August von Bismarck was succeeded in Schönhausen by his second son, also named August;—born the 15th of May, 1666; married the 24th of April, 1694, to Dorothea Sophie von Katte; died the 18th of June, 1732. He was Councillor and Land Commissioner to the Elector of Brandenburg, the builder or restorer of the present mansion of Schönhausen. He was succeeded by the eldest of his seven sons, August Frederick—born the 2d of April, 1695—who met a hero’s death as Colonel and Commandant of the regiment of Anspach-Baireuth Dragoons in the year 1742, at the battle of Chotusitz.[17] It is said that the Minister-President in person is extremely like this Bismarck, his great-grandfather, who was an excellent soldier, and high in favor with Frederick the Great. August Frederick was twice married, first to Stephanie von Dewitz, and then to Frederica Charlotte von Tresckow.
CHARLES ALEXANDER VON BISMARCK.
The second son of the first marriage of this brave soldier was the intellectual Charles Alexander von Bismarck, born in 1727. He was about to accompany his maternal uncle, one of the Von Dewitz family, to his post, which was that of Prussian Ambassador to Vienna, when Frederick the Great appointed his future to be otherwise. Charles Alexander entered the royal chamber an attaché of the embassy, but quitted it as a cavalry officer. He was averse to the military art, and soon obtained his discharge as a captain. On the 5th of March, 1762, he married Christine Charlotte Gottliebe von Schönfeld—born the 25th of December, 1741; deceased on the 22d of October, 1772—her mother having been a sister of his mother, one of the Dewitz family. An elegant French composition, by Charles Alexander, is preserved; a spirited and touching memorial of his departed wife, in the inflated style of those days. The title of this composition—of greater merit than usually the case with such writings—is as follows: “Eloge ou Monument érigé à la Mémoire de C. C. G. de Bismarck, née de Schoenfeld, par Charles Alexandre de Bismarck. Berlin, 1774.”