A Young General and the Fall of RichmondDespite his military achievements and his association with many of the great names of American history, Godfrey Weitzel (18351884) is perhaps the least known of all the Union generals. After graduating from West Point, Weitzel, a German immigrant from Cincinnati, was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers in New Orleans. The secession of Louisiana in 1861, with its key port city of New Orleans, was the first of a long and unlikely series of events