A liberal in politics, Siemering emigrated from Germany in 1851,[1] and was among the first Forty-Eighters to settle in Sisterdale, Texas,[2] a Free Thinker Latin Settlement resulting from the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states.
The Forty-Eighters were intellectual liberal abolitionists who enjoyed conversing in Latin and believed in utopian ideals that guaranteed basic human rights to all.
[3] In 1853, Siemering was elected Secretary, and Ernst Kapp[4] the President, of the Freethinker abolitionist organization Die Freie Verein[5] (The Free Society),[6] which called for a meeting of abolitionist German Texans [7] in conjunction with the May 14, 1854 Staats-Saengerfest (State Singing Festival) in San Antonio, Texas.
Abolitionist Siemering was drafted into the Confederate States Army in 1861, serving three years before resigning his commission as a lieutenant.
[10] Siemering and Palmer also published the German language newspaper Die Freie Presse für Texas.