For a short time (from 1829 to 1831) he was employed in the civil service in Oldenburg, then moved to Baden in 1833 where in 1836 he settled down to work as a lawyer in Mannheim.

[2] In 1845, Struve married Amalie Düsar on 16 November 1845 and in 1847 he dropped the aristocratic "von" from his surname due to his democratic ideals.

When the revolution broke out, Struve published a demand for a federal republic, to include all Germany, but this was rejected by "Pre-Parliament" (Vorparlament), the meeting of politicians and other important German figures which later became the Frankfurt Parliament.

From there, the Heckerzug (Hecker's column) was to join up with another revolutionary group led by the poet Georg Herwegh and march to Karlsruhe.

He published Die Grundrechte des deutschen Volkes (The Basic Rights of the German People) and made a "Plan for the Revolution and Republicanisation of Germany" along with the revolutionary playwright and journalist Karl Heinzen.

Grand Duke Leopold of Baden fled and on 1 June 1849 Struve helped set up a provisionary republican parliament under the liberal politician Lorenz Brentano.

[3] He edited Der Deutsche Zuschauer (The German Observer) in New York City, but soon discontinued its publication because of insufficient support.

He wrote several novels and a drama in German, and then in 1852 undertook, with the assistance of his wife, the composition of a universal history from the standpoint of radical republicanism.

[5] At the start of the 1860s, Struve joined in the American Civil War in the Union Army, a captain under Blenker,[6] and one of the many German emigrant soldiers known as the Forty-Eighters.

[7] Struve was an abolitionist, and opposed plans to create a colony of freed slaves in Liberia because he thought it would hinder the abolition of slavery in the United States.

[5] Lincoln appointed him U. S. consul at Sonneberg in 1865, but the Thuringian states refused to issue his exequatur[2] due to his radical writings.