Henry Herman Neef was born in Baden, Germany. He emigrated to America in 1840 and settled in Moniteau County, Missouri. In 1861 he enlisted in service of the Union Army in the Civil War and served until the end. By 1870 Neef had started a brewery in Tipton, about 20 miles west of Jefferson City. His Brewery burned in early February, 1873. Apparently Neef took the insurance money and invested in a hotel. Henry Herman Neef died on March 31st, 1900.

The president of the Confederacy Jefferson Davis orders his general P. G. T. Beauregard to bombard Fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor, marking the beginning of the Civil War.

Many German immigrants in America who were driven out of Europe in the aftermath of a failed reformist revolution of 1848 signed up for the Union cause.  In fact the Republican abolitionists scrapped the temperance plank in their platform to prevent alienating the Germans.