Wilhelm Ludwig Armbruster was born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Starting in 1844 a series of election losses by the increasingly ethnonational American Nativist Whig party triggered a decade of voter intimidation and suppression and general violence collectively called The Know-Nothing Riots.

The Know-Nothings singled out Catholics, the Irish and Germans, torching their churches and their businesses in a crusade for American purity.

During a tight election on August 6th 1855 the Know Nothings descended on Louisville, Kentucky.  Twenty-two people were killed (some estimates put that figure at over 100) and 100 businesses, private homes and tenements had been vandalized, looted and/or burned, including the Washington Brewery, owned by Wilhelm Armbruster, which was burned to the ground.