Biography

From Find A Grave, "Civil War Union Army Officer. Born in what is now Poland, his family resided in Hungary until they emigrated to the United States in 1854 (his father was the brother-in-law of Hungarian revolutionary Louis Kossoth). Just prior to the Civil War he returned to Europe and was commissioned as an officer in the Hungarian Legion in the Kingdom of Italy (which had came about through the leadership of another European revolutionary, Giuseppe Garibaldi). He served in the Legion until December 1862, which by this time his adopted country had been in the throes of the Civil War for a year and a half. In January 1863 he returned to the United States and offered his services to the Union Army. He was first commissioned as an aide-de-camp to Brigadier General Alexander S. Asboth, another Hungarian expatriate. When the 82nd United States Colored Infantry was recruited in 1864, he was commissioned first as Lieutenant Colonel, then as Colonel and commander of the regiment. He led the unit first in Louisiana, then in operations in Florida out of Fort Barrancas, Pensacola. During an expedition to Marianna, Florida, to capture Confederates on September 27, 1864 he assumed brigade command after General Asboth was wounded in action, and directed the fighting during the battle there. He would go onto lead the 82nd United States Colored Infantry through the rest of the war, commanding the unit as it participated in the siege and capture of Fort Blakely, Alabama in April 1865. After the war's end Colonel Zulavsky would continue to command the 82nd USCI in occupation duty in Florida until he was honorably mustered out on September 1866. He would become a cotton farmer and dealer in Georgia after the war, and participate in veterans affairs, but his mental health deteriorated, and he was confined to the New York State Asylum for the Insane in Middletown, New York, where he died in 1884."

Mentioned in a letter to Frances Seward seeking donations to help his mother buy a farm, as supporting her three sons was extremely difficult. Elizabeth Schoonmaker to Franecs Seward, August 17, 1854.