Both Louis and Irma died young. Philip Politzer (as the family spelled the name in Hungary) was a partner in a prosperous grain business in Mako from about 1840 until 1853, when the firm was dissolved and he moved to Budapest, where he retired and lived comfortably with his family until he died of heart disease. Louis and Joseph went to private school and had a special tutor until their father's death, when the family's financial circumstances became strained. After a few years, Louise Politzer married a merchant, Max Blau.
Seeking a military career, in 1864 Pulitzer attempted to enlist in the Austrian army, the French Foreign Legion, and the British armed forces. All rejected him because of his weak eyes and frail physique. A recruiter for the Union army, however, accepted him and shipped him to the United States. Pulitzer collected his own enlistment bounty by jumping ship in Boston and going to New York, where he enlisted on 30 September 1864 in a cavalry regiment organized by Carl Schurz, with whom he would later be associated in St. Louis. Pulitzer saw little fighting and was released from the army in early July 1865.
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