German-Americans were the largest ethnic contingent to fight for the Union in the American Civil War[citation needed]. More than 200,000 native-born Germans, along with another 250,000 1st-generation German-Americans, served in the Union Army, notably from New York, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Several thousand also fought for the Confederacy. Most German born residents of the Confederacy lived in Louisiana and Texas. Many others were 3rd- and 4th-generation Germans whose ancestors migrated to Virginia and the Carolinas in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Approximately 516,000 Union soldiers, or 23.4% of all Union soldiers, were immigrants; about 216,000 of these were born in Germany. New York supplied the largest number of these native-born Germans with 36,000. Behind the Empire State came Wisconsin with 30,000 and Ohio with 20,000.[1]
Commonly referred to as "Dutchmen" by other Union soldiers, and "lop-eared Dutch" by Confederates, German-American units, in general, earned a reputation for discipline.[2] Some of them had previously served in European armies, and they brought valuable experience to the Union Army.
German-American commanders of note
Officer Corps, 20th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment (the Turner Rifles)
A popular Union commander and native German, Major GeneralFranz Sigel was the highest ranking German-American officer in the Union Army, with many Germans enlisting to "fight mit Sigel." Sigel was a political appointment of President Abraham Lincoln, who hoped that Sigel's immense popularity would help deliver the votes of the increasingly important German segment of the population.[3] He was a member of the Forty-Eighters, a political movement of revolutionaries in German states whose failure led to thousands of Germans emigrating to the United States. These included such future Civil War officers as Maj. Gen. Carl Schurz, Brig. Gen. August Willich, Louis Blenker, Max Weber and Alexander Schimmelfennig.
Although the Confederacy had general officers born in Ireland, France, and England, only one German-born soldier reached that rank in the Confederate Army, General John A. Wagener of South Carolina. Colonel Adolphus Heiman, a Prussian-born veteran of the Mexican–American War who commanded the 10th Tennessee Infantry and later a brigade; and Colonel Augustus Buchel, a native of Hesse and commander of the 1st Texas Cavalry,[4] were probably the next highest ranking German-Confederates.
Lt. Col. Heros von Borcke, who served on the staff of Maj. Gen. Jeb Stuart, is the most famous German officer in the Confederacy. Von Borcke, a Prussiancavalry officer, slipped through the Union blockade into Charleston Harbor and eventually became one of Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's closest confidants and his Adjutant and Chief of Staff. In 1866, he returned to Prussia to fight in the Austro-Prussian War.
German immigrant Simon Baruch served 3 years as a Confederate army surgeon, before becoming a leading advocate of hydrotherapy and bath houses in New York City. His son was famous Presidential advisor Bernard Baruch.
In neutral Missouri on May 9, 1861, Union Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, curious of the Missouri State Guard's intentions for Camp Jackson, engaged in a covert operation to uncover the Guard's plans. Disguised as a woman, Captain Lyon scoured the camp, searching for evidence of any secessionist threat. Lyon and his agents discovered falsely labeled crates containing a number of siege guns to be used for assaulting the Missouri arsenal, sent by the Confederate President Jefferson Davis himself.[5] On May 10, 1861, Lyon, a Radical Republican, marched a large contingent of pro-southern Missouri militia prisoners-of-war through the streets of St. Louis. The men had been captured by a large force composed mostly of German volunteers during an unsuccessful attempt by the pro-southerners to seize the Federal arsenal in St. Louis.[6] The prisoners were guarded by two lines of German-American Union soldiers, who were unpopular with many native-born Missourians, who resented their anti-slavery and anti-secessionist political views. Many people in St. Louis, having moved to the area from Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia,[7] had southern sympathies.
Tensions quickly mounted on the streets as civilians hurled fruit, rocks, paving stones, and insults at Lyon's Germans. Shots rang out, killing three militiamen. The soldiers fired into the nearby crowd of bystanders, injuring or killing numerous civilians. Angry mobs rioted throughout the city for the next two days, burning a number of buildings. At least seven more civilians were shot by Federal troops patrolling the streets. The final death toll was 28.[citation needed]
In the spring of 1862, German Texans from Central Texas and the Texas Hill Country, mostly Unionist or neutral in their political views, were drafted into the Confederate Army over their strong objections. Confederate authorities took their reluctance to serve as a sign of rebellion and sent in troops. A violent confrontation between Confederate soldiers and civilians took place on August 10, 1862, in Kinney County, Texas, leading to the deaths of 34 German Texans who were fleeing to Mexico to avoid the draft.
↑ Rowan, Steven, ed. (1983). Germans for a Free Missouri: Translations from the St. Louis Radical Press, 1857-1862. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. ISBN0-8262-0410-4.
Allendorf, Donald (2006). Long Road to Liberty: The Odyssey of a German Regiment in the Yankee Army; The 15th Missouri Volunteer Infantry. Kent State University Press. ISBN9780873388719.
Baron, Frank (2012). Abraham Lincoln and the German Immigrants: Turners and Forty-Eighters (Yearbook of German-American Studies, Supplemental Issue, Vol 4). Lawrence, Kan.: The Society for German-American Studies. ISSN0741-2827.
Bearden-White, Christina (2016). "Illinois Germans and the Coming of the Civil War: Reshaping Ethnic Identity". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 109 (3): 231–251. doi:10.5406/jillistathistsoc.109.3.0231.
Burton, William L. (1988). Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union's Ethnic Regiments. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press. ISBN0-8138-1115-5.
Efford, Alison Clark (2013). German Immigrants: Race and Citizenship in the Civil War Era. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9781316025734.
Engle, Stephen D. (1993). Yankee Dutchman: The Life of Franz Sigel. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN1-55728-273-0.
Kamphoefner, Walter D. (1975). "St-Louis Germans And The Republican-Party, 1848-1860". Mid-America-An Historical Review. 57 (2): 69–88.
Kamphoefner, Walter D. (1999). "New perspectives on Texas Germans and the Confederacy". Southwestern Historical Quarterly. 102 (4): 440–455. JSTOR30242540.
Kaufmann, Wilhelm (1999). Tolzmann, Don Heinrich; Mueller, Werner D.; Ward, Robert E. (eds.). The Germans in the American Civil War, With a Biographical Directory. Translated by Rowan, Steven. Carlisle, Pa.: John Kallmann. ISBN9780965092678.
Linedecker, Clifford L., ed. (2002). Civil War, A-Z: The Complete Handbook of America's Bloodiest Conflict. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN0-89141-878-4.
Lonn, Ella (2002) [1940]. Foreigners in the Confederacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN9780807854006.
Öfele, Martin W. (2004). German Speaking-Officers in the U.S. Colored Troops, 1863-1867. University Press of Florida. ISBN978-0-8130-2692-3.
Reinhart, Joseph R. (2010). A German Hurrah: Civil War Letters of Friedrich Bertsch and Wilhelm Stängel, 9th Ohio Infantry. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN9781606350386.
Reinhart, Joseph R. (2006). August Willich's Gallant Dutchmen: Civil War Letters from the 32nd Indiana Infantry. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN9780873388627.
Reinhart, Joseph R. (2004). Two Germans in the Civil War: The Diary of John Daeuble and the Letters of Gottfried Rentschler, 6th Kentucky Infantry. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN9781572332799.
Tafel, Gustav (2010). The Cincinnati Germans in the Civil War. Translated and edited with Supplements on Germans from Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana in the Civil War by Don Heinrich Tolzmann. Milford, Ohio: Little Miami. ISBN9781932250862.
Valuska, David; Keller, Christian (2004). Damn Dutch: Pennsylvania Germans at Gettysburg. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books. ISBN0-8117-0074-7..
Wittke, Carl (1952). "In Defense of the Union". Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America. University of Pennsylvania Press. pp.221–43. JSTORj.ctv4s7m9n.19.
Kaufmann, Wilhelm (2015) [1911]. Die Deutschen im Amerikanischen Bürgerkriege. Hamburg: Nikol Verlag. ISBN978-3-86820-236-6.
Richter, Rüdiger B. (2004). "Corpsstudenten im Amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg". Einst und Jetzt, Band 49, Jahrbuch des Vereins für corpsstudentische Geschichtsforschung.
Primary sources in English
Kamphoefner, Walter D.; Helbich, Wolfgang Johannes, eds. (2006). Germans in the Civil War: the letters they wrote home. Translated by Vogel, Susan Carter. U of North Carolina Press. doi:10.5149/9780807876596_kamphoefner. ISBN9780807830444.
Kamphoefner, Walter D.; Helbich, Wolfgang; Sommer, Ulrike, eds. (1991). News from the Land of Freedom: German Immigrants Write Home. Translated by Vogel, Susan Carter. Cornell University Press. ISBN9780801425233.
Rowan, Steven, ed. (1983). Germans for a Free Missouri: Translations from the St. Louis Radical Press, 1857-1862. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press. ISBN0-8262-0410-4.
Schaller, Mary E.; Schaller, Martin N. (2007). Soldiering for Glory: The Civil War Letters of Col. Frank Schaller, Twenty-second Mississippi Infantry. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN1-57003-701-9.
The Battle of Pea Ridge, also known as the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern, took place during the American Civil War near Leetown, northeast of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Federal forces, led by Brig. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis, moved south from central Missouri, driving Confederate forces into northwestern Arkansas. Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn had launched a Confederate counteroffensive, hoping to recapture northern Arkansas and Missouri. Confederate forces met at Bentonville and became the most substantial Rebel force, by way of guns and men, to assemble in the Trans-Mississippi. Against the odds, Curtis held off the Confederate attack on the first day and drove Van Dorn's force off the battlefield on the second. By defeating the Confederates, the Union forces established Federal control of most of Missouri and northern Arkansas.
Samuel Ryan Curtis was an American military officer and one of the first Republicans elected to Congress. He was most famous for his role as a Union Army general in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War, especially for his victories at the Battles of Pea Ridge in 1862 and Westport in 1864.
The Battle of Wilson's Creek, also known as the Battle of Oak Hills, was the first major battle of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War. It was fought on August 10, 1861, near Springfield, Missouri.
Horatio Gouverneur Wright was an engineer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He took command of the VI Corps in May 1864 following the death of General John Sedgwick. In this capacity, he was responsible for building the fortifications around Washington DC, and in the Overland Campaign he commanded the first troops to break through the Confederate defenses at Petersburg. After the war, he was involved in a number of engineering projects, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the completion of the Washington Monument, and served as Chief of Engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Franz Sigel was a German American military officer, revolutionary and immigrant to the United States who was a teacher, newspaperman, politician, and served as a Union major general in the American Civil War. His ability to recruit German-speaking immigrants to the Union armies received the approval of President Abraham Lincoln, but he was strongly disliked by General-in-Chief Henry Halleck.
The Battle of Carthage, also known as the Engagement near Carthage, took place at the beginning of the American Civil War on July 5, 1861, near Carthage, Missouri. The experienced Colonel Franz Sigel commanded 1,100 Federal soldiers intent on keeping Missouri within the Union. The Missouri State Guard was commanded by Governor Claiborne F. Jackson himself and numbered over 4,000 soldiers led by a hero of Mexico, Sterling Price, along with 2,000 unarmed troops who did not participate in the battle.
Baron Adolph Wilhelm August Friedrich von Steinwehr was a German-Brunswick army officer who emigrated to the United States, became a geographer, cartographer, and author, and served as a Union general in the American Civil War.
The Nueces Massacre, also known as the Massacre on the Nueces, was a violent confrontation between Confederate soldiers and Texas Germans on August 10, 1862, in Kinney County, Texas U.S. Many first-generation immigrants from Germany settled in Central Texas in a region known as the Hill Country. They tended to support the United States and were opposed to slavery. Because of these sentiments, the Confederate States of America imposed martial law on Central Texas. A group of Germans, fleeing from the Hill Country to Mexico and onward to U.S.-controlled New Orleans, was confronted by a company of Confederate soldiers on the banks of the Nueces River. The ensuing German defeat represented an end to overt German resistance to Confederate governance in Texas, but it also fueled outrage among the German-Texan population. Disputes over the confrontation and the efficacy of Confederate actions after the battle, according to historian Stanley McGowen, continue to plague the Hill Country into the 21st century.
A political general is a general officer or other military leader without significant military experience who is given a high position in command for political reasons, through political connections, or to appease certain political blocs and factions.
The trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War was the scene of the major military operations west of the Mississippi River. The area is often thought of as excluding the states and territories bordering the Pacific Ocean, which formed the Pacific coast theater of the American Civil War (1861–1865).
The city of St. Louis was a strategic location during the American Civil War, holding significant value for both Union and Confederate forces. As the largest city in the fiercely divided border state of Missouri and the most important economic hub on the upper Mississippi River, St. Louis was a major launching point and supply depot for campaigns in the Western and Trans-Mississippi Theaters.
During the American Civil War, the State of Ohio played a key role in providing troops, military officers, and supplies to the Union army. Due to its central location in the Northern United States and burgeoning population, Ohio was both politically and logistically important to the war effort. Despite the state's boasting a number of very powerful Republican politicians, it was divided politically. Portions of Southern Ohio followed the Peace Democrats and openly opposed President Abraham Lincoln's policies. Ohio played an important part in the Underground Railroad prior to the war, and remained a haven for escaped and runaway slaves during the war years.
During the American Civil War, Missouri was a hotly contested border state populated by both Union and Confederate sympathizers. It sent armies, generals, and supplies to both sides, maintained dual governments, and endured a bloody neighbor-against-neighbor intrastate war within the larger national war.
Texas declared its secession from the Union on February 1, 1861, and joined the Confederate States on March 2, 1861, after it had replaced its governor, Sam Houston, who had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. As with those of other states, the Declaration of Secession was not recognized by the US government at Washington, DC. Some Texan military units fought in the Civil War east of the Mississippi River, but Texas was more useful for supplying soldiers and horses for the Confederate Army. Texas' supply role lasted until mid-1863, when Union gunboats started to control the Mississippi River, which prevented large transfers of men, horses, or cattle. Some cotton was sold in Mexico, but most of the crop became useless because of the Union's naval blockade of Galveston, Houston, and other ports.
The 9th Ohio Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment that was a part of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The members of the regiment were primarily of German descent and the unit was the first almost all-German unit to enter the Union Army.
Foreign enlistment in the American Civil War (1861–1865) reflected the conflict's international significance among both governments and their citizenry. Diplomatic and popular interest were aroused by the United States' status as a nascent power at the time, and by the war's central cause being the globally divisive issue of slavery. Consequently, many men enlisted from abroad and among immigrant communities in the U.S. When hostilities first broke out, roughly 13% of Americans were foreign-born, the vast majority concentrated in northern cities; subsequently, foreign enlistment largely favored the Union, which was also far more successful at attracting volunteers.
The bibliography of the American Civil War comprises books that deal in large part with the American Civil War. There are over 60,000 books on the war, with more appearing each month. Authors James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier stated in 2012, "No event in American history has been so thoroughly studied, not merely by historians, but by tens of thousands of other Americans who have made the war their hobby. Perhaps a hundred thousand books have been published about the Civil War."
Julius H. Stahel-Számwald was a Hungarian soldier who emigrated to the United States and became a Union general in the American Civil War. After the war, he served as a U.S. diplomat, a mining engineer, and a life insurance company executive. He received the Medal of Honor for gallantry in action at the Battle of Piedmont in 1864.
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