Italian Americans in the Civil War are the Italian people and people of Italian descent, living in the United States, who served and fought in the American Civil War, mostly on the side of the Union. A contingent of soldiers from the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fought on the Confederate side, with most of these having been former prisoners of war who had fought against Giuseppe Garibaldi during his invasion of the Two Sicilies. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the civil war. [1]
Shortly after the onset of war, several hundred officers and soldiers in the Italian army went to the American legation at Turin and volunteered to fight in the Union army. Because of financial constraints, the U.S. army accepted only some of these volunteers." [2]
Most of the Italian-Americans who joined the Union Army were recruited from New York City. Many Italians of note were interested in the war and joined the army, reaching positions of authority. Brigadier General Edward Ferrero was the original commander of the 51st New York Regiment. [3] He commanded both brigades and divisions in the eastern and western theaters of war and later commanded a division of the United States Colored Troops. Colonel Enrico Fardella, of the same and later of the 85th New York regiment, was made a brevet brigadier general when the war ended.
Francis B. Spinola recruited four regiments in New York, was soon appointed Brigadier General by President Abraham Lincoln and given command of the Spinola Brigade. Later he commanded another unit, the famed Excelsior Brigade.
Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a former Italian and British soldier and veteran of the Crimean War, commanded the 4th New York Cavalry and would rise to become one of the highest ranking Italian officer in the federal army. [4] He established a military school in New York City where many young Italians were trained and later served in the Union army. Di Cesnola received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Aldie. [5]
Two more famous examples were Francesco Casale and Luigi Tinelli, who were instrumental in the formation of the 39th New York Infantry Regiment. According to one evaluation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, there were over 200 Italians who served as officers in the U.S. army. [6]
At least 260 Italian Americans fought as sailors in the Union Navy. [7]
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a very popular figure. The 39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, of whose 350 members were Italian, was nicknamed Garibaldi Guard in his honor. The unit wore red shirts and bersaglieri plumes. They carried with them both a Union Flag as well as an Italian flag with the words Dio e popolo, meaning "God and people." [10] In 1861 Garibaldi himself volunteered his services to President Abraham Lincoln. Garibaldi was offered a Major General's commission in the U.S. Army through the letter from Secretary of State William H. Seward to H. S. Sanford, the U.S. Minister at Brussels, July 17, 1861. [11] On September 18, 1861, Sanford sent the following reply to Seward:
"He [Garibaldi] said that the only way in which he could render service, as he ardently desired to do, to the cause of the United States, was as Commander-in-chief of its forces, that he would only go as such, and with the additional contingent power—to be governed by events—of declaring the abolition of slavery; that he would be of little use without the first, and without the second it would appear like a civil war in which the world at large could have little interest or sympathy." [12]
According to Italian historian Petacco, "Garibaldi was ready to accept Lincoln's 1862 offer but on one condition: that the war's objective be declared as the abolition of slavery. But at that stage Lincoln was unwilling to make such a statement lest he worsen an agricultural crisis." [13] Although the aging Garibaldi respectfully declined Lincoln's offer, Washington D.C. recruited many of Garibaldi's former officers. [14] On August 6, 1863, after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln: "Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure." [15]
Several Italian American soldiers of the Confederate States Army were veterans from the Army of the Two Sicilies who had fought against Giuseppe Garibaldi in, and were captured during, the Expedition of the Thousand as part of the unification of Italy. They were released after a treaty between Garibaldi and Chatham Roberdeau Wheat. In December 1860 and few months of 1861, these volunteers were transported to New Orleans with the ships Elisabetta, Olyphant, Utile, Charles & Jane, Washington and Franklin. [16] Most Confederate Italian Americans had settled in Louisiana. The militia of Louisiana had an Italian Guards Battalion that became part of its 6th Regiment. [17] Following the protests of many soldiers, who did not feel like Italian citizens since they fought against the unification of Italy, it was renamed 6th Regiment, European Brigade in 1862.
There also were Italian companies within regiments from Louisiana, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama; as well as parts of a company from South Carolina.
Among the Confederate officer corps, General William B. Taliaferro had some Italian ancestry as a son of the Taliaferro first family of Virginia, descended from Italians in England in the 1500s who settled the Colony of Virginia in the 1600s. [18] [19] General P. G. T. Beauregard, a Louisiana Creole, had Italian ancestry via his mother Hélène Judith de Reggio, who hailed from a prominent first family of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana established in 1747 by her grandfather Francesco Maria de Reggio, an Italian nobleman of the House of Este. [20] [21]
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting against the United States forces to win the independence of the Southern states and uphold and expand the institution of slavery. On February 28, 1861, the Provisional Confederate Congress established a provisional volunteer army and gave control over military operations and authority for mustering state forces and volunteers to the newly chosen Confederate States president, Jefferson Davis (1808-1889),. Davis was a graduate of the United States Military Academy, on the Hudson River at West Point, New York, colonel of a volunteer regiment during the Mexican–American War (1846-1848). He had also been a United States senator from Mississippi and served as U.S. Secretary of War under 14th President Franklin Pierce. On March 1, 1861, on behalf of the new Confederate States government, Davis assumed control of the military situation at Charleston Harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, where South Carolina state militia had besieged the longtime Federal Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, held by a small U.S. Army garrison under the command of Major Robert Anderson. (1805-1871). By March 1861, the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States meeting in the temporary capital of Montgomery, Alabama, expanded the provisional military forces and established a more permanent regular Confederate States Army.
During the American Civil War, the United States Army, the land force that fought to preserve the collective Union of the states, was often referred to as the Union army, the federal army, or the northern army. It proved essential to the restoration and preservation of the United States as a working, viable republic.
The Battle of Namozine Church was an engagement in Amelia County, Virginia, between Union Army and Confederate States Army forces that occurred on April 3, 1865, during the Appomattox Campaign of the American Civil War. The battle was the first engagement between units of General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after that army's evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia, on April 2, 1865, and units of the Union Army under the immediate command of Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, who was still acting independently as commander of the Army of the Shenandoah, and under the overall direction of Union General-in-Chief Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant. The forces immediately engaged in the battle were brigades of the cavalry division of Union Brig. Gen. and Brevet Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer, especially the brigade of Colonel and Brevet Brig. Gen. William Wells, and the Confederate rear guard cavalry brigades of Brig. Gen. William P. Roberts and Brig. Gen. Rufus Barringer and later in the engagement, Confederate infantry from the division of Maj. Gen. Bushrod Johnson.
James Jay Archer was a lawyer and an officer in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War. He later served as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army (CSA) during the American Civil War.
William Tatum Wofford was an American military officer who saw action in the Mexican–American War and later served as a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
Gershom Mott was a United States Army officer and a General in the Union Army, a commander in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts played a significant role in national events prior to and during the American Civil War (1861–1865). Massachusetts Republicans dominated the early antislavery movement during the 1830s, motivating activists across the nation. This, in turn, increased sectionalism in the North and South, one of the factors that led to the war. Politicians from Massachusetts, echoing the views of social activists, further increased national tensions. The state was dominated by the Republican Party and was also home to many Republican leaders who promoted harsh treatment of slave owners and, later, the former civilian leaders of the Confederate States of America and the military officers in the Confederate 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.
Daniel P. Tyler IV was an iron manufacturer, railroad president, and one of the first Union Army generals of the American Civil War.
Henry Livermore Abbott was a Major in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Abbott was posthumously awarded the grade of brevet brigadier general, United States Volunteers, to rank from August 1, 1864, and the grades of brevet lieutenant colonel, brevet colonel and brevet brigadier general, United States Army, all to rank from March 13, 1865 for gallant and meritorious services at the Battle of the Wilderness, where he was killed in action. Abbott was engaged at the center of several key Civil War battles and was widely known and admired for his leadership, courage and composure under fire.
James Adelbert Mulligan was colonel of the 23rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. On February 20, 1865, the United States Senate confirmed the posthumous appointment of Mulligan to the rank of brevet brigadier general of U.S. Volunteers to rank from July 23, 1864, the day before he was mortally wounded at the Second Battle of Kernstown, near Winchester, Virginia. He commanded the Federal forces at the First Battle of Lexington, and later distinguished himself in other engagements in the Eastern theater prior to his death in battle.
William Francis Bartlett was a general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and, later, an executive in the iron industry.
As a fervently abolitionist and strongly Republican state, Maine contributed a higher proportion of its citizens to the Union armies than any other, as well as supplying money, equipment and stores. No land battles were fought in Maine. The only episode was the Battle of Portland Harbor (1863) that saw a Confederate raiding party thwarted in its attempt to capture a revenue cutter.
Hispanics in the American Civil War fought on both the Union and Confederate sides of the conflict. Not all the Hispanics who fought in the American Civil War were "Hispanic Americans" — in other words citizens of the United States. Many of them were Spanish subjects or nationals from countries in the Caribbean, Central and South America. Some were born in what later became a U.S. territory and therefore did not have the right to U.S. citizenship. It is estimated that approximately 3,500 Hispanics, mostly Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans living in the United States joined the war: 2,500 for the Confederacy and 1,000 for the Union. This number increased to 10,000 by the end of the war.
The 29th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was an infantry regiment in the Union army of the United States during the American Civil War. The regiment was organized in December 1861 when three new companies were attached to a battalion of seven Massachusetts companies that had been in active service since May 1861. These seven companies had been recruited to fill out the 3rd Massachusetts and 4th Massachusetts regiments and had signed on for three years of service. When the 3rd and 4th Massachusetts were mustered out in July 1861, the seven companies that had signed on for three years were grouped together to form a battalion known as the Massachusetts Battalion. Finally, in December 1861, three more companies were added to their roster to form a full regiment and the unit was designated the 29th Massachusetts.
Joseph H. Tucker was a banker, businessman and Illinois militia colonel during the first two years of the American Civil War. He was given initial responsibility for building Camp Douglas at Chicago, Illinois, and was the first commander of the camp. Originally a training camp for Union Army recruits, in 1862 and 1863 Camp Douglas was converted into a prison camp for Confederate States Army prisoners captured by the Union Army. Tucker was commander of the camp from the start of its construction in October 1861 until September 28, 1862, except between February 26, 1862, and June 19, 1862. During this time, the camp was used as a training facility and had its initial use as a prisoner of war camp. Tucker was never mustered into the Union Army, remaining a colonel in the Illinois militia during the term of his service in the Civil War.
The 6th Louisiana Infantry Regiment, sometimes 6th Regiment, European Brigade, originally the Italian Guards Battalion, and commonly referred to as the Garibaldi Legion in honor of the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, was a militia that fought for the Confederate Army in Louisiana during the American Civil War. They were well known for showing their ethnic pride by wearing cocked hats with plumes in the Italian national colors as well as adopting the red uniform worn by Garibaldi's soldiers.
The 1st Louisiana Infantry Regiment was a unit of volunteers recruited in Louisiana that fought in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Formed in April 1861, the regiment was sent to fight in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Joining a brigade of Louisiana regiments, it fought at Malvern Hill, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg in 1862, at Chancellorsville, Second Winchester, Gettysburg, and Mine Run in 1863, and at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Monocacy, Third Winchester, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, and Petersburg in 1864, and at Appomattox in 1865. At Appomattox, the regiment was only a shadow of its former self.
The 2nd Louisiana Infantry Regiment was a unit of volunteers recruited in Louisiana that fought in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Formed in May 1861, the regiment was sent to fight in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War. Its first action took place during the Siege of Yorktown. The regiment suffered very heavy losses at Malvern Hill. After joining an all-Louisiana brigade, it fought at Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Antietam, and Fredericksburg in 1862, at Chancellorsville, Second Winchester, Gettysburg, and Mine Run in 1863, and at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Monocacy, Third Winchester, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, and Petersburg in 1864, and at Appomattox in 1865. The regiment lost over 100 men at both Second Bull Run and Chancellorsville. A company-sized remnant surrendered at Appomattox.
Italians in the United States before 1880 included a number of explorers, starting with Christopher Columbus, and a few small settlements. The first Italian to be registered as residing in the area corresponding to the current U.S. was Pietro Cesare Alberti, commonly regarded as the first Italian American, a Venetian seaman who, in 1635, settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, what would eventually become New York City. Enrico Tonti, together with the French explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, explored the Great Lakes region. Tonti founded the first European settlement in Illinois in 1679 and in Arkansas in 1683, known as Poste de Arkansea, making him "The Father of Arkansas". With LaSalle, he co-founded New Orleans, and was governor of the Louisiana Territory for the next 20 years. His brother Alfonso Tonti, with French explorer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, was the co-founder of Detroit in 1701, and was its acting colonial governor for 12 years. The Taliaferro family, believed to have roots in Venice, was one of the First Families to settle Virginia. In 1773–1785, Filippo Mazzei, a physician and promoter of liberty, was a close friend and confidant of Thomas Jefferson. He published a pamphlet containing the phrase, which Jefferson incorporated essentially intact into the Declaration of Independence: "All men are by nature equally free and independent. Such equality is necessary in order to create a free government. All men must be equal to each other in natural law". Italian Americans served in the American Revolutionary War both as soldiers and officers. Francesco Vigo aided the colonial forces of George Rogers Clark by serving as one of the foremost financiers of the Revolution in the frontier Northwest. Later, he was a co-founder of Vincennes University in Indiana.