German Americans in the Civil War

German-Americans in the American Civil War were the largest ethnic contingent to fight for the Union. More than 200,000 native Germans served in the Union Army, notably from New York and Ohio. Thousands also served in the Confederacy, being primarily descended from Pennsylvania German ancestors who had migrated to the Carolinas in the 18th century and early 19th century, along with Swabian, Swiss, and Austrian immigrants who arrived directly in the South.

German-American army units

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 Missouri with 30,000 and Ohio with 20,000.

Scores of individual regiments, such as the 9th Ohio, 74th Pennsylvania, 32nd Indiana (1st German), and the 9th Wisconsin Infantry, consisted entirely of German Americans. Major recruiting efforts aimed at German Americans were conducted in Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, among many other cities.

New York and Ohio each provided ten divisions dominated by German-born men.^{[citation needed]}

Commonly referred to as "Dutchmen" by other Union soldiers, and "lopeared Dutch" by Confederates, German-American units in general earned a reputation for discipline.

German-American commanders of note

A popular Union commander and native German, Major General Franz 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^{[citation needed]}. He was a member of the Forty-Eighters, a political movement of the revolutions in German states that 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.

Schurz was part of the politico-social movement in America known as the Turners, who contributed to getting Lincoln elected as President. The Turners provided the bodyguard at Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, and also at Lincoln's funeral in April 1865.

Other prominent German-born generals included Godfrey Weitzel, Adolph von Steinwehr, Edward S. Salomon, Frederick C. Salomon, August Kautz, Felix Salm-Salm, and Peter Osterhaus. Hundreds of German-born officers led regiments during the war, including Col. Gustav Tafel, Col. Paul A. Frank, Col. Friedrich Hecker, Col. Leopold von Gilsa, and Maj. Jurgen Wilson. Among the very best Union artillerists was German-born Capt. Hubert Dilger, who had been trained at the Karlsruhe Military Academy.

Veteran Prussian military officer Heros von Borcke 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 Chief of Staff and Adjutant. In 1866, he became one of the few former Confederate officers to fight in the Austro-Prussian War.

Another famous German American, George Armstrong Custer, fought against the Confederate cavalry of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and Heros von Borcke at Hanover and Hunterstown, on the way to the main event at Gettysburg.

A Missouri man had once written the Confederate authorities that all they had to do to get rid of the Saint Louis Unionists was destroy the local breweries and seize all the beer: "... By this means the Dutch [Germans] will all die in a week and the Yankees will then run from this State.

— M. Jeff Thompson of Missouri

Medal of Honor Recipients

Among those German immigrants who received the Medal of Honor for valor during the war include:

• Pvt. Frederick Alber
• Cpl. William J. Archinal
• Pvt. Frederick Ballen
• Sgt. Richard Binder
• Sgt. Maj. Abraham Cohn
• Cpt. Hubert Dilger
• Sgt. Frederick Füger
• Cpl. Heinrich Hoffman
• Pvt. Peter Kappesser
• Pvt. Henry Klein
• Pvt. J. C. Julius Langbein
• Pvt. John Schiller
• 1Sgt. Conrad Schmidt
• 1Lt. Theodore Schwan
• Cpl. Charles Shambaugh
• Sgt. George Uhrl

Noted incidents

Camp Jackson Affair

Main article: Camp Jackson Affair

In neutral Missouri on May 10, 1861, Union Capt. Nathaniel 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. 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, 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]}

Nueces Massacre

Main article: Nueces Massacre

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.

Confederate Army

There were also several German regiments in the Confederate army. About 2,000 Germans served voluntarily with another 3,000 serving against their will or with neutral status. Almost all of these came from Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, or, Virginia. The most famous German regiment was the German Fusilier. Many families in the South referred to themselves as "Dutch by descent" in the 19th century, which at the time meant "Deitsch", or German. Germans from Europe and Pennsylvania settled in the Carolinas in large numbers by 1800, and then spread throughout the Southeast. Many intermarried with Native American women (especially Cherokee) populations, who fought for the Confederacy and Cherokee interests. Daniel Dodson Watts, a native of North Carolina, and his son, James Britton Watts, were ethnic German-Cherokees who served in the 48th Alabama Infantry Regiment.

Heros von Borcke is the most famous German officer in the Confederacy.

See also

• Treue der Union Monument
• American Civil War
• German Texan
• List of famous German Americans
• German-American Heritage Foundation of the USA

• African Americans in the American Civil War
• Hispanic Americans in the American Civil War
• Irish-Americans in the American Civil War
• Italian Americans in the Civil War
• Foreign enlistment in the American Civil War

References

• Baron, Frank, “Abraham Lincoln and the German Immigrants: Turners and Forty-Eighters,” Yearbook of German-American Studies, 4 (Supplemental Issue 2012), 1–254.
• Faust, Albert Bernhardt, The German Element in the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909.
• Linedecker, Clifford L., ed. Civil War, A-Z: The Complete Handbook of America's Bloodiest Conflict. New York: Ballantine Books, 2002. ISBN 0-89141-878-4
• Balder, Hans-Georg and Richter, Rüdiger Burkhard, Korporierte in amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg, WJK-Verlag, Hilden, 2007. ISBN 3-933892-27-9
• R. H. Williams and John W. Sansom, "The Massacre on the Nueces River; story of a Civil War tragedy", Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas Libraries
• Burton, William L., Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union's Ethnic Regiments. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-8138-1115-5.
• Kaufmann, Wilhelm, Die Deutschen im Amerikanischen Bürgerkriege. Munich: Verlag R. Oldenbourg, 1911.
• Rowan, Steven (translated, edited), Germans for a Free Missouri: Translations from the St. Louis Radical Press, 1857-1862. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1983. ISBN 0-8262-0410-4.
• Engle, Stephen D., Yankee Dutchman: The Life of Franz Sigel. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1993. ISBN 1-55728-273-0.

Further reading

• Öfele, Martin W., German Speaking-Officers in the U.S. Colored Troops, 1863-1867, University Press of Florida (April 2004), ISBN 978-0-8130-2692-3
• Valuska, David and Keller, Christian, Damn Dutch: Pennsylvania Germans at Gettysburg. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2004. ISBN 0-8117-0074-7.
• Rosengarten, Joseph George, The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1890.
• Lonn, Ella, Foreigners in the Confederacy. First published in 1940, reprinted February 2002.
• Kroehnke, John O., 1810- . Diaries, 1884-1885. Milwaukee Manuscript Collection 107
• Munk, Emanuel, 1806-1899. Letters, 1861-1893. Milwaukee Micro Collection 2
• Kaufmann, Wilhelm. The Germans in the American Civil War, With a Biographical Directory. Translated by Steven Rowan and edited by Don Heinrich Tolzmann with Werner D. Mueller and Robert E. Ward. Carlisle, Pa.: John Kallmann Publishers, 1999.
• Reinhart, Joseph R., "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, 2004)
• Reinhart, Joseph R., "August Willich's Gallant Dutchmen: Civil War Letters from the 32nd Indiana Infantry" (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2006).
• Reinhart, Joseph R. "A German Hurrah: Civil War Letters of Friedrich Bertsch and Wilhelm Stängel, 9th Ohio Infantry (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2010)
• Richter, Rüdiger B., Corpsstudenten im Amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg. Einst und Jetzt, Band 49, Jahrbuch 2004 des Vereins für corpsstudentische Geschichtsforschung.
• Balder Hans-Georg & Richter, Rüdiger B., Korporierte im amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg. WJK Verlag Hilden, 1. Auflage 2007. ISBN 3-933892-27-9
• Richter, Rüdiger B. & Balder Hans-Georg, Korporierte im amerikanischen Bürgerkrieg. WJK Verlag Hilden, 2. erweiterte Auflage 2013. ISBN 3-9344052-21-2
• Tafel, Gustav. "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 Publishing Co., 2010.

External links

• German-Americans in the Civil War
• German-American Soldiers in the US Civil War
• Kentucky’s German Americans in the Civil War
• Germans in gray: Famous Confederate Leaders