German Americans in the American Civil War

German-Americans were the largest ethnic contingent to fight for the Union in the American Civil War. More than 200,000 native Germans served in the Union Army, notably from New York, Wisconsin, 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.

Union Army

German-American commanders of note

St. Louis Turnverein, 1860

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. 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 socio-political 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 generals included Peter Osterhaus, Edward S. Salomon, Frederick C. Salomon, August Kautz and Felix Salm-Salm. 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.

Another famous German American, though not an immigrant, was Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer. He fought against the Confederate cavalry of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart at Gettysburg and famously died in the Battle of Little Big Horn during the Indian Wars .

Confederate Army

Although the Confederacy had general officers born in Ireland, France, and England, no German-born soldiers reached that rank in the Confederate Army. Colonel Adolphus Heiman, a Prussian veteran of the Mexican–American War who commanded the 10th Tennessee Infantry and later a brigade; and Colonel Augustus Büchel, a native of Hesse and commander of the 1st Texas Cavalry,^[3] were probably the 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 Prussian Army veteran, 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 became one of the few former Confederate officers to fight in the Austro-Prussian War.

There were also several German units in the Confederate Army, though none reached regimental size. Judging from their local designations, German companies appear to have served in the 9th Texas Infantry, Oswald's Battalion of Texas Infantry, the 2nd Texas Cavalry, 8th Alabama infantry, 1st South Carolina Rifles, 1st Georgia Infantry, 8th North Carolina Infantry,^[4] and possibly in the 20th and 22nd Louisiana Infantry regiments.^[5] At least one German artillery unit served from South Carolina. (One source shows this to have reached battalion size.)^[6][7] The most famous German unit was the German Fusiliers, Company H, 8th Alabama Infantry.

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.

Noted incidents

See also

Further reading

• Baron, Frank, "Abraham Lincoln and the German Immigrants: Turners and Forty-Eighters," Yearbook of German-American Studies, 4 (Supplemental Issue 2012), 1–254.
• Burton, William L., Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union's Ethnic Regiments. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-8138-1115-5.
• Engle, Stephen D., Yankee Dutchman: The Life of Franz Sigel. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 1993. ISBN 1-55728-273-0.
• Faust, Albert Bernhardt, The German Element in the United States. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909.
• Kamphoefner, Walter D. "German-Americans and Civil War Politics: A Reconsideration of the Ethnocultural Thesis." Civil War History 37.3 (1991): 232-246. online
• Kamphoefner, Walter D., "Missouri Germans and the Cause of Union and Freedom," Missouri Historical Review, 106#2 (April 2012), 115-36.
• Kamphoefner, Walter D. "St-Louis Germans And The Republican-Party, 1848-1860." Mid-America-An Historical Review (1975) 57#2 pp: 69-88.
• Kamphoefner, Walter D. "New perspectives on Texas Germans and the Confederacy." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 102.4 (1999): 440-455.
• 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
• Williams, R. H. 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 online

Footnotes

Further reading

• Allendorf, Donald. Long Road to Liberty: The Odyssey of a German Regiment in the Yankee Army; The 15th Missouri Volunteer Infantry. Kent State University Press, 2006.
• Bearden-White, Christina. "Illinois Germans and the Coming of the Civil War: Reshaping Ethnic Identity" Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 109#3 (2016), pp. 231–251 DOI: 10.5406/jillistathistsoc.109.3.0231
• Efford, Alison Clark. German Immigrants: Race and Citizenship in the Civil War Era. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
• 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.
• Lonn, Ella, Foreigners in the Confederacy. First published in 1940, reprinted February 2002.
• 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
• 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)
• 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., "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)
• Rosengarten, Joseph George, The German Soldier in the Wars of the United States. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1890.
• 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.
• Valuska, David and Keller, Christian, Damn Dutch: Pennsylvania Germans at Gettysburg. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2004. ISBN 0-8117-0074-7.

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