Foreigners/Immigrants of the Civil War

In almost every civil war, outside nations have very vested interests especially in the event of a civil war in a major country. With the religious civil wars of France, the civil wars in China, Vietnam, Russia, Spain, Colombia, Syria, and many more, surrounding nations often deploy troops with an attempt to either gain regional influence, defeat a rival power contesting the region, or just stop senseless massacres of civilians and soldiers. But while the intricacies of foreign intervention are many, there is the case of individuals fighting in a different country to win the war for their favored side.

 

These mercenary units are often strong fighters such as the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, the Flying Tigers of World War II, and the Westerners fighting alongside the Kurds in the current Iraqi Civil War. Of course there are ineffective fighters, but the post today is not comparing their effectiveness, but rather why they decided to fight for a cause linked to a government that was not their own.

 

A secondary part of this blog post is to see the values of the first generation immigrants who were flowing into America from Europe at the time. These immigrants and foreigners provided hundreds of thousands of men to the war effort, on both sides.

 

Union

A large portion of Europe's immigrants were entering through port cities such as Boston and New York, and being too poor to go elsewhere, most of them stayed there. As a result, when the call to arms was raised, thousands of these men took up arms to go to battle.

 

The numbers of how many of these men either volunteered or were drafted are staggering. While nearly half of the estimated 2.2 million Union soldiers were native born of British ancestry, there were hundreds of thousands of other ethnicities. Over half a million Germans (both from Germany and natives of German descent) fought alongside nearly a quarter of a million Irish and blacks (this was later on). Thousands of Dutch, Canadians, French, Nordic, Italian, Jewish, Mexican, Polish, and Native Americans fought alongside the Union army in various brigades and units dedicated to that heritage.

 

Of course not all of these soldiers were willing participants as shown in the New York City draft riots of 1863, largely conducted by Irish who had names on the new draft. Additionally, they feared the erosion of their white power and feared being undercut in labor by newly freed slaves when the North won the war. When the draft came out, ignited by the anti-Lincoln governor of New York, the Irish attacked government buildings to protest the unfairness of the draft. But soon it turned racial and the riots became more about race than drafting.

But by afternoon of the first day, some of the rioters had turned to attacks on black people, and on things symbolic of black political, economic, and social power.

Another open testament to the cultural diversity in the Union army was the 39th New York Infantry Regiment which was ethnically mixed and engaged the Confederates alongside the Army of the Potomac.

The 39th, the "Garibaldi Guard," recruited in New York city, was composed of three Hungarian companies, three German, one Swiss, one Italian, one French, one Spanish and one Portuguese, most of whose members had already seen active service.

Amongst the thousands of white Europeans who fought for the Union and eventually the freed slaves, there were even limited amounts of Asians in the American Civil War. 58 Chinese served in the Civil War, a few even for the South, and these men were able to rise up the ranks to Corporal.

This might not seem like much but if you look at the way the armed services were operating at that time, it actually was significant- Ruthanne Lum McCunn

The Union was compromised of hundreds of thousands of men of differing religion, ethnicity, belief, political background, education, and occupations. These immigrants and foreigners rose through the ranks and became commissioned officers in the Union army and often entered post war service. Without them, the Union would have been greatly weakened and the Confederacy may have been a nation today without the sacrifices made by a people who were fighting a country they were just beginning to call home.

These Union troops were fighting to defend the Union that they had fled their own homes to be a part of. They saw the South as the enemy who wished to tear down the democracy and freedoms that were granted and promised to them as they survived the journey of immigration. Some, such as the Germans, were strong abolitionists and others simply wanted to fight for the Union.

Confederacy

Due to immigration being focused in the North, the Confederacy could not draw from hundreds of thousands of immigrants and massive port cities to draw foreigners to the fight. Confederate record keeping is also spotty at best and many records from the time are approximations based on other accounts.

 

Despite this, of the estimated 800,000 - 1.3 million men, 9% were of mainly German, Irish, or British heritage. A limited number of Native Americans as well as Mexicans fought for the Confederacy.

 

For Polish in the Confederacy, their presence was limited and their own Polish Battalions, the 14th and 15th Louisiana Volunteer Regiments were not even entirely Polish.

The two regiments of the Polish Brigade when they left for Virginia in August were made up primarily of Irish, Germans, and a few Americans.

Despite this, the Polish were veterans of their own wars of Polish November Uprising which saw heavy fighting against the Russians and an eventual defeat. Just as with the locals and other immigrants, the Poles vowed to defend the South from the incursions of the increasingly dominant North.

As for the Irish, there were roughly 40,000 of them fighting in Confederate units, but since nativism sentiment wasn't as large in the South, they weren't reserved separate battalions and assimilated into regular Confederate military units. These included the shock troops of the Louisiana Tigers as well as the 69th Irish Brigade.

Native Americans also served in the Confederacy because the CSA was willing to engage in talks regarding national sovereignty and some native tribes had slave-owners within them. Many Natives also served with the Union and on each side these Native Americans were present at major battles and in distinguished units.

As for Confederate troops, the immigrants and foreigners saw the North as the aggressor of the war and imposing its rule upon a people who wanted to rule themselves. Without any real landed interests in slavery, many of these immigrants fought this war to both defend their homes from the massive Union armies as well as to show their proud Southern heritage.

A Summary
It is interesting to note that both sides had units that could have university graduates (246 Harvard faculty and students died of the ~1600 that enlisted in both North and South) alongside illiterate farmers, rugged frontiersmen, and middle class urban families. Each side had tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands in the Union's case, of immigrant and foreign soldiers who signed up or were drafted into the war that dragged on for so long.

Irish, Poles, Germans, Mexicans, Native Americans, Canadians, Brits, Chinese, Filipinos, Blacks, English, French, Italian, Norwegian, etc all served their armies to defend  their home or to defend their government. Each side's foreign soldiers served not against the enemy, but also against some prejudice in their own home (though this was mainly in the North due to heavy nativism sentiments). They were valorous and each side's soldiers were some of the bravest soldiers in all of American history as they continued to serve in America's costliest war which took the lives of hundreds of thousands of American men.

These men laid down their lives to defend a country or cause that was new to them and fought in an army for a government that they barely knew. But despite this, they were willing to die for this and their devotion to their cause despite racism, prejudice, or simple casualty lists, is stunning.

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Britton, Wiley. "Union and Confederate Indians in the Civil War." Union and Confederate Indians in the Civil War. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

                  

Britton, Wiley. "Union and Confederate Indians in the Civil War." Union and Confederate Indians in the Civil War. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

                  

Harris, Leslie M. "The New York City Draft Riots of 1863." In the Shadow of Slavery:African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 279-88. The New York City Draft Riots of 1863. University of Chicago Press, 2003. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

                  

Lamm, Alan K. "Clear the Confederate Way! The Irish in the Army of Northern Virginia by Kelly J. O'Grady; Robert K. Krick." Rev. of Clear the Confederate Way! The Irish in the Army of Northern Virginia. The North Carolina Historical Review 77.4 (2000): 511-12. Print.

                  

McPherson, James M. What They Fought For: 1861-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State U, 1997. N. pag. Print.

                  

"39th NY Infantry Regiment during the Civil War - NY Military Museum and Veterans Research Center." 39th NY Infantry Regiment during the Civil War - NY Military Museum and Veterans Research Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

                  

Uminski, Sigmund H. "Poles and the Confederacy." Polish American Studies 22.2 (1965): 99-106. JSTOR. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.