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BOOK REVIEWS FALL 2010 85 To those interested in gripping battle narratives and descriptions of glorious victories and catastrophic defeats, A German Hurrah! may come as a disappointment. Friedrich Bertsch and Wilhelm Stängel, the German soldiers whose letters comprise this fine collection, only fought in one significant battle, the January 1862 Union victory at Mill Springs, Kentucky. Most of their missives, written to German newspapers in Cincinnati and Louisville, describe camp life and the sufferings occasioned by often-missing pay, strenuous marches, and exposure to the elements. However, Joseph Reinhart’s translation and editing of this collection represents an important service to historians of the Civil War and immigration. Lieut. Friedrich Bertsch and Chaplain (later Capt.) Wilhelm Stängel of the 9th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry had joined the Union Army in 1861 (Bertsch in May and Stängel in August). Both men professed democratic and egalitarian ideals and viewed themselves and their fellow Germans as superior soldiers to AngloAmericans . They chafed at American nativism and resented puritanical temperance and Sabbath laws and practices. As their regiment campaigned throughout western Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama, the men wrote frequent and often lengthy dispatches to the German American Cincinnati Volksfreund and Louisville Anzeiger. Both officers kept their readers abreast of the progress of the respective campaigns, the frequent lack of pay, physical sufferings of the men, and real or imagined examples of Anglo-American nativism. They denounced officers and politicians they judged as prejudiced or incompetent (Stängel was even cashiered for his intemperate criticism of President Abraham Lincoln and the nation’s military leadership) and lauded their fellow German soldiers and those Anglo officers who appreciated and cared for their immigrant subordinates (especially the 9th Ohio’s Col. Robert McCook). The value of this book lies in both its uniqueness and ordinariness. Reinhart, who discovered these letters in long-neglected A German Hurrah! Civil War Letters of Friedrich Bertsch and Wilhelm Stängel, 9th Ohio Infantry Joseph R. Reinhart, trans. and ed. Joseph R. Reinhart, trans. and ed. A German Hurrah! Civil War Letters of Friedrich Bertsch and Wilhelm Stängel, 9th Ohio Infantry. Kent, Oh.: Kent State University Press, 2010. 384 pp. ISBN: 9781606350386 (cloth), $59.00. BOOK REVIEWS 86 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY microfilm reels of the Volksfreund and the Anzeiger, notes the rarity of translated letters from German soldiers who served in ethnically German regiments during the Civil War. He emphasizes how the writings illuminate the understudied western Virginia theater of the war, life in a German regiment , and the ethnic dimensions of the conflict . But Reinhart also sheds light on the experiences of ethnic soldiers in the western theater of the war. Many studies of the ethnic soldiery in the United States, including Christian Keller’s excellent work on the Germans and Chancellorsville, focus on the eastern theater (understandably, given the numbers of ethnic soldiers serving in the eastern armies). Reinhart’s collection of these important letters illustrates the common concern about nativism among Germans east and west, and the different western environment of sparsely settled rugged mountains and expansive cotton lands. Although the fight against prejudice, the unique cultural practices of Germans, and the use of the German language while on campaign set German Americans apart from their Anglo comrades, they experienced the same frustrations with rain, hunger, lust for battle, and exhausting marches as other non-German soldiers. This ordinariness strikes a subtle blow for their integration into American society. Reinhart’s translations and editing facilitate a clear narrative thrust to the collection. He wisely keeps a chronological orientation, tracing the officers from enlistment, through campaigns in western Virginia, and all the way to northern Alabama. Due to the literacy and education of Bertsch and Stängel, Reinhard has been able to keep a light touch in his editing, only making slight adjustments for the purpose of clarity and conciseness (occasionally cutting out repetitive or digressive material). The unique voices of the authors shine through. In an odd way, however , this raises a problem, though not one that arises from any fault of Reinhart. Bertsch and Stängel were both radical German liberals , anticlerical in their beliefs, and members of...

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