Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union's Ethnic Regiments (review)

BOOK REVIEWS359 Polk's first name is misspelled throughout), and too many instances where persons' initials are given rather than their first andmiddlenames. Some people will not agree with Cooling's analyses, but if the book stirs debate and a deeperlook at the campaign, hewillhave accomplishedhis purpose of rescuing the battles from relative obscurity. Arthur W. Bergeron, Jr. Louisiana Office of State Parks Melting Pot Soldiers: The UnionsEthnic Regiments. By William L. Burton . (Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1988. Pp. x, 282. $26.95.) William L. Burton undertook this study asarevision ofthe"extraordinarily dated" and "filiopietistic" standard work by Ella Lonn, Foreignersin the Union Army and Navy (1951), seeing an "opportunity for colorful stories" and a need to combat a "double standard in scholarship" (pp. viii-ix) which has produced a pro-ethnic bias. He bases his case largely on published material, supplemented by several dozen manuscript collections , mostlypersonalpapers or state-level military records (butnothing from the National Archives). The thirteen newspapers consulted include two Irish organs, but there are no newspapers among the few German-language sources consulted. The book begins where it should, with a discussion of ethnic politics on the eve of the war. It then takes up the outbreak of hostilities and the process of ethnic recruitment. Three subsequent chapters provide stateby -state overviews of German, Irish, and other ethnic regiments. While the fighting records ofvarious units are touched upon, primary attention is given the politics of command. For the most part, the army is seen from the rank of colonel upwards; a Life of Billy Yank, ethnic style, this is not. Burton occasionally attempts to correct Lonn's characterization of the ethnic makeup ofregiments, but does not do so systematically. Much seems to depend on the availability of secondary literature; the 12th Missouri , subject of a recent study, is prominently featured while its sister unit, the 17th Missouri, is never even mentioned. A brief chapter on "Song and Story" adds little besides color. Putting the whole study into context, concluding chapters assess first the influence of the war on ethnic participants and vice versa, and secondly, the significance of this process for the larger historiography of ethnicity. One of the weaknesses of the book is the lack of a clear thesis during much ofits narrative exposition. The ultimate sentence finally lays itout: "The best-kept secret of the ethnic regiments is how truly American they were." Despite the recognition that the war was a highly political (and politicized) affair, the study suffers from a narrowness of vision. Draft riots (a contradiction to the melting pot thesis) go unmentioned in the chapter on recruitment; in fact, they arehardly considered at all. Missing an excellent opportunity to analyze the effects of political affiliation on 360CIVIL WAR HISTORY recruitment, Burton largely evades the issue of levels of ethnic support for the Union cause. His one statement on the subject—that proportionally more English-Americans served than any other group—would appear to be in error. While noting that internecine squabbles characterized many Irish regiments but in no way affected their fighting spirit, Burton claims that neither could be explained by "Irishness." He seems unaware of the "Celtic thesis" advanced by Grady McWhiney to explain Confederate aggressiveness and valor. Similarly, the author argues that German Forty-eighters lost their political radicalism during the war, ignoring a recent German book which demonstrates the importance of Germans and particularly Forty-eighters in the Radical Unionist movement which pushed a Fremont presidential candidacy in 1864. In general, evidence for the melting pot is less than overwhelming. Burton cites the fact that only 36,000 Germans (hardly 20 percent of the total) fought in ethnic regiments, as evidence that this was not a high priority for immigrants. In fact, as he shows elsewhere, a sizeable ethnic concentration was necessary to provide the population base for a regiment . More telling would be the much higher proportion fighting in ethnic companies. The author does establish that most ethnic units became diluted during the course of the war, but fails to explorehow much this had to do with ethnic values as opposed to the mechanisms of draft and recruitment. Also in the long run, the...