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Acknowledgments In a project of this size, spanning several years, it is difficult to recognize all the people who helped make it possible. The generous advice, support, professional courtesy, and prompt service that so many individuals provided during the course of researching and writing this book is staggering. If I have inadvertently forgotten someone, the negligence is a result of the passage of time, not the unimportance of the contribution. Holt Merchant, my undergraduate advisor at Washington and Lee, endured with grace and, dare I say, enthusiasm, an honors thesis on the Germans in the Civil War that sparked my professional interest in the subject. My dissertation committee members at Penn State were the next suffering souls who read more than they probably wanted to about German-American identity, the ethnic regiments , and what it all meant for American history. Mark Neely, Gary Gallagher , Carol Reardon, and Bill Pencak waded through monstrous chapters and heavy-handed historiography that became crisper and more analytical under their tutelage. I owe them each a great deal of thanks. During my Fulbright year in Germany, I had the pleasure of meeting and befriending several excellent German scholars who share my interest in this subject and helped me conceptualize the book in many discussions over beer, schnapps, or wine: Jörg Nagler, Andrea Mehrländer, Martin Oefele, Wolfgang Hochbruck, and Christoph Hänel all deserve a hearty ‘‘Vielen Dank.’’ Andrea and Christoph also assisted with some translations of handwritten German script that I could not personally decipher. Three American colleagues were kind enough to read portions of the manuscript at different points in its creation and provided insightful and critical suggestions for its improvement: Gary Gallagher, Donald Pfanz, and David Valuska. The book is much better thanks to their input. For that matter, my editors at Fordham University Press, Mary Christian and Nicholas Frankovich, transformed often obtuse prose into flowing narrative, and their endless patience with my e-mails and phone calls helped make the publication experience seamless. Joseph Reinhart came to the rescue more than once with copies of esoteric German-American newspapers that I could not have possibly located in time, and Julie Krick drew up excellent maps for me, displaying incredible PAGE xi ................. 16469$ $ACK 05-07-07 14:32:16 PS xii Acknowledgments fortitude as we exchanged thoughts on how best to portray the Eleventh Corps’s fight at Chancellorsville. Numerous archivists and librarians were indispensable over the many years during which I conducted research. As all historians know, without their friendly assistance our books would never see the light of day. I would especially like to thank Richard Sommers of the United States Military History Institute (now AHEC), Carlisle Barracks; Michael Musick (now retired) of the Military Division of the National Archives; Jonathan Stayer and the staff of the Pennsylvania State Archives; James Green and Charlene Peacock of the Library Company of Philadelphia; Lee Arnold and Max Moeller of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; and the staffs of the German Society of Pennsylvania, Schwenkfelder Historical Library, and the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress. I am privileged to have received numerous grants over the years that partly or fully funded portions of my research. All of them were gratefully received, but in particular the dissertation scholarship provided by the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg and postdoctoral grants from the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, were integral to the successful completion of this project. Dirk Schumann at the GHI deserves special mention for his receptiveness and interest in my topic. I would also like to thank William Keel, editor of the Yearbook of German-American Studies, for his kind permission to reproduce a sizable chunk of chapter five, much of which first appeared in the 2006 edition of the Yearbook. Last, but certainly not least, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to friends and family who never gave up on me or the book. Some of them fed, housed, and yes, even clothed me during my period of research, whereas others cheered me on later in the game. All of them individually and aggregately contributed the emotional and logistical support that permitted me to finally finish the project. My thanks—and my heart—go out to the following wonderful people: first and foremost, my mother, Patricia F. Keller; Ted and Daphne Sahlin; Norman and Kay Rodriguez; Joseph Walker; Tom and Bev Phillips; Peter and Sandy Clark; Ryan McCann; Andrew...

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