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2 Before Chancellorsville: Sigel, Blenker, and the Reinforcement of German Ethnicity in the Union Army, 1861–1862 A lthough Civil War soldiers everywhere collectively shared many things— the drudgery of drill, sickness, hunger, the terror of battle, and a yearning for loved ones at home—ethnicity undoubtedly influenced the experiences of German American soldiers in the eastern ethnic regiments and inspired in them different reactions and experiences from their Anglo American comrades. Recruited into regiments that boasted memberships entirely or mainly German, performing daily tasks among German comrades, and routinely hearing and speaking the German language, these soldiers could not escape the fact that they were different. Some relished their ethnicity and used it as a means to move up the ranks, eliminate non-German adversaries, and improve the quality of life in their regiments. Others failed to acknowledge their ethnicity in any way. Whatever their reactions to their own Germanness, urban-immigrant soldiers enlisted in both ethnic and regular regiments, encountered and dispensed ethnic prejudice, and lived and fought among other Germans in the camp and field in the first two years of the war. While these areas of focus do not compose the entire early war experience of these men, they are the ones in which the influence of ethnicity was most evident, and thus offer the greatest opportunity to explore its function in their lives before the battle of Chancellorsville. ‘‘All Good Men are Happy to Fight for the Laws of Our Homeland’’: Enlistment, Motivations, and Promotions Thousands of books compiling the letters and reminiscences of Civil War soldiers and officers adorn the shelves of most major libraries. Leading historians , such as Bell Irvin Wiley, James M. McPherson, and Reid Mitchell have succeeded in interpreting this vast amount of literature and provide a deeper understanding of various subjects concerning soldiers’ lives: why they enlisted and kept fighting, how they dealt with the monotony and hardships of camp, how they perceived their enemies and allies, and how they experienced battle. Very few of these historians, however, have specifically analyzed the lives of ethnic soldiers, and in the few instances in which they do treat this subject, dwell PAGE 24 ................. 16469$ $CH2 05-07-07 14:32:56 PS German Ethnicity in the Union Army, 1861–1862 25 primarily on the Irish. German soldiers, who were collectively the largest ethnic group in the Federal service, have been almost forgotten. Who were these men and why did they serve in the northern armies?1 For years most historians have agreed that the majority of Civil War enlisted men were between eighteen and twenty-one years old. The armies of volunteers from both the North and South in 1861 were not only inexperienced in the ways of war, but were almost literally composed of boy soldiers, in many cases, fresh off the farm. The men who enlisted in the German regiments from the east were, however, considerably older than this stereotype. They also came from extremely diverse walks of life, enlisted for reasons somewhat different from their Anglo American comrades, and represented nearly every German state and province. Prussians and Badeners, Hessians and Bavarians buried their European prejudices against one another and enlisted jointly in the same companies . To serve in a German regiment was apparently more important to them than fostering old animosities.2 Close scrutiny of the descriptive lists of five companies drawn from each of the primary Pennsylvania German regiments reveals the average age of the recruit in 1861 was 29.90 years, perhaps due to the fact that many of these individuals had immigrated to America as teenagers or young adults in the late 1840s and 1850s. Men in their early forties were as common, if not more numerous , than youths in their early twenties. While men born in the southern German states of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria dominated the ranks, each company also included sizeable percentages of men from northern Germany, Prussia in particular. Pennsylvania and Ireland were also listed as the place of birth for several soldiers, indicating not all in the German regiments were German -born. The majority of soldiers were day laborers, shoemakers, farmers, tailors, bakers, and smiths, in descending order. The list of less popular prewar professions was diverse, ranging from two jewelers in the 74th Pennsylvania, to five sailors in the 27th, to three tobacconists in the 98th. Despite the number of common laborers (fifty-seven) which topped the list of occupations, however, the overwhelming majority of men in each...

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