On Mar 31, 2011, at 7:14 PM, Charles Hofacker wrote: > Slavery was anathema to the forty-eighter's. It was an abomination. As a > group, the forty-eighter's could not stomach it. ...Except for those Forty-Eighters who lived in the South. :-) In Charleston, where three branches of my German ancestors emigrated (two, Shuchmann and Dressel, from Hesse-Darmstadt, one, Jatho, from Hannover), they were participants in various ways in what some folks in the South still call "The Late Unpleasantness." None of the children of Georg Wilhelm Jatho (who emigrated in 1848) were old enough to serve. G.W. himself was too old to join up, having been born in 1824. But the family still talks about a story that involves him burying treasure from his watchmaker's shop in the front garden to avoid having Union soldiers find and confiscate it. Whether this really happened is another story entirely. My great-great-grandmother's brother, Philipp Schuchmann, who emigrated around 1845, was in the German Fusiliers in Charleston and served in the Confederate army for four years. His father's business was a haberdashery shop on King Street in Charleston. They made buttons for military uniforms stamped with his name, an example of which can be seen at http://sakionline.net/familypage/schuchmann.shtml . Philipp's mother, Marie Dressel Schuchmann, made patriotic flags for the local Charleston regiments. They're described prettily here from the Charleston Mercury newspaper: http://sakionline.net/familypage/schuckmannflags.pdf My parents were born in Chicago and I was born in Southern California, so it was rather a surprise to me -- and still rather hard to accept -- that my Hessian ancestors supported the Confederacy. But it's our history. Regards, Debra MacLaughlan-Dumes http://sakionline.bet/familypage

I think it's hard and usually pointless to make generalizations on a segment of people. Many who fought may not have either supported or loathed slavery. Some may ave been indifferent. The presence or absence from the roll calls on either side of the fight is not indicative of support or not. If you were to analyze the records and this has been done, you'll find that fully half of those signed up were not present for basically all the battles. Keep that in mind the next time you hear numbers fighting, and how many died. While the mortalities are real, the numbers present at any given battle are likely to be half of what is printed in a history book. After all there are lies and then there are statistics. Now what I said about generalizing applies to my comment on roll calls also. There are lots of gotchas. A great many men signed up for the bounty money offered. Some of those were habitual enlisters. That is, they would sign up, get their money and never show up. They went to another unit and did it again. My gr-gr-grandfather enlisted three times, he was absent from roll call quite a few times. Got court-martialed for being found at a railway station in civilian clothes in DC. This was right about the time his toddler daughter died, and I suspect he was going to NYC for the funeral. This was after he'd already been shot in the hip at a battle and been honorably discharged and before he enlisted for the third time and got shot and captured three days before Appomattox. He wasn't one of those out to get the bounty money for nothing, but made $900 on bounties plus whatever he got for pay. The Civil War made my grandfather well to do; that $900 would be equivalent to $20-25K today. He used the first $300 to start a saloon with his brother. He died a rather wealthy man, and second in command at his GAR (Grand Army of The Republic) Post. The GAR, was one of the most influential (political) organizations of it's time, and managed to get a great deal of legislation written. It was controlled by a great many German-Americans. I have heard The Civil War called variously throughout nation The Civil War, the The War of the Rebellion, The War of The Great Rebellion, The War Between The States, The Late Unpleasantness, and I think also the War of the Confederacy. The last two being terms found only in the South. There was another one some Deep Southerners use, but I can't remember it. I live in the Metro KC area now, the only state that I know of that had raised both Confederate and Union Armies. While the Union flag was flown on Jewell Hall here in Liberty, Jesse James et al were fighting very effectively for the South. After the War the Confederate flag flew on the Clay County courthouse until sometime in the 1900s. Alabama only took theirs down a few years ago. Yet, the Masonic Lodge in Liberty had members at the time from both sides of the battle, and held meetings together in peace and fellowship throughout the War. So, it's not all as black and white as the drool books they use in public and private schools. The really good history books only come much later. I hated history in school. But the real thing is so much more interesting. It would be interesting to see how it has been covered in European history books. In summary, the German presence in the Civil War likely covered the full gamete from staunch supporter of their side to scoundrels out for an easy buck. I've never been sure where to place my gr-gr-grandfather, an unfortunate failed scoundrel or unlucky patriot. Or perhaps more closely: a good man not opposed to making a handsome profit that involves some risk. He outlived all but two of his children. Brian On Thu, March 31, 2011 11:11 pm, D.L. MacLaughlan-Dumes wrote: > > On Mar 31, 2011, at 7:14 PM, Charles Hofacker wrote: > >> Slavery was anathema to the forty-eighter's. It was an abomination. As >> a >> group, the forty-eighter's could not stomach it. > > ...Except for those Forty-Eighters who lived in the South. :-)