Charles, Most interesting! My g-grandfather came in 1849, 9 years old, and settled in Baltimore. He fought for the Union in the three-month-troops, and literally ended his service after three months. What I found fascinating is his return to Germany in 1862, actually obtained a passport for the trip, stayed three years, found a girl to marry in Switzerland, and came home in 1865. Susan Sent from my iPhone On Mar 31, 2011, at 7:14 PM, Charles Hofacker <chofack@gmail.com> wrote: > Kim -- > > Nice URL and nice topic! This is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. > Let's talk about it. > > It is fair to say that the German-American component of the United States of > America stands out precisely for the fact that it doesn't stand out. There > is exactly one exception, but it is a big exception. The US Civil War. The > event that made us who we are. If I were to use the expression, "the > German-American vote" in a sentence, everyone on HESSE would probably just > laugh. But, historians are quite aware that the German Americans were the > "pivot point" around which the US Civil War turned. > > The forty-eighter's, those Germans who came to the US in the decade or so > after the failed revolutions of 1848, were politicaly different than the > Hessians who stayed after the Revolutionary War or the religious minorities > like the Mnenonites or Amish who had arrived on these shores before. > > Slavery was anathema to the forty-eighter's. It was an abomination. As a > group, the forty-eighter's could not stomach it. > > They had escaped something that was uncomfortably too close slavery in > Germany. They voted for Lincoln in droves. And Lincoln knew where his > support lay. He secretly purchased a German language newspaper. The > German-American vote put Lincoln over the top and represented his margin of > victory. We all know that once Lincoln was elected, the slave states > seceded one after the other. > > Germans were grossly over-represented in the Union Army as compared to their > proportion in the general population. > > This thread could go on and on. We could talk about the XI Corps at > Chancellorsville and how they were betrayed by their officers and flummoxed > by Stonewall Jackson. We could continue with their redemption at Lookout > Mountain. > > I have a Hessian great great grandfather who fought in the 27th Connecticut > Volunteer Infantry Regiment, while two of his brothers were in the 81st > Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Another of my great great grandfathers, > albeit a Wurtemburger, was in the Union Navy, and a third (from Schlesien) > was in the 12th New York Cavalry. > > I bet we could generate 100 emails on the topic of Hessian ancestors in the > Civil War... > > Who says that history is boring? History lives! > __________________________________________________________________ > Charles Hofacker: My <http://myweb.fsu.edu/chofacker> > FSU<http://myweb.fsu.edu/chofacker> > Page <http://myweb.fsu.edu/chofacker> | > Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/chofack> > | Delicious <http://www.delicious.com/chofack> | > Twitter<http://twitter.com/chofack> > <http://twitter.com/chofack> > > > > On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 19:10, Kim Allison Ross <slimkim@gci.net> wrote: > >> >> >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German-Americans_in_the_Civil_War >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> HESSE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >> in the subject and the body of the message >> > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to HESSE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message