Europeans in the Civil War

[matthew mckeon]

A couple of posters have mentioned the Germans. "North and South" Magazine recently had a very good article on German Americans and their reaction to the Civil War.

I'm omitting a lot here, but generally the German Protestants were antislavery and prounion, their republican and liberal ideas having been a reason for some of them to come to the US, while German Catholics had less problems with slavery and were indifferent to the politics of the situation. There was an incident where some German Unionists were shot by the Texas home guards types during the war, but I don't remember the particulars.

I read an interesting book called "The Lost German Slave Girl" about German immigrants in 1840s New Orleans. These were very poor people indeed, indentured to Louisania planters to pay for their passage to America. Generally they seemed disconnected with the slave system, being city dwellers.