Recent Books Explore the Roles of Immigrants in the Civil War

Hello,
This book describes nine transplanted Poles who participated in the Civil War.
Of the group, four sided with the North and four with the South, and the other began in the Confederate cavalry and finished fighting for the Union side. All but one came from aristocratic backgrounds.
May I ask what were their names? I am curious who exactly was pictured in the book, wheather they were really Poles, and was their background actually aristocratic. And one little detail:
The first group had fought in the 1830 war for freedom from the Russian Empire.
We would rather say the war was in 1831. That was when the Polish parliament detronized emperor as a king of Poland and soon after the Russian invasion began.
 
Release date December 2016.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476664803/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Fighting Irish in the American Civil War and the Invasion of Mexico: Essays

As mid-19th century America erupted in violence with the invasion of Mexico and the outbreak of the Civil War, Irish immigrants enthusiastically joined the fray in large numbers, on both sides, mainly seeking stable employment. In Southern cities Irish volunteers vigorously backed the Confederacy; in the North they were vastly over-represented in the U.S. Army and Navy. They were often seen as disruptive in national affairs--Confederate General Patrick Cleburne called for the enlistment of slaves in exchange for their freedom, while in New York City Irish-led draft riots ensued when the Emancipation Proclamation made the war a liberating mission. History has honored the valor of many, such as the Irish Brigade at Gettysburg.
This collection of essays examines the involvement of Irish men and women in American military life from 1840 to 1865.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1484054571/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

From the Hornets' Nest to Custer's Last Stand. The Immigrant Story of Norwegian Sergeant Olaus Hansen

On a spring day in 1861 a young Norwegian - Olaus Hansen - leaves his childhood home to embark on a long Atlantic crossing towards a prosperous future as a farmer in Iowa. 21 years later an exhausted, ill and broken down ex-soldier, a veteran from a dozen bloody battles with the 12th Iowa Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and a 7th Cavalry survivor from Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn - Olans H. Northeg - commits suicide in the dark, frozen winter of Dakota Territory. It is the same man. His family both in Norway and the United States deliberately shroud his existence in the darkness of history for 130 years. What happened during Olaus' time in America, why did the family cover up his life, and why did he take a new identity? A true, extensively researched, dramatized story about youthful dreams devastated by war - about heroism, death, disease and PTSD during 18 years of campaigning in the American Civil War and Indian Wars.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/1484054571/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

From the Hornets' Nest to Custer's Last Stand. The Immigrant Story of Norwegian Sergeant Olaus Hansen

On a spring day in 1861 a young Norwegian - Olaus Hansen - leaves his childhood home to embark on a long Atlantic crossing towards a prosperous future as a farmer in Iowa. 21 years later an exhausted, ill and broken down ex-soldier, a veteran from a dozen bloody battles with the 12th Iowa Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and a 7th Cavalry survivor from Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn - Olans H. Northeg - commits suicide in the dark, frozen winter of Dakota Territory. It is the same man. His family both in Norway and the United States deliberately shroud his existence in the darkness of history for 130 years. What happened during Olaus' time in America, why did the family cover up his life, and why did he take a new identity? A true, extensively researched, dramatized story about youthful dreams devastated by war - about heroism, death, disease and PTSD during 18 years of campaigning in the American Civil War and Indian Wars.

View attachment 120912
Have not seen this one.
 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3261007044/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Memoirs of a Swiss Officer in the American Civil War

Aschmann served in one of the most glamorous outfits of the Union, Berdan's Sharpshooters, and participated in many of the major campaigns in the East, from the first Peninsular campaign in the spring of 1862 to the siege of Petersburg in the summer of 1864. He is one of the rare narratives by foreign enlisted men and line officers. His terse descriptions of marches, engagements, skirmishes, and battles are interspersed with entertaining glimpses of training and camp life and evoke much of the strange mixture of excitement, boredom, and misery of army life in wartime.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/3261007044/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Memoirs of a Swiss Officer in the American Civil War

Aschmann served in one of the most glamorous outfits of the Union, Berdan's Sharpshooters, and participated in many of the major campaigns in the East, from the first Peninsular campaign in the spring of 1862 to the siege of Petersburg in the summer of 1864. He is one of the rare narratives by foreign enlisted men and line officers. His terse descriptions of marches, engagements, skirmishes, and battles are interspersed with entertaining glimpses of training and camp life and evoke much of the strange mixture of excitement, boredom, and misery of army life in wartime.

View attachment 121135
Another one I did not know about. Thanks!
 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0873388712/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Long Road to Liberty: The Odyssey of a German Regiment in the Yankee Army the 15th Missouri Volunteer Infantry


One of the “Fightingest Three Hundred” regiments of the Civil War

Missouri, torn by divided loyalties between supporting the North or the South, had 39 infantry regiments serving in the Union army. Of these, the 15th Missouri, comprised primarily of German immigrants, served the longest and suffered the highest percentage of battlefield casualties of all the Union regiments from Missouri. Yet very little source material is available about the 15th Missouri. German immigrants seldom wrote of their wartime experiences, and those who did wrote almost exclusively in German. A veteran of the regiment, Maurice Marcoot wrote the only known firsthand account of the 15th. Written years after the war, Marcoot’s detailed chronicle of life in the 15th Missouri is the framework of Long Road to Liberty. Also using letters and diaries of Germans with other regiments, author Donald Allendorf expands on the experiences of the immigrant-soldiers―how they felt about slavery and race and why they chose to fight.

Long Road to Liberty traces the men’s immigrant roots and their involvement in events leading up to the war, including breaking up the last slave auction in St. Louis and efforts to keep Missouri in the Union, and continues with their army lives as the state’s first volunteers. It details the 15th’s actions in crucial battles in Tennessee and Georgia: their desperate stand at Stones River and near annihilation at Chickamauga; their charge without orders up Missionary Ridge; the campaign for Atlanta; and their role at Spring Hill and the killing field a day later at Franklin, Tennessee.

They served almost five years, most of that time in daily contact with their Southern adversaries in Tennessee and Georgia. When the war was finally over, more than half of the 904 officers and men who had ever served with the 15th regiment had been wounded or killed, while another 107 died of disease.

Historians and Civil War buff s alike will find Long Road to Liberty a welcome addition to the literature of the war in the western theater.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/0873388712/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Long Road to Liberty: The Odyssey of a German Regiment in the Yankee Army the 15th Missouri Volunteer Infantry


One of the “Fightingest Three Hundred” regiments of the Civil War

Missouri, torn by divided loyalties between supporting the North or the South, had 39 infantry regiments serving in the Union army. Of these, the 15th Missouri, comprised primarily of German immigrants, served the longest and suffered the highest percentage of battlefield casualties of all the Union regiments from Missouri. Yet very little source material is available about the 15th Missouri. German immigrants seldom wrote of their wartime experiences, and those who did wrote almost exclusively in German. A veteran of the regiment, Maurice Marcoot wrote the only known firsthand account of the 15th. Written years after the war, Marcoot’s detailed chronicle of life in the 15th Missouri is the framework of Long Road to Liberty. Also using letters and diaries of Germans with other regiments, author Donald Allendorf expands on the experiences of the immigrant-soldiers―how they felt about slavery and race and why they chose to fight.

Long Road to Liberty traces the men’s immigrant roots and their involvement in events leading up to the war, including breaking up the last slave auction in St. Louis and efforts to keep Missouri in the Union, and continues with their army lives as the state’s first volunteers. It details the 15th’s actions in crucial battles in Tennessee and Georgia: their desperate stand at Stones River and near annihilation at Chickamauga; their charge without orders up Missionary Ridge; the campaign for Atlanta; and their role at Spring Hill and the killing field a day later at Franklin, Tennessee.

They served almost five years, most of that time in daily contact with their Southern adversaries in Tennessee and Georgia. When the war was finally over, more than half of the 904 officers and men who had ever served with the 15th regiment had been wounded or killed, while another 107 died of disease.

Historians and Civil War buff s alike will find Long Road to Liberty a welcome addition to the literature of the war in the western theater.

View attachment 301398
Thanks for including that.
 
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