Explanation: After the failed liberal/socialist (infighting was involved) revolutions of '48 in the German states, many of the revolutionaries decided to start a new life in the US. Naturally, their inclinations were very much anti-slavery, and for that reason German-Americans remained strongly abolitionist and pro-Union during the US Civil War, and hundreds of thousands of German-Americans volunteered for service to whip the secessionist slavers. It was said (perhaps tongue-in-cheek) that some German immigrants could speak no English, except enough to ask to serve under the highest-ranking revolutionary veteran in the Union army, General Sigel. "I wants to fight mit Sigel!"
Yet another example of immigrants improving the country!
Yes, but what about the brown illegals, hmmm? /s
Hundreds of thousands? Wow.
Almost a tenth of the Union Army. We owe them a great debt.
We tend to think of historical times as very low population, because the population HAS grown significantly since then. But the USA Army in the Civil War had about 2 million soldiers in total, with about 1 million serving concurrently at its peak enlistment. 100k Germans is a significant number but sounds more reasonable in context.
Me, who has forgotten everything from history class: Oh, shit! We had a failed revolution in 1948? Sick!
Thanks, got me reading the Wikipedia article about the revolutions of 48.
Django Unchained makes more sense now.
When I first saw the movie, I thought it was a really nice and accurate touch to have Schultz as an implicit 48er. The liberal nationalist obsession with traditional mythology, the strongly anti-slavery worldview, his very educated-middle-class former profession of dentistry, his age, and, of course, the fact that he was very obviously a German immigrant.
Why is it that anytime anything happens in the United States a bunch of Germans come over and teach us how to fight?
And more importantly, any Germans feel like getting into a scrap in America right now?
Funny enough, the Germans of the US Civil War brought much more enthusiasm for The Cause than actual military experience - their combat records during the war were pretty average, and the German people had a reputation in the US at the time as artisans and academics, not soldiers. And, considering that many of these revolutionaries' military experience was limited to their year of failed revolution, it wasn't an entirely unearned reputation; they largely were middle-class civilians who came to settle in the US.
We could use definitely some of that anti-aristocratic enthusiasm right now, though, I feel.
For God-knows-what-reason, the Union's best troops were largely Midwesterners. Guess dying on a battlefield is less terrifying than being bored for another forty years in the corn fields.
I can actually answer that as an Ohioan. We were one of the most militantly pro freedom states and it was partly influenced by us being a state that bordered both a slave state and a free nation, as well as the fact that the fugitive slave act was perceived as an explicit attack against us and as overstepping. We still held a lot of pride in our state’s actions preceding and during the civil war at least when I was growing up. These days I see too many traitor’s rags flying though.
I misread that as PlayStation owners.
History ignoramus here. Which German revolutions exactly are we talking about?
The Revolutions of 1848 (very creatively named), a series of attempted revolutions that swept through Europe as part of the general 19th century wave of liberalism and socialism against the feudal and aristocratic institutions which still dominated the continent.
