Two relatives on my mother's side fought in the Civil War. The story my mother told is that they were recent immigrants from Germany to Wisconsin and were paid to take the place of men who had been drafted. At that time it was legal to pay someone to substitute for you.
Great video. Ironically, this also led many Germans to end up living in Mexico. When the 48ers were coming over to settle the US, Texas was one of the major destinations, due to having a lot of good farming and grazing land. And when those 48ers ended up in a state that rebelled, many of them relocated south to Mexico, to avoid having to fight against a country they had worked so hard to join. There are still quite a few sizeable German-American communities in central Texas, especially around Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, where good German conversation and delicious German food can be found :)
Doesn't that absolutely suck? Fought against Mexico just so Texas can be apart of the United States, only for Texas to rebel again much more later. I can't imagine how both Texan Unionists and Confederates felt.
I'm a German American descended from Germans who fought for the Union, also a career US Marine who taught at USMC Command and Staff college. This is a great video that really resonated with me. Your points about the German army ignoring lessons learned in the American Civil War and bringing them to WWI is spot on. The Kaiser's Imperial Army got bogged down in trench warfare, a'la Petersburg campaign. However, the Germans who fought for the Wehrmacht in WWII took lots of lessons from the ACW, ironically from the Confederates. In fact there's historic evidence that many members of the German high command came over to the US to study Civil War battlefields, specifically Jackson's Valley campaign, in the interwar years. These lessons revolved around the use of maneuver warfare and winning with a lighter force using aggressive tactics to outmaneuver a heavier force. Some basic tactical dictums; strike hardest where the enemy is weakest, move around their strength, and avoid surfaces while attacking the gaps (ie bypassing the Maginot Line). Many of these lessons have been passed back to American military doctrine in subsequent generations. The US Marine Corps in particular, as a light infantry force, basis its doctrine on maneuver warfare to this day.
The Americans in WW2 learnd from Shermans playbook and understood that "War is Hell" Our troops needed to help our allies win so they could go back home. The M-4 was appropriately named after Sherman.. Point A to Point B.. screw finesse.. "Hell on Wheels"!!
My 3rd Great grandfather “Johan Wilhelm Roser” was a German Immigrant born in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1843, and fought in the US Ohio 4th Calvary, taking part in several battles in the civil war
As someone from Wisconsin I think the history of German Americans is so slept on. If it wasnt for WW1 it would have been such a huge part of American culture in general. Not just parts of the Midwest
Huge parts of American culture are rooted in German culture but are not recognized as such. Hamburgers? Based on a German dish and literally named after Germany's second most important city. Christmas trees? German tradition
I am descended from one of those 5,000 or so Germans to fight for the Confederacy. As a historian, I think his story is an interesting example of a non-aristocratic German navigating the Civil War, for anyone interested his experience was as follows: Lorenz Lutz was born near Bayreuth, Bavaria in 1843. His family migrated to Bayreuth from the Palatinate area, and he adopted the trade of a tailor during his youth. The Lutz family opted to immigrate to New Orleans, arriving no later than 1860. Lorenz had barely settled in when the Secession Crisis began, and he joined up with Company E of the 1st Louisiana Regular Infantry (Strawbridge's Regiment) once the Civil War started. His service record is wonderfully detailed for a non-commissioned soldier, so we have details for how his unit spent the early days of the war. Lorenz's first taste of a true battle was at Shiloh, with the 1st Louisiana involved in the fighting around the Hornet's Nest under General Gladden of Bragg's Corps. Lorenz seems to have come out of the brutal frontal assaults on the union positions unscathed, but was doubtless a witness to staggering casualties. The regiment went on to participate in Bragg's failed drive on Nashville which culminated in the Battle of Murfreesboro, before serving at Chickamauga. Lorenz was shot through the ankle at Chickamauga. I have visited and retraced the unit's steps, and I like to imagine that Lorenz was hit during a charge against a federal battery that the regiment made. However it happened, Lorenz survived the battle and refused amputation on his leg. He did not participate in any further combat, convalescing at a hospital and serving as a hospital guard before being discharged with the rank of Sergeant. He tried to make his way back to his family, who ultimately settled in St. Louis, but was picked up by union troopers in route and forced to take the Oath of Allegiance a few days before Appomattox (a fact which would cause his widow some trouble when attempting to receive his veterans pension from the State of Georgia). I don't know if Lorenz ever saw his parents or siblings again, but he settled in Georgia after the war. He married and had one son and several daughters, one of whom was my granddaddy's grandmother. He was considered a solid citizen in his later years, but never became rich or prominent to any degree.
Lutz is still a common name down here , and if he was in the Louisiana First you can probably go look him up at the louisiana civil war museum which is nearby the WW2 museum
Reminds me of the story that when Hitler declared war on the US a German Hausfrau cried out, "We have lost the War". When questioned about her seemingly premature defeatism, she answered, "They have too many Germans!".
And after the war, supposedly one of the leaders of American military research said there was little to be feared from Soviet technology development, "because our German scientists are better than their German scientists."
My Great-grandfather, born in the Rhineland, was an 1848er and won a couple medals fighting with the Wisconsin 11th volunteers. Nice to see this portion of US history publicized.
@@AyubuKK nah, i think too many Americans think they have German heritage. I spent the first half of my life being told i was like 50-75% German, until i took a DNA test which showed i was 0% german
Too many are focused on Irish heritage, which as an Irishman I am kinda sick of hearing about. 170 years ago no one wanted to be Irish in America, now they all do.
@@Kevc00And yet the majority of Americans are British decent by far but they just call themselves American as the Brits were the first settlers. And the British are always under counted due to American revolution which was basically Brits immigrants v the English establishment etc.
It was put to bed. My Grandmother's family were from Sleswig Holstein, really Danish, from a Hugenot family that escaped from France during the Religious wars. The Lüders, originally from Ludres France, became Leaders in WW1 and WW2.
Very interesting video - thank you very much! I am a German-American, whereby my mother is American and my father German. My American ancestors arrived in the New World on the Mayflower and participated in every American war up to the Vietnam War. On my fathers side, the history of service goes back for over 700 hundred years, mainly in the armies of The Holy Roman Empire of German Nations, the Prussian army and later in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht, since the first son always got the estates and the younger sons went to serve king and fatherland. One small correction; in video time line, you mention the XI Corps. Roman numeral "XI" is the 11th Corps, not the 6th Corps.
My German-American ancestors were in the Union Army. One was a captain of volunteers and was wounded fighting in the western campaigns. He walked with a limp and cane the rest of his life and spent years trying to get a wounded veterans pension.
2 of my 3rd great grandpa's came over here from Stuttgart one was in the Bucktail Brigade and another was a Zouave in the Delaware Blues. I'm very proud to be their grandson.
I live in Minnesota, right up at the top of the midwest, and yes, we have a shitload of German descended people all over; we have a robust Mennonite population near my hometown, actually.
I don't dispute anything you say, but I'd like to add that the Mennonites were not 48er's--even if they came to America after 1848. The Mennonites who came to America mostly came in the first half of the 1700's. The 48er's were involved in Leftist politics. The Mennonite Church is a "peace church"--that is, they do not participate in military service.
I am from Minnesota as well. The people here are very tall. You don’t realize it until you travel to different parts of the country. A lot of that has to do with the Germanic and Scandinavian backgrounds.
@@valhalla9688 Dude that is exactly what my gf from Pennsylvania pointed out when she moved here (Wisconsin). We went to a concert and she was complaining about how "everyone here are giants. I can't see anything" lol She often jokes about me being "the short friend" in our circle. I'm 6" lol
Hello Hilbert. This reminded me of setting up my Airfix figures as a kid whilst playing the LP "1812 and Other Famous Overtures". I had the ACW figures, but I did not get interested until the TV series Civil War. I later toured US by Greyhound and spent half a day in the library in Richmond reading up on ACW. The 1848 bit interested me as my home city Bradford has a Little Germany district and the same colours as that country 🇩🇪, as worn by Bradford (Park Avenue) and Bradford Bulls, though not City as they were Manningham in rugby league originally and wear colours of the area I grew up. A German sounding name Wirz is infamous for the Andersonville POW camp, but he was Swiss. I had heard quotes of Confederates decrying the "Yankee Race" but this always seemed at odds with such a notable person not being of British or Irish origin.
Very well done. Well researched, unbiased, objective. On first watch and not being an expert on the subject matter I could nevertheless not find any blatant mistakes. I am impressed, sir.
XI corps is 11th corps not 6th Corps which is VI. These are called Roman numerals. I learned about them in 2nd grade. FFS, Hilbert proofread your f'ing work.
Tangentially relevant: For any fellow Welsh people out there interested in the history of Welsh-speaking, Welsh-Americans and Welsh immigrants during the American civi war, I'd recommend looking into the 22nd Wisconsin/Cambrian Guards, as well as the local newspapers of Racine County, Wisconsin, from the period. And if you speak Welsh, Id recommend Jerry Hunter's, 'Dros Gyfiawnder a Rhyddid: Y Cambrian Guards, Caethwasiaeth a Rhyfel Cartref America' (For Equality and Freedom: The Cambrian Guards, Slavery, and thr American Civil War), in which the author recounts the civilian and military lives of a group of 70 Welsh-speaking soldiers from Wisconsin.
Dude props for the pronounciation - you had every name and term 'right' (meaning you pronounced it the german way, even tho I totally understand that you could pronounce the names of german-americans english because they are americans of course). I guess you speak some german, otherwise there is no way you could do it so clean. Even the sister of my grandma who immigrated to the US after WW2 as a young woman struggled with the "u" sound because she wasn't used to it anymore after decades of only speaking english 😂
It's a proud heritage, many of my ancestors were German 48ers and settled in Iowa but gladly signed up to fight for the Union in the Civil War and many of us are still here throughout the Midwest and Northern states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. It was great to find this channel since German history pre-World Wars is not always easy to find, especially when discussing their impact on US history. We just are kind of seen as, 'being here' but not discussing why our ancestors came here in the first place.
Yes, and shortly after that flub is a couple more. You UN-limber artillery to fire. You limber it to move it. So the horse Calvary wouldn’t limber up their guns and fire into the enemy.
Between the late 1700s and the late 1800s, Germany had a hard time finding itself and defining what, who and how many it wants to be. 1848 was basically the last chance for a Germany that would be a unified republican democracy for a long time. So, whoever was able to leave, left.
The years 1846 and 1847 were characterized by the last great famine of the pre-industrial era. Weather-related "crop failures" and the potato blight that had also been rampant since 1844 decimated stocks of basic foodstuffs and led to their shortage.
The revolution of 1848 was in large parts about freedom of the individual and unity as a nation. As this battle was lost in europe, a lot of the german immigrants saw a chance to continue this fight against slavery and for the preservation of the Union. In some regions the volunteer rate was 50% around germans. Another factor was that a lot of the german immigrants were catholic or calvinian and disapproved of slavery for religious reasons. Interesting fact: Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin was a war correspondent for Prussia during the civil war and saw the use of balloons for military purpose for the first time there. He later used balloons to observe battles. While he saw the advantage of balloons, he also saw that they where to dependent in wind and were to static. So he later invented the blimp.
My great-great-grandfather Frederick Wilhelm Tappmeyer was in one of the German units in Missouri. He was 38 and had a large family when he signed up to one of the St. Louis region home-guard units. He did guard duty on steamboats on the Missouri river mostly between Jefferson City and St. Joseph. On certain stretches of the river boats came under frequent harassment from snipers. He was shot in the hand. He would later fight at the battle of Westport. The records on home-guard units tend to be rather sparse. Many units would get dissolved and the remaining men reassigned where needed.
My great grandfather was born in Prussia and came to the US as a child (His family were Acht und Vierzigers 6:26 ). He served in the 21st NYVI and fought in many of the battles of the Army of the Potomac.
To ne honest, you have Zero in comment with US. Yall all Just mericans. All your African, German, britisch, Irish or whatever American is total bs. You are socialized in the US you are americans. Peace
Excellent video! For further information about how the Prussians learned or failed to learn the lessons of the ACW also look into Phillip Sheridan’s time spent with Bismarck and Emory Upton’s attempts to model the volunteer based American army more on the German method of large numbers of trained reservists ready for deployment in the time of war. Class video. Well done.
My dad's side of the family is entirely German and I have found so many ancestors who fought for the Union, including a few of them who marched through Georgia with Sherman, in the 15th Corps under General Osterhaus (because of course they put all the German-Americans under a Prussian general who came over to lend a hand!) Going to Fort McAllister in Savannah with my dad and pointing to every sign that referred to the 15th Corps and saying "Dad, our cousins X, Y, and Z were in this Corps" was fantastic.
@erraticonteuse the Sherman piece makes perfect sense he drew a lot of his Soldiers from the "western" (Midwest today) states. Minnesota sent one regiment east while the other nine served in the west.
My GG Grandpa (Mom's side) lost an eye in the Battle of Perryville before Sherman began the march. 2 of his brothers were in the march. One brother, Samuel, was killed. My Great Grandpa was named after him.. the other brother remained and was mustered out after the war. All 3 brothers had recently arrived in Indiana from Ireland. My surname is from a Hessian mercenary in the Revolution who fought for the Brits but remained here to be American after the war. Sherman's march won the war. Any sniveling resentment about the victory that some folks still carry in that regard are kinda weak. Be proud of your family history and their contributions to the defeat of the rebellion and it's unjust cause!!
My grandparents and aunts and uncles on my mother's side still speak German at family gatherings. My grandparents are fluent, but I don't think the kids are 100%. Sadly, it never got past on to my generation. But both my grandparents remember German speaking schools in the Midwest when they were kids. During ww1, it was a bad look, so they started switching to English only.
Similarly in New Mexico my grandma said in most of the towns school was only done in Spanish because it was all Hispanics she didn’t learn English until she moved to Denver at 11 years old
@eliseomartinez7911 oh these days with how common Spanish is there are Spanish speaking schools. I live in Iowa, and a town 20 miles from me is 85% Hispanic, and the school is predominantly Spanish, and the local grocery store has completely different products. It's not a recent thing either. It's been like that my whole life.
@@Joker-no1uh all primary education in the states is done in English. They may have schools with a lot of Hispanics but there’s no “Spanish schools” anymore
Very sad you missed the probably most militarily important German officer on the Union side, August Willich. Originally such a radical communist he had to leave England after challenging Karl Marx to a duel since Marx wasn't communist enough (LOL) he went on to first fight with the 9th Ohio and later commanded the 32nd Indiana (1st German). Being a veteran of the regular and later Revolutionary Baden Army he was chiefly responsible for the high discipline of both units and nicknamed 'Papa'...daddy. He was promoted to Brigadier and it was his brigade that stormed Missionary Ridge with his own 32nd Indiana leading the charge, ending the Siege of Chattanooga by routing the Confederates. After being wounded he was responsible for a lot of the excellent logistics organisation which enabled the relentless assault of the Union forces late in the war.
I had a retlative that was German that served in the Union Army that was an occupying solider after the fall Memphis. He intergrated with the German community already there. Very interesting story.
Nice! just one pronounciation thing: you said "SchReibert" instead of "Scheibert" and he was schreibing (corresponding from the war, haha) s-c-h is just soft frontal fricative ,with the s-c-h-R (wie in schreiben) ist becomse the throaty chr, that you nederdiutse so love.
My wife's 2nd Great Grandfather Henry Knippingberg was born in Hanover in 1840 and immigrated to the USA when he was around 10 years old. He moved to Illinois and would later join the 105th Illinois Vol. Infantry. Although joining in 1862, their first taste of combat was at the Battle of Resaca, Georgia. As part of Sherman's Army, they would torch Georgia and then participate in the Carolina Campaigns. It was in South Carolina that they traded in their Austrian muskets for Henry rifles. He would participate in the Washington D.C. Victory Parade and then come home. He was very active in later years in GAR, and would even have the GAR medal engraved on his headstone.
Yep some of my ancestors came from Germany in the 1840s moved to Ohio and then fought in the Civil War on the Union side and stayed in the South and then joined up with Germans who came over in the 1880s to mine and build Railroads
I live 1 mile from Karl Schurtz park in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Despite my interest in history, and having lived in Germany, I never knew the story of this guy. Danke fuer die Erklarung!
There were plenty of German speaking communities in the states, notably in the south, who considerably pre-dated 1848, I imagine these also provided soldiers and were less politically inclined.
Most German Americans settled in the north, not the south. The South had a pretty small immigrant population. Only real region of the south with large non-British immigrant populations was Texas.
German-Americans in the South were responsible for the only monument to the Union in the South for decades after the war! I also once found a memoir written by a member of Sherman's March where an enslaved woman pointed them to a house down the road and said "that's where they have some sense", and who should answer the door but a German man who cried and said, "They tried to draft me so many times and I told them 'No, I will never fight against the United States!'"
On my father's side, his mother had two uncles born in Heiligenstadt, who later emigrated with their parents as 1848ers to northern Kentucky. The older brother joined the 15th Ky Vol Inf (Union) and fought in all of its battles through Chickamauga where he was captured, sent to Richmond, then later among the first prisoners sent to Andersonville, where he died of neglect Summer 1864. His brother, who had crossed the Ohio River and joined the 52nd Ohio Vol Inf, was KIA at Peach Tree Creek near Atlanta just a few weeks after his older brother died in Andersonville. On my mother's side, there were several members of the Custer family (originally from Der Pfalz or Palatinate) who fought. Her great-grandfather fought in the 34th Indiana Vol Inf.
I loved this video along with the two regarding the Irish and the Dutch. Thank you for the content, amd please have my subscription. You had mentioned around 11:50 and 23:40 linking content into the video description(music and the article). Were they linked? I'm wondering if maybe the links are there but maybe region-(b)locked making me unable to see them. I'm eager to see what you release next as I work through your catalogue of released content.
8 of my 32 great-great-great grandparents (paternal grandfather’s branch) were all Lutherans from Hannover, Schaumburg-Lippe, or Kurhessen who left between 1848-1852 and ended up in Will County, Illinois. From what I can tell, they were all just farmers and involved in their local Missouri Synod church, not with Turnvereinen or other typical forty-eighter clubs. I also can’t find anything about their involvement in Illinois brigades, I wonder if they just sat out the civil war to keep the food flowing.
New Orleans was by far the largest city in Confederacy. It was bigger than the next 8-9 Confederate cities combined. It had a large German immigrant population and were not by and large slave holders as fewer immigrants were. The German population of New Orleans were not big adopters of the Confederate cause and mostly avoided service. During the war, the primary supporters of the Confederacy in New Orleans were actual slave holders, about 1/3 of the population. The huge waves of German and Irish immigrants in the decade or two before the Civil War in New Orleans mostly were ambivalent about the war. It is one of the reasons that while New Orleans was the Confederacy's largest city, it notably never met its enlistement goals. They were relieved when the Union occupied the city and generally supported the occupation, particularly because it was good for business and food shortages were solved by them.
The German sports clubs were quite fascinating. They were first formed as an after-work activity for factory workers to help address the back and muscle problems a lot of them developed from the repetitive heavy work. And of course, they also provided an opportunity to talk about their lives and troubles outside of work hours. Which made them a breeding ground for working class men starting to organize politically.
My third-great-grandfather came to America from Brandenburg after his confirmation, and he had a year's service at the end of the war during the Mobile Campaign, after which he took advantage of the Homestead Act.
I can't speak for potential strategic lessons the Prussians refused to learn but when it came to the tactical it was simply a matter of outdated lessons. In 1866, in the mentioned Austro-Prussian War, the Prussians made one of the first uses of the Dreyse Zuendnadelgewehr, which gave them a significant tactical advantage over the Austrians, who, like both sides in the Civil War, were mostly still using muzzle loading rifles. They got utterly destroyed in the Battle at Koenigsgraetz and (to add insult to injury I presume) the Prussians commissioned the Koenigsgraetzer Marsch, a military marching song that to this day apparently is being frowned upon in Austria. Also, your German pronunciation is excellent.
something that is "alike" between the conflicts. More importantly then the Zuendnadelgewehr. Moltke made excelent use of the railroad system. He moved different parts of the army over different routes to unite them at certain points. So that he was not slowing down the movement by using just one railroad. North america had not such a dense railroad network to allow this (ussualy). But the us-american civil war showed the importance of railroads for moving an army.
@@AkselGAL That would be more of a strategic aspect. Von Moltke was one of the Fathers of the concept of a Staff inside command hierarchy of modern militaries and used their planning and organizing capacity to plan everything to perfection and hold actual wargames as preparations. That was not something he learned from the civil war. In fact most modern militaries have learned that from the Prussians.
There were also some German speaking Swiss soldiers fighting on both sides. For example the 15. Missouri regiment, called “Swiss Rifles” And the Heinrich ‘Henry’ Wirz.
Fun Fact: In Minnesota, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin made his first balloon flight with an itinerant balloonist named John Steiner in 1863, as a military observer.
Carlstadt, NJ was originally Karlstadt prior to WWI. The streets were all in German. Hackensack Street was Hackensacker Strasse, etc. I know a Sokol Hall was still there at least to the 1980’s. After the Battle of New Market the slogan for Sigel was changed to “Who runs mit Sigel “.
My Swiss ancestors immigrated in 1829 and settled in the Ohio Valley. Their first native born child was about 30 yo and served in 1864. I was a little surprised by this as their religious background was pacifist. He was in the Ohio 170 Ohio Volunteer infantry.
Great video, I already knew about men like Carl Schurz or about the Nueces Massacre. I would have love to learn a bit more about August (von) Willich, but I guess you can't just cover every German, who participated in the ACW. I would like to add some minor corrections, however: Carl Schurz did not serve in the 6th but the 11th Corps of the Union Army (6:57), and he also did not lead it, he only led one of the Corps's divisions. The Corps was led during Chancellorsville and Gettysburg by Gen. Oliver Howard, an American officer born in Maine.
When my first generation East Prussian ancestor (who's name I carry) turned 21 just as the Civil War began and without hesitation, he enlisted in a Wisconsin regiment to do whatever he could, even at the risk of his very life, to defend and protect his new country and its Constitution from willful destruction by the elite leaders of the Southern Aristocrats and their repugnant system of slavery. His regiment, the 35th Wisconsin performed very well during Grant's brilliant Vicksburg Campaign, but on the ill-fated Red River Campaign, he became so sick from that unhealthy place, he couldn't recover and was sent home to die. He gradually regained his health, but not before the end of the war. I am very proud of my ancestor and of his German-American comrades and how we, of German ancestry, have always stood up for and defended our United States of America. One of the sad thing about both of the World Wars is how they tarnished the reputation of patriotic Americans just because they had German sounding surnames. I sure got a lot of (not so kind) kidding regarding my name when I was a kid in the '50s. My Civil War ancestor, by WW1 an old man, was taken out of his store, tied up in the American Flag and then made to take out his savings and buy war bonds by robed and masked KKK "patriots."
There is a book about a German settlement in Texas called Indianola. I believe the book is called ; we had dreams. Primarily the book is about the two hurricanes that wiped out the city around 1875, but also covers the men of the city joining the Confederacy, the union occupation and where the very first shots of the civil war were fired. Indianola is just a few miles up the coast from me and it's history is fascinating.
Occuped by the French after the 30year war. Westfälischer Friede, the Westphalian Peace, also known as the Treaty of Münster, was a series of treaties signed in 1648, marking the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) and the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648). These treaties established the foundation of modern international law and the concept of sovereignty among nations. Germany reoccupied E-L 1871
Descendant of many German, Irish, and other soldiers, and one of which was a veteran of the French Revolution of 1848 (Alsatian German who studied in Paris). The 14th Illinois Cavalry, 8th Illinois Infantry, and the 5th Colored Heavy Artillery, and most likely the 38th Indiana were some of the units my German ancestors were in, and one of them commanded at the Battle of Miliken’s Bend.
I want to stress that while they may have been speaking German, they would speak dialects that may or may not be mutually understandable. Somebody from the low lands would have had an easier time understanding Dutch or Danish then the Bavarian German dialect.
I’m surprised August Willich, one of only two (to my knowledge) communist generals to serve in the US Army, didn’t make the list. Willich knew Marx and challenged him to a duel. He was born into the Prussian nobility and was a 48er. Homie was unbelievably based, and well liked by his men. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Willich
I can go ahead and tell you what the Pa Dutch did, which was fight in it same as everybody else Presumably similar things with more recent immigrants from German speaking Europe, I know Irish immigrants did for example edit: by the way the name for the civil war in Pa Dutch is der Briedersgrieg and the general time of said war is di Griegszeit Highly recommend looking up and listening to 'Der Baeddel Greisch vun Brotwascht' by the way, it's a good song in Pa Dutch that at least supposedly stems back to the civil war (it's a variation of a civil war song originally in English now done up in Dutch but mostly about food, which is a good earful of what Pa Dutch music generally is like lol) Also, using Dutch in the context they were using it, getting to the damn the dutch section, is not a linguistic faux pas in English. That's a mischaracterisation and folk etymology Dutch in this context is not a corruption of Deutsch, the term was borrowed from middle Low German or middle Dutch to refer to all of the continental west Germanic languages, then incorporated into the HRE. That's its original meaning, meaning both German and Dutch as we have them today That's where this usage comes from, it stuck around longest in American English Describing it as a faux pas is just a disservice to the word's actual etymology and has other repercussions as well, like when talking about the Pennsylvania Dutch whose name stems from that same etymology. Such prescriptivism is better to not be engaged in
Well id support it being a fopa if you dont think that the dutch are actually just a subtribe of the germans like the austrians. Because back when you guys adopted "dutch" the "dutch" actually were "deutsch". They just Split away from the broader german culture in more recent centuries and thus the netherlanders stopped being german (deutsch => dutch) and made their tribal Identity their new national Identity. So, by saying dutch to the netherlanders you are if taken literally not recognising the Netherlands right to independence xD
Wait, is Hilbert like Dutch right? Why is the Dutch teaching is Deutch history :3 Jokes aside, don’t have any issue and this vid was interesting. Am also curious if there are more detailed vids about this
Not surprising that Germans play a role in Civil War, they were for a long time the 2nd greatest ethnic and linguistic portion of USA. German was the 2nd unofficial language of the country. (USA has never had an official language.) It was like Spanish is today in the US, only more so. It was not until WWI that some communities were forced to speak English.
Yeah the anti-German sentiment of WW1 caused a lot of changes, especially in Wisconsin. Towns had their pronunciations changed to sound less German, streets were renamed to non-German names like Liberty, freedom, etc. German stopped being taught in many schools. It’s sad actually
I studied the 1848/49 revolution in Baden and of course I did know Franz Sigel, who was the General of the Hecker Zug, which failed misserably. Our biggest hero of the revolution 1848 was Friedrich Hecker, who served as a colonel in the army of the north.
My surname Fritts was passed down from a Hessian mercenary who fought for the British in the Revolution.. after the war, with no real prospects had he returned "home".. he stayed. My Mom's Great Grandpa arrived in America just in time to join the Civil War in the 80th Indiana Volunteers and lost an eye during the Battle of Perryvile. My Grandpa Fritts married my Grandma who arrived on a boat from from Sweden when she was young. Gerrish, Freed. Little, Clark and many other surnames can be traced in the family tree. I don't doubt that most Americans have the same variations in their lineage. I am an American. My wife is a proud American citizen who migrated from the Phillipines over 30 years ago. My ancestry is "Northern European Mutt" or "Celtic Goth with very little Gaul" or "ya, I use SPF 50.." Be proud of your heritage! Be greatful that your heritage is merely a "fun fact" and not a defining value of your worth as an American citizen!! Be Well!! 😀🇺🇸
The Prussians and Moltke were not impressed with American performance in the Civil War because they were trying to study the effects of rifle muskets on the battlefield, and the Americans basically never had the training necessary to take advantage of the increased range of their new weapons.
Thanks for this. Many of my German ancestors in Texas were caught up in the Civil War. I suspect the pressures of conforming to the social norms of Texas may have contributed to some of them fighing for the Conferatacy. Other appear to have clung to the liberal idealism of the 48's and declined to fight. That could not have been easy. Texas history has all but forgotten the Great Hanging at Gainesville. That event was not something I learned about in pruplic school.
20:39 In my bavarian hometown we have an old small obelisk like monument. Quiet similiar to this one shown in the video. Dedecated to remember the sons of the town who died in Napoleon's russian war campaign.
They could, but if they want to insist on calling the Niederländer deutsch and thus not recognising them as a separate people but as part of the deutsches Volk, well Well well, what little words can cause...
Carlstadt, NJ was originally Karlstadt prior to WWI. The streets were all in German. Hackensack Street was Hackensacker Strasse, etc. I know a Sokol Hall was still there at least to the 1980’s. After the Battle of New Market the slogan for Sigel was changed to “Who runs mit Sigel “. Sigel’s military experience in Europe followed his Civil War experience, all failures except of a minor cavalry skirmish. Sigel had a bad habit when flustered to forget English and give out orders in German which confused his soldiers. Going on to WWI German Americans when German words were Americanized. Rickenbacker was originally Reichenbacher and Luke from Luchs.
There were several reasons why German armies didn't learn from the US. But one very significant, which US Americans often forget is the extreme difference in military technology development. The Prussians started to adopt the Dreyse needle gun in 1836. It was the starting point for bolt action. Also did the Prussians already have a fully developed signal corps in the 1860s, using telegraphing. They also had a specialized medical corps, which used the red cross as protection sign since June 1866. The whole structural development of European armed forces was further than in the US, especially in France and Prussia. And they fought small wars, but nearly constantly. And very important is to remember that European armies were standardized as much possible and had equipment as equal as possible in all units, like one service rifle for the infantry, one for the cavalry, the artillery using one the two. They tried to minimize the number of different calibers thus reducing the number of different munition types. The American equipment was a mess out of a wet Fall Out New Vegas dream. These seemingly unimportant details led to significant differences in logistics development.
Great topic. I come from a state that many people perceive as majority Scandinavian, but the most numerous ancestry is actually German-American -- Minnesota -- though I don't know how many had reached there by the Civil War. Regarding Carl Schurz's corps (6:57), XI Corps is 11th Corps, not 6th Corps. I honestly don't know why the U.S. Army continues to use Roman numerals for its corps (plural), but we still do. Regarding J.E.B. Stuart (15:48), Stuart was unusual for Americans who most often only have one middle name, he had two, and his first three initials (J.E.B.) became the identity most knew him by and would actually routinely refer to him as "Jeb (short e) Stuart." Watching other videos about J.E.B. Stuart, you would swear by the number of times they refer to Jeb Stuart that his actual first name was Jebidiah or something similar and not know that "Jeb" is actually his first three initials. English and how we use it is weird.
That’s actually kind of similar to Jeb! Bush too, since his name is John Ellis Bush. So instead of two middle names, his last initial became part of his nickname, so Jeb Bush technically means John Ellis Bush Bush
@HumanBeing. I guess he is familiar with "Du bist Holländer?" I used to get asked this as it did not see "möglich" that I could be English speaking German.
In 1861 a Cavalry regiment was being formed of volunteers from the Ohio River Valley from Western Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. My great grandfather and two brothers had emigrated from Rhenish Bavaria in 1852, three years after the 1849 revolt there. They all had young families and started out working the coal mines that crossed the river from Mason City, WV into Pomeroy, OH. Frederick, the eldest brother crossed the river with other coal miners to form Company M of what would later be known as the 1st West Virginia Cavalry. Company M gained some unwanted attention demanding a Captain that could speak German. Company M spent the first year and a half in vedette duty, while other companies were detached for special assignments, including Second Bull Run under Gen. John Buford, who was wounded, and Antietam. When the Army of the Potomac was reorganized under Gen Joseph Hooker in 1863, Company M joined the rest of the regiment for the Gettysburg campaign. Frederick's first action was fending off an attack on the rear of the column by JEB Stuart's Cavalry. At Gettysburg, General Kilpatrick ordered an attack to be carried out by Gen. Farnsworth along with the 1st Vermont Cavalry on Law's Infantry brigade along the foot of Big Roundtop Hill and "Devil's Den". The 1st West Virginia settled into a skirmish with the 1st Texas Infantry that was spread out along some stone walls, while Farnsworth lead the 1st Vermont into "Devil's den" and a suicide charge resulting in his death. The action resulted in Law's brigade being distracted from following up "Pickett's Charge" with an organized attack from the east side of the field. On the evening of July 4th, Kilpatrick ordered the regiment to assist Gen. George A. Custer in pursuit of the retreating rebel supply train. Custer having order his own Michigan Cavalry to fight dismounted in a torrential downpour, order a charge of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry with drawn sabres to take the cannon at Monterey pass, which they did and continued to capture 8 miles of wagons and 1,300 prisoners. Two weeks after Gettysburg, John Hunt Morgan and 2,000 rebel raiders came through Pomeroy, Ohio scavenging for whatever was useful. There is no record of what my great grandfather Phillip or his brother Jacob did to safeguard their families, and Morgan was blocked at Buffington Island from crossing into West Virginia. In May and June of 1864, Frederick took part in the raids and battles of Newmarket and Lynchburg, Virginia, where he injured his knee, and spent much of his service in the regimental hospital as an assistant to regimental surgeon Col. Capeheart, until his end of term of service in January 1865.
I've been to Gettysburg and seen where a Union Artillery battery crewed entirely by Germans stopped a Confederate attack and rallied fleeing Yankee infantry.
Two relatives on my mother's side fought in the Civil War. The story my mother told is that they were recent immigrants from Germany to Wisconsin and were paid to take the place of men who had been drafted. At that time it was legal to pay someone to substitute for you.
The guy who replaced Lincoln was from my hometown
Maybe we'd have less wars if our politicians and their major donors were required to serve on the front line.
Now you just don’t pay someone enough and that’s how you get them to take your place
Trump told his children he'd disinherit them if they joined the military.😢😮😅😊
@@JohnPatterson-kz8jr citation?
Great video. Ironically, this also led many Germans to end up living in Mexico. When the 48ers were coming over to settle the US, Texas was one of the major destinations, due to having a lot of good farming and grazing land. And when those 48ers ended up in a state that rebelled, many of them relocated south to Mexico, to avoid having to fight against a country they had worked so hard to join.
There are still quite a few sizeable German-American communities in central Texas, especially around Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, where good German conversation and delicious German food can be found :)
Mexico is a very pleasant country, and many southern germans were still catholics like the mexicans.
Some people in the New Braunfels area identify themselves as Sorbian, despite the fact that they speak German rather than Sorbian.
Check out the Nueces Massacre.
Doesn't that absolutely suck? Fought against Mexico just so Texas can be apart of the United States, only for Texas to rebel again much more later.
I can't imagine how both Texan Unionists and Confederates felt.
I'm a German American descended from Germans who fought for the Union, also a career US Marine who taught at USMC Command and Staff college. This is a great video that really resonated with me. Your points about the German army ignoring lessons learned in the American Civil War and bringing them to WWI is spot on. The Kaiser's Imperial Army got bogged down in trench warfare, a'la Petersburg campaign.
However, the Germans who fought for the Wehrmacht in WWII took lots of lessons from the ACW, ironically from the Confederates. In fact there's historic evidence that many members of the German high command came over to the US to study Civil War battlefields, specifically Jackson's Valley campaign, in the interwar years. These lessons revolved around the use of maneuver warfare and winning with a lighter force using aggressive tactics to outmaneuver a heavier force. Some basic tactical dictums; strike hardest where the enemy is weakest, move around their strength, and avoid surfaces while attacking the gaps (ie bypassing the Maginot Line). Many of these lessons have been passed back to American military doctrine in subsequent generations. The US Marine Corps in particular, as a light infantry force, basis its doctrine on maneuver warfare to this day.
The Americans in WW2 learnd from Shermans playbook and understood that "War is Hell"
Our troops needed to help our allies win so they could go back home.
The M-4 was appropriately named after Sherman..
Point A to Point B.. screw finesse..
"Hell on Wheels"!!
My 3rd Great grandfather “Johan Wilhelm Roser” was a German Immigrant born in the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1843, and fought in the US Ohio 4th Calvary, taking part in several battles in the civil war
Prost! 🍻 Zur Freiheit!
Wow what a great story. Greetings from Frankfurt,Germany.
As someone from Wisconsin I think the history of German Americans is so slept on. If it wasnt for WW1 it would have been such a huge part of American culture in general. Not just parts of the Midwest
Huge parts of American culture are rooted in German culture but are not recognized as such. Hamburgers? Based on a German dish and literally named after Germany's second most important city. Christmas trees? German tradition
Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are German, as are most “American” foods.
I am descended from one of those 5,000 or so Germans to fight for the Confederacy. As a historian, I think his story is an interesting example of a non-aristocratic German navigating the Civil War, for anyone interested his experience was as follows: Lorenz Lutz was born near Bayreuth, Bavaria in 1843. His family migrated to Bayreuth from the Palatinate area, and he adopted the trade of a tailor during his youth. The Lutz family opted to immigrate to New Orleans, arriving no later than 1860. Lorenz had barely settled in when the Secession Crisis began, and he joined up with Company E of the 1st Louisiana Regular Infantry (Strawbridge's Regiment) once the Civil War started. His service record is wonderfully detailed for a non-commissioned soldier, so we have details for how his unit spent the early days of the war. Lorenz's first taste of a true battle was at Shiloh, with the 1st Louisiana involved in the fighting around the Hornet's Nest under General Gladden of Bragg's Corps. Lorenz seems to have come out of the brutal frontal assaults on the union positions unscathed, but was doubtless a witness to staggering casualties. The regiment went on to participate in Bragg's failed drive on Nashville which culminated in the Battle of Murfreesboro, before serving at Chickamauga. Lorenz was shot through the ankle at Chickamauga. I have visited and retraced the unit's steps, and I like to imagine that Lorenz was hit during a charge against a federal battery that the regiment made. However it happened, Lorenz survived the battle and refused amputation on his leg. He did not participate in any further combat, convalescing at a hospital and serving as a hospital guard before being discharged with the rank of Sergeant. He tried to make his way back to his family, who ultimately settled in St. Louis, but was picked up by union troopers in route and forced to take the Oath of Allegiance a few days before Appomattox (a fact which would cause his widow some trouble when attempting to receive his veterans pension from the State of Georgia). I don't know if Lorenz ever saw his parents or siblings again, but he settled in Georgia after the war. He married and had one son and several daughters, one of whom was my granddaddy's grandmother. He was considered a solid citizen in his later years, but never became rich or prominent to any degree.
Bayreuth, Franconia!
Greetings from that area!
Thanks for sharing your family story. Greetings from Germany!
Sehr interessant Danke .
Lutz is still a common name down here , and if he was in the Louisiana First you can probably go look him up at the louisiana civil war museum which is nearby the WW2 museum
Reminds me of the story that when Hitler declared war on the US a German Hausfrau cried out, "We have lost the War". When questioned about her seemingly premature defeatism, she answered, "They have too many Germans!".
Die Frau hatte Recht.Deutschstämmige ,böses Gesindel gegen Deutsche.
And after the war, supposedly one of the leaders of American military research said there was little to be feared from Soviet technology development, "because our German scientists are better than their German scientists."
My Great-grandfather, born in the Rhineland, was an 1848er and won a couple medals fighting with the Wisconsin 11th volunteers. Nice to see this portion of US history publicized.
W Great grand father
Interesting, do you know a specific city in the rhineland?
@@ZaZaSamariter Kerpen
@@johnsoldier8722paternal grandfather's father
During the American Civil War the Irish had their brigade but the Germans had their division
And the norwegians had a little regiment of their own to :)
Strange then that the Germans did not earn as many Medals of Honor as the Irish
Grade saga
XI Corps is the eleventh corps though :)
Germany did not exist during the war between the states es.
The USA's German heritage is slept on.
Yup at some point in american history, german was the second most spoke language in the states.
@@AyubuKK nah, i think too many Americans think they have German heritage. I spent the first half of my life being told i was like 50-75% German, until i took a DNA test which showed i was 0% german
Too many are focused on Irish heritage, which as an Irishman I am kinda sick of hearing about. 170 years ago no one wanted to be Irish in America, now they all do.
@@Kevc00And yet the majority of Americans are British decent by far but they just call themselves American as the Brits were the first settlers. And the British are always under counted due to American revolution which was basically Brits immigrants v the English establishment etc.
It was put to bed. My Grandmother's family were from Sleswig Holstein, really Danish, from a Hugenot family that escaped from France during the Religious wars. The Lüders, originally from Ludres France, became Leaders in WW1 and WW2.
Very interesting video - thank you very much!
I am a German-American, whereby my mother is American and my father German.
My American ancestors arrived in the New World on the Mayflower and participated in every American war up to the Vietnam War. On my fathers side, the history of service goes back for over 700 hundred years, mainly in the armies of The Holy Roman Empire of German Nations, the Prussian army and later in the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht, since the first son always got the estates and the younger sons went to serve king and fatherland.
One small correction; in video time line, you mention the XI Corps. Roman numeral "XI" is the 11th Corps, not the 6th Corps.
My German-American ancestors were in the Union Army. One was a captain of volunteers and was wounded fighting in the western campaigns. He walked with a limp and cane the rest of his life and spent years trying to get a wounded veterans pension.
2 of my 3rd great grandpa's came over here from Stuttgart one was in the Bucktail Brigade and another was a Zouave in the Delaware Blues. I'm very proud to be their grandson.
I live in Minnesota, right up at the top of the midwest, and yes, we have a shitload of German descended people all over; we have a robust Mennonite population near my hometown, actually.
I don't dispute anything you say, but I'd like to add that the Mennonites were not 48er's--even if they came to America after 1848. The Mennonites who came to America mostly came in the first half of the 1700's. The 48er's were involved in Leftist politics. The Mennonite Church is a "peace church"--that is, they do not participate in military service.
Oh yeah. The upper Midwest probably has the highest density of not only Germans but, Scandinavians too
I am from Minnesota as well. The people here are very tall. You don’t realize it until you travel to different parts of the country. A lot of that has to do with the Germanic and Scandinavian backgrounds.
@@valhalla9688 Dude that is exactly what my gf from Pennsylvania pointed out when she moved here (Wisconsin). We went to a concert and she was complaining about how "everyone here are giants. I can't see anything" lol She often jokes about me being "the short friend" in our circle. I'm 6" lol
Very informative video that turns the narrative on its head. Thank you for this.
I basically knew nothing about the specifics of this and I really enjoyed learning about it! Keep it up!
Hello Hilbert. This reminded me of setting up my Airfix figures as a kid whilst playing the LP "1812 and Other Famous Overtures". I had the ACW figures, but I did not get interested until the TV series Civil War.
I later toured US by Greyhound and spent half a day in the library in Richmond reading up on ACW.
The 1848 bit interested me as my home city Bradford has a Little Germany district and the same colours as that country 🇩🇪, as worn by Bradford (Park Avenue) and Bradford Bulls, though not City as they were Manningham in rugby league originally and wear colours of the area I grew up.
A German sounding name Wirz is infamous for the Andersonville POW camp, but he was Swiss. I had heard quotes of Confederates decrying the "Yankee Race" but this always seemed at odds with such a notable person not being of British or Irish origin.
Very well done. Well researched, unbiased, objective. On first watch and not being an expert on the subject matter I could nevertheless not find any blatant mistakes. I am impressed, sir.
XI corps is 11th corps not 6th Corps which is VI. These are called Roman numerals. I learned about them in 2nd grade. FFS, Hilbert proofread your f'ing work.
Tangentially relevant: For any fellow Welsh people out there interested in the history of Welsh-speaking, Welsh-Americans and Welsh immigrants during the American civi war, I'd recommend looking into the 22nd Wisconsin/Cambrian Guards, as well as the local newspapers of Racine County, Wisconsin, from the period. And if you speak Welsh, Id recommend Jerry Hunter's, 'Dros Gyfiawnder a Rhyddid: Y Cambrian Guards, Caethwasiaeth a Rhyfel Cartref America' (For Equality and Freedom: The Cambrian Guards, Slavery, and thr American Civil War), in which the author recounts the civilian and military lives of a group of 70 Welsh-speaking soldiers from Wisconsin.
Dude props for the pronounciation - you had every name and term 'right' (meaning you pronounced it the german way, even tho I totally understand that you could pronounce the names of german-americans english because they are americans of course). I guess you speak some german, otherwise there is no way you could do it so clean. Even the sister of my grandma who immigrated to the US after WW2 as a young woman struggled with the "u" sound because she wasn't used to it anymore after decades of only speaking english 😂
It's a proud heritage, many of my ancestors were German 48ers and settled in Iowa but gladly signed up to fight for the Union in the Civil War and many of us are still here throughout the Midwest and Northern states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois. It was great to find this channel since German history pre-World Wars is not always easy to find, especially when discussing their impact on US history. We just are kind of seen as, 'being here' but not discussing why our ancestors came here in the first place.
Very interesting. Thank you.
min 7:02 ... "XI " is not the "6" ... it is 11.
Thank you mate
And it's "XI", not "X1"!
Indeed, the old picture caption even _says_ "ELEVENTH".
Still a good video, though! ❤
Yes, and shortly after that flub is a couple more. You UN-limber artillery to fire. You limber it to move it. So the horse Calvary wouldn’t limber up their guns and fire into the enemy.
i always wondered this since the revolutions of 1848/9 caused a lot of germans to emigrate from europe
Absolutely - I think it was a big factor for their high rates of immigration and enlistment for the North - even those geographically in the South.
Between the late 1700s and the late 1800s, Germany had a hard time finding itself and defining what, who and how many it wants to be. 1848 was basically the last chance for a Germany that would be a unified republican democracy for a long time. So, whoever was able to leave, left.
The years 1846 and 1847 were characterized by the last great famine of the pre-industrial era. Weather-related "crop failures" and the potato blight that had also been rampant since 1844 decimated stocks of basic foodstuffs and led to their shortage.
The revolution of 1848 was in large parts about freedom of the individual and unity as a nation. As this battle was lost in europe, a lot of the german immigrants saw a chance to continue this fight against slavery and for the preservation of the Union. In some regions the volunteer rate was 50% around germans. Another factor was that a lot of the german immigrants were catholic or calvinian and disapproved of slavery for religious reasons.
Interesting fact: Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin was a war correspondent for Prussia during the civil war and saw the use of balloons for military purpose for the first time there. He later used balloons to observe battles. While he saw the advantage of balloons, he also saw that they where to dependent in wind and were to static. So he later invented the blimp.
My great-great-grandfather Frederick Wilhelm Tappmeyer was in one of the German units in Missouri. He was 38 and had a large family when he signed up to one of the St. Louis region home-guard units. He did guard duty on steamboats on the Missouri river mostly between Jefferson City and St. Joseph. On certain stretches of the river boats came under frequent harassment from snipers. He was shot in the hand. He would later fight at the battle of Westport. The records on home-guard units tend to be rather sparse. Many units would get dissolved and the remaining men reassigned where needed.
My great grandfather was born in Prussia and came to the US as a child (His family were Acht und Vierzigers 6:26 ). He served in the 21st NYVI and fought in many of the battles of the Army of the Potomac.
My g-great grandfather was a Bavarian who joined the NY 45th infantry. I got to lay in the field where his battalion was situated in Gettysburg.
Love this series, I have been waiting for it for so long
This was great content. Especially at the end where the Germans had to apply these lessons of the Civil War to their experience during WW1
I'm so relieved this video is longer than 5-10 mins ngl
I am a fith or sixth generation German-American and it is very strange to me how much German history there is in America
Edit: I am from mid-west
To ne honest, you have Zero in comment with US. Yall all Just mericans. All your African, German, britisch, Irish or whatever American is total bs. You are socialized in the US you are americans. Peace
Excellent video! For further information about how the Prussians learned or failed to learn the lessons of the ACW also look into Phillip Sheridan’s time spent with Bismarck and Emory Upton’s attempts to model the volunteer based American army more on the German method of large numbers of trained reservists ready for deployment in the time of war. Class video. Well done.
This was fascinating and illuminating, thank you Hilbert
My dad's side of the family is entirely German and I have found so many ancestors who fought for the Union, including a few of them who marched through Georgia with Sherman, in the 15th Corps under General Osterhaus (because of course they put all the German-Americans under a Prussian general who came over to lend a hand!) Going to Fort McAllister in Savannah with my dad and pointing to every sign that referred to the 15th Corps and saying "Dad, our cousins X, Y, and Z were in this Corps" was fantastic.
@erraticonteuse the Sherman piece makes perfect sense he drew a lot of his Soldiers from the "western" (Midwest today) states. Minnesota sent one regiment east while the other nine served in the west.
My GG Grandpa (Mom's side) lost an eye in the Battle of Perryville before Sherman began the march. 2 of his brothers were in the march. One brother, Samuel, was killed. My Great Grandpa was named after him.. the other brother remained and was mustered out after the war.
All 3 brothers had recently arrived in Indiana from Ireland. My surname is from a Hessian mercenary in the Revolution who fought for the Brits but remained here to be American after the war.
Sherman's march won the war. Any sniveling resentment about the victory that some folks still carry in that regard are kinda weak.
Be proud of your family history and their contributions to the defeat of the rebellion and it's unjust cause!!
My grandparents and aunts and uncles on my mother's side still speak German at family gatherings. My grandparents are fluent, but I don't think the kids are 100%. Sadly, it never got past on to my generation. But both my grandparents remember German speaking schools in the Midwest when they were kids. During ww1, it was a bad look, so they started switching to English only.
Similarly in New Mexico my grandma said in most of the towns school was only done in Spanish because it was all Hispanics she didn’t learn English until she moved to Denver at 11 years old
@eliseomartinez7911 oh these days with how common Spanish is there are Spanish speaking schools. I live in Iowa, and a town 20 miles from me is 85% Hispanic, and the school is predominantly Spanish, and the local grocery store has completely different products. It's not a recent thing either. It's been like that my whole life.
@@Joker-no1uh all primary education in the states is done in English. They may have schools with a lot of Hispanics but there’s no “Spanish schools” anymore
I might learn German (specifically Low German) and teach it to my kids if I have any as like a fun heritage thing. Alongside Tagalog.
the German soldiers who fought for the Union called the confederate flag the rattlesnake banner
Klapperschlangenbanner, aha
thats great. the snake is a treacherous animal in german culture
The "dont tread on me" Flag is called that way
@@FAL87No not really. Its just Christian countries in general, but there is nothing in german culture that had snakes as being treacherous.
Great video thank you
Very sad you missed the probably most militarily important German officer on the Union side, August Willich. Originally such a radical communist he had to leave England after challenging Karl Marx to a duel since Marx wasn't communist enough (LOL) he went on to first fight with the 9th Ohio and later commanded the 32nd Indiana (1st German). Being a veteran of the regular and later Revolutionary Baden Army he was chiefly responsible for the high discipline of both units and nicknamed 'Papa'...daddy.
He was promoted to Brigadier and it was his brigade that stormed Missionary Ridge with his own 32nd Indiana leading the charge, ending the Siege of Chattanooga by routing the Confederates.
After being wounded he was responsible for a lot of the excellent logistics organisation which enabled the relentless assault of the Union forces late in the war.
And at the Battle of Rowlette Station against the Texas Rangers, his Germans formed square
A very interesting, excellently researched video. And a remarkably good pronunciation of the German names.
I had a retlative that was German that served in the Union Army that was an occupying solider after the fall Memphis. He intergrated with the German community already there. Very interesting story.
Nice! just one pronounciation thing: you said "SchReibert" instead of "Scheibert" and he was schreibing (corresponding from the war, haha) s-c-h is just soft frontal fricative ,with the s-c-h-R (wie in schreiben) ist becomse the throaty chr, that you nederdiutse so love.
My wife's 2nd Great Grandfather Henry Knippingberg was born in Hanover in 1840 and immigrated to the USA when he was around 10 years old. He moved to Illinois and would later join the 105th Illinois Vol. Infantry. Although joining in 1862, their first taste of combat was at the Battle of Resaca, Georgia. As part of Sherman's Army, they would torch Georgia and then participate in the Carolina Campaigns. It was in South Carolina that they traded in their Austrian muskets for Henry rifles. He would participate in the Washington D.C. Victory Parade and then come home. He was very active in later years in GAR, and would even have the GAR medal engraved on his headstone.
Yep some of my ancestors came from Germany in the 1840s moved to Ohio and then fought in the Civil War on the Union side and stayed in the South and then joined up with Germans who came over in the 1880s to mine and build Railroads
I live 1 mile from Karl Schurtz park in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. Despite my interest in history, and having lived in Germany, I never knew the story of this guy.
Danke fuer die Erklarung!
Erklaerung 😉 greetings from Germany
@@bandmangold5160 ä
There were plenty of German speaking communities in the states, notably in the south, who considerably pre-dated 1848, I imagine these also provided soldiers and were less politically inclined.
Most German Americans settled in the north, not the south. The South had a pretty small immigrant population. Only real region of the south with large non-British immigrant populations was Texas.
German-Americans in the South were responsible for the only monument to the Union in the South for decades after the war! I also once found a memoir written by a member of Sherman's March where an enslaved woman pointed them to a house down the road and said "that's where they have some sense", and who should answer the door but a German man who cried and said, "They tried to draft me so many times and I told them 'No, I will never fight against the United States!'"
Many Germans are came in through Baltimore. After Ellis island, Baltimore was the largest port of entry.
On my father's side, his mother had two uncles born in Heiligenstadt, who later emigrated with their parents as 1848ers to northern Kentucky. The older brother joined the 15th Ky Vol Inf (Union) and fought in all of its battles through Chickamauga where he was captured, sent to Richmond, then later among the first prisoners sent to Andersonville, where he died of neglect Summer 1864. His brother, who had crossed the Ohio River and joined the 52nd Ohio Vol Inf, was KIA at Peach Tree Creek near Atlanta just a few weeks after his older brother died in Andersonville.
On my mother's side, there were several members of the Custer family (originally from Der Pfalz or Palatinate) who fought. Her great-grandfather fought in the 34th Indiana Vol Inf.
I loved this video along with the two regarding the Irish and the Dutch. Thank you for the content, amd please have my subscription.
You had mentioned around 11:50 and 23:40 linking content into the video description(music and the article). Were they linked? I'm wondering if maybe the links are there but maybe region-(b)locked making me unable to see them.
I'm eager to see what you release next as I work through your catalogue of released content.
They did EVERYTHING!! (West to East).
I have a German immigrant ancestor who served in the Pennsylvania infantry in the civil war. 🇩🇪 🇺🇸
21:50 love how the music swells as Moltke's Quote is questions. Makes it much more dramatic 😄
8 of my 32 great-great-great grandparents (paternal grandfather’s branch) were all Lutherans from Hannover, Schaumburg-Lippe, or Kurhessen who left between 1848-1852 and ended up in Will County, Illinois. From what I can tell, they were all just farmers and involved in their local Missouri Synod church, not with Turnvereinen or other typical forty-eighter clubs. I also can’t find anything about their involvement in Illinois brigades, I wonder if they just sat out the civil war to keep the food flowing.
New Orleans was by far the largest city in Confederacy. It was bigger than the next 8-9 Confederate cities combined. It had a large German immigrant population and were not by and large slave holders as fewer immigrants were. The German population of New Orleans were not big adopters of the Confederate cause and mostly avoided service. During the war, the primary supporters of the Confederacy in New Orleans were actual slave holders, about 1/3 of the population. The huge waves of German and Irish immigrants in the decade or two before the Civil War in New Orleans mostly were ambivalent about the war. It is one of the reasons that while New Orleans was the Confederacy's largest city, it notably never met its enlistement goals. They were relieved when the Union occupied the city and generally supported the occupation, particularly because it was good for business and food shortages were solved by them.
The German sports clubs were quite fascinating. They were first formed as an after-work activity for factory workers to help address the back and muscle problems a lot of them developed from the repetitive heavy work. And of course, they also provided an opportunity to talk about their lives and troubles outside of work hours. Which made them a breeding ground for working class men starting to organize politically.
Excellent
The tune of I'm Going to Fight mit Sigel is virtually identical to the 17th century English song The Girl I Left Behind.
My third-great-grandfather came to America from Brandenburg after his confirmation, and he had a year's service at the end of the war during the Mobile Campaign, after which he took advantage of the Homestead Act.
The use of railroads for strategic movement of troops was a lesson learned in the Civil War.
I can't speak for potential strategic lessons the Prussians refused to learn but when it came to the tactical it was simply a matter of outdated lessons. In 1866, in the mentioned Austro-Prussian War, the Prussians made one of the first uses of the Dreyse Zuendnadelgewehr, which gave them a significant tactical advantage over the Austrians, who, like both sides in the Civil War, were mostly still using muzzle loading rifles. They got utterly destroyed in the Battle at Koenigsgraetz and (to add insult to injury I presume) the Prussians commissioned the Koenigsgraetzer Marsch, a military marching song that to this day apparently is being frowned upon in Austria.
Also, your German pronunciation is excellent.
something that is "alike" between the conflicts. More importantly then the Zuendnadelgewehr. Moltke made excelent use of the railroad system. He moved different parts of the army over different routes to unite them at certain points. So that he was not slowing down the movement by using just one railroad. North america had not such a dense railroad network to allow this (ussualy). But the us-american civil war showed the importance of railroads for moving an army.
@@AkselGAL That would be more of a strategic aspect. Von Moltke was one of the Fathers of the concept of a Staff inside command hierarchy of modern militaries and used their planning and organizing capacity to plan everything to perfection and hold actual wargames as preparations. That was not something he learned from the civil war. In fact most modern militaries have learned that from the Prussians.
OUR MEN ARE RUNNING FROM THE BATTLEFIELD
There were also some German speaking Swiss soldiers fighting on both sides. For example the 15. Missouri regiment, called “Swiss Rifles”
And the Heinrich ‘Henry’ Wirz.
Fun Fact: In Minnesota, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin made his first balloon flight with an itinerant balloonist named John Steiner in 1863, as a military observer.
I’ve watched D’jango Unchained enough times to know how this goes…
Thank you for using the actual Confederate Flag and not the battle banner.
11:55 no link for the song in the description…
Carlstadt, NJ was originally Karlstadt prior to WWI. The streets were all in German. Hackensack Street was Hackensacker Strasse, etc. I know a Sokol Hall was still there at least to the 1980’s.
After the Battle of New Market the slogan for Sigel was changed to “Who runs mit Sigel “.
My Swiss ancestors immigrated in 1829 and settled in the Ohio Valley. Their first native born child was about 30 yo and served in 1864. I was a little surprised by this as their religious background was pacifist. He was in the Ohio 170 Ohio Volunteer infantry.
Great video, I already knew about men like Carl Schurz or about the Nueces Massacre. I would have love to learn a bit more about August (von) Willich, but I guess you can't just cover every German, who participated in the ACW.
I would like to add some minor corrections, however: Carl Schurz did not serve in the 6th but the 11th Corps of the Union Army (6:57), and he also did not lead it, he only led one of the Corps's divisions. The Corps was led during Chancellorsville and Gettysburg by Gen. Oliver Howard, an American officer born in Maine.
When my first generation East Prussian ancestor (who's name I carry) turned 21 just as the Civil War began and without hesitation, he enlisted in a Wisconsin regiment to do whatever he could, even at the risk of his very life, to defend and protect his new country and its Constitution from willful destruction by the elite leaders of the Southern Aristocrats and their repugnant system of slavery. His regiment, the 35th Wisconsin performed very well during Grant's brilliant Vicksburg Campaign, but on the ill-fated Red River Campaign, he became so sick from that unhealthy place, he couldn't recover and was sent home to die. He gradually regained his health, but not before the end of the war. I am very proud of my ancestor and of his German-American comrades and how we, of German ancestry, have always stood up for and defended our United States of America.
One of the sad thing about both of the World Wars is how they tarnished the reputation of patriotic Americans just because they had German sounding surnames. I sure got a lot of (not so kind) kidding regarding my name when I was a kid in the '50s. My Civil War ancestor, by WW1 an old man, was taken out of his store, tied up in the American Flag and then made to take out his savings and buy war bonds by robed and masked KKK "patriots."
Hilbert, please look at the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, or better known as the Norwegian Regiment :)
I’m an American of German descent that is very interested in the Civil War. This is a great video that covers many aspects of my interests.
There is a book about a German settlement in Texas called Indianola. I believe the book is called ; we had dreams. Primarily the book is about the two hurricanes that wiped out the city around 1875, but also covers the men of the city joining the Confederacy, the union occupation and where the very first shots of the civil war were fired. Indianola is just a few miles up the coast from me and it's history is fascinating.
One of my relatives was a sapper in the civil war. German immigrant from the disputed strip between France and Germany
Edit: a Union sapper
Alsace-Lorraine
@@hansmeyer7225 that’s the one
@@hansmeyer7225 Elsaß-Lothringen...
Not disputed. Occupied by the French after Versailles 1918
Occuped by the French after the 30year war. Westfälischer Friede, the Westphalian Peace, also known as the Treaty of Münster, was a series of treaties signed in 1648, marking the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) and the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648). These treaties established the foundation of modern international law and the concept of sovereignty among nations. Germany reoccupied E-L 1871
Descendant of many German, Irish, and other soldiers, and one of which was a veteran of the French Revolution of 1848 (Alsatian German who studied in Paris). The 14th Illinois Cavalry, 8th Illinois Infantry, and the 5th Colored Heavy Artillery, and most likely the 38th Indiana were some of the units my German ancestors were in, and one of them commanded at the Battle of Miliken’s Bend.
Sadly you didn't link either "I'm going to fight mit Siegel" or the PhD you referenced in the end.
To anwer the question properly: they were sold for war by a Nobleman, killed, looted, and when they found no Ebbelwoi, they drove back home.
I want to stress that while they may have been speaking German, they would speak dialects that may or may not be mutually understandable. Somebody from the low lands would have had an easier time understanding Dutch or Danish then the Bavarian German dialect.
True, I barely understand my Grandma
I’m surprised August Willich, one of only two (to my knowledge) communist generals to serve in the US Army, didn’t make the list. Willich knew Marx and challenged him to a duel. He was born into the Prussian nobility and was a 48er. Homie was unbelievably based, and well liked by his men.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Willich
Willich war ein guter Mann, und ein noch besserer Revolutionär.
I can go ahead and tell you what the Pa Dutch did, which was fight in it same as everybody else
Presumably similar things with more recent immigrants from German speaking Europe, I know Irish immigrants did for example
edit: by the way the name for the civil war in Pa Dutch is der Briedersgrieg and the general time of said war is di Griegszeit
Highly recommend looking up and listening to 'Der Baeddel Greisch vun Brotwascht' by the way, it's a good song in Pa Dutch that at least supposedly stems back to the civil war (it's a variation of a civil war song originally in English now done up in Dutch but mostly about food, which is a good earful of what Pa Dutch music generally is like lol)
Also, using Dutch in the context they were using it, getting to the damn the dutch section, is not a linguistic faux pas in English. That's a mischaracterisation and folk etymology
Dutch in this context is not a corruption of Deutsch, the term was borrowed from middle Low German or middle Dutch to refer to all of the continental west Germanic languages, then incorporated into the HRE.
That's its original meaning, meaning both German and Dutch as we have them today
That's where this usage comes from, it stuck around longest in American English
Describing it as a faux pas is just a disservice to the word's actual etymology and has other repercussions as well, like when talking about the Pennsylvania Dutch whose name stems from that same etymology.
Such prescriptivism is better to not be engaged in
Well id support it being a fopa if you dont think that the dutch are actually just a subtribe of the germans like the austrians. Because back when you guys adopted "dutch" the "dutch" actually were "deutsch". They just Split away from the broader german culture in more recent centuries and thus the netherlanders stopped being german (deutsch => dutch) and made their tribal Identity their new national Identity. So, by saying dutch to the netherlanders you are if taken literally not recognising the Netherlands right to independence xD
10:45 Der Denkerclub (Thinkers Club), a cartoon against surveillance and censorship from 1819!
Wait, is Hilbert like Dutch right? Why is the Dutch teaching is Deutch history :3
Jokes aside, don’t have any issue and this vid was interesting. Am also curious if there are more detailed vids about this
Very interesting!
Not surprising that Germans play a role in Civil War, they were for a long time the 2nd greatest ethnic and linguistic portion of USA. German was the 2nd unofficial language of the country. (USA has never had an official language.) It was like Spanish is today in the US, only more so. It was not until WWI that some communities were forced to speak English.
Yeah the anti-German sentiment of WW1 caused a lot of changes, especially in Wisconsin. Towns had their pronunciations changed to sound less German, streets were renamed to non-German names like Liberty, freedom, etc. German stopped being taught in many schools. It’s sad actually
@@ragnartwrii744 na, normal American bias!
I studied the 1848/49 revolution in Baden and of course I did know Franz Sigel, who was the General of the Hecker Zug, which failed misserably. Our biggest hero of the revolution 1848 was Friedrich Hecker, who served as a colonel in the army of the north.
Thank you for pronouncing "ü" correctly! ❤
My surname Fritts was passed down from a Hessian mercenary who fought for the British in the Revolution.. after the war, with no real prospects had he returned "home".. he stayed.
My Mom's Great Grandpa arrived in America just in time to join the Civil War in the 80th Indiana Volunteers and lost an eye during the Battle of Perryvile.
My Grandpa Fritts married my Grandma who arrived on a boat from from Sweden when she was young.
Gerrish, Freed. Little, Clark and many other surnames can be traced in the family tree.
I don't doubt that most Americans have the same variations in their lineage.
I am an American. My wife is a proud American citizen who migrated from the Phillipines over 30 years ago.
My ancestry is "Northern European Mutt" or "Celtic Goth with very little Gaul" or "ya, I use SPF 50.."
Be proud of your heritage! Be greatful that your heritage is merely a "fun fact" and not a defining value of your worth as an American citizen!!
Be Well!! 😀🇺🇸
The Prussians and Moltke were not impressed with American performance in the Civil War because they were trying to study the effects of rifle muskets on the battlefield, and the Americans basically never had the training necessary to take advantage of the increased range of their new weapons.
Thanks for this. Many of my German ancestors in Texas were caught up in the Civil War. I suspect the pressures of conforming to the social norms of Texas may have contributed to some of them fighing for the Conferatacy. Other appear to have clung to the liberal idealism of the 48's and declined to fight. That could not have been easy. Texas history has all but forgotten the Great Hanging at Gainesville. That event was not something I learned about in pruplic school.
Franz Sigel fought at the battle of Pea Ridge in early 1862 which was a Union victory
20:39 In my bavarian hometown we have an old small obelisk like monument. Quiet similiar to this one shown in the video. Dedecated to remember the sons of the town who died in Napoleon's russian war campaign.
English speakers should start calling the germans the dutch and the dutch the netherlanders.
No 👎🏽
I don't think so 😅
I'm not dutch at all.
I'm pretty sure in English they call the country the Netherlands though 😅
They could, but if they want to insist on calling the Niederländer deutsch and thus not recognising them as a separate people but as part of the deutsches Volk, well Well well, what little words can cause...
land of confusion
Are you willing to do a video on Hermanndeutsch? It's the German spoken in Central Missouri.
Carlstadt, NJ was originally Karlstadt prior to WWI. The streets were all in German. Hackensack Street was Hackensacker Strasse, etc. I know a Sokol Hall was still there at least to the 1980’s.
After the Battle of New Market the slogan for Sigel was changed to “Who runs mit Sigel “. Sigel’s military experience in Europe followed his Civil War experience, all failures except of a minor cavalry skirmish. Sigel had a bad habit when flustered to forget English and give out orders in German which confused his soldiers.
Going on to WWI German Americans when German words were Americanized. Rickenbacker was originally Reichenbacher and Luke from Luchs.
Shouldn't it be the eleventh corps at around 6:57?
7:07 XI is eleven not six which would be VI. Interesting topic and something I was unaware of.
There were several reasons why German armies didn't learn from the US.
But one very significant, which US Americans often forget is the extreme difference in military technology development.
The Prussians started to adopt the Dreyse needle gun in 1836. It was the starting point for bolt action. Also did the Prussians already have a fully developed signal corps in the 1860s, using telegraphing. They also had a specialized medical corps, which used the red cross as protection sign since June 1866.
The whole structural development of European armed forces was further than in the US, especially in France and Prussia. And they fought small wars, but nearly constantly.
And very important is to remember that European armies were standardized as much possible and had equipment as equal as possible in all units, like one service rifle for the infantry, one for the cavalry, the artillery using one the two. They tried to minimize the number of different calibers thus reducing the number of different munition types.
The American equipment was a mess out of a wet Fall Out New Vegas dream.
These seemingly unimportant details led to significant differences in logistics development.
„I fights with Sigel and I runs with Schurz!“
Great topic. I come from a state that many people perceive as majority Scandinavian, but the most numerous ancestry is actually German-American -- Minnesota -- though I don't know how many had reached there by the Civil War. Regarding Carl Schurz's corps (6:57), XI Corps is 11th Corps, not 6th Corps. I honestly don't know why the U.S. Army continues to use Roman numerals for its corps (plural), but we still do. Regarding J.E.B. Stuart (15:48), Stuart was unusual for Americans who most often only have one middle name, he had two, and his first three initials (J.E.B.) became the identity most knew him by and would actually routinely refer to him as "Jeb (short e) Stuart." Watching other videos about J.E.B. Stuart, you would swear by the number of times they refer to Jeb Stuart that his actual first name was Jebidiah or something similar and not know that "Jeb" is actually his first three initials. English and how we use it is weird.
That’s actually kind of similar to Jeb! Bush too, since his name is John Ellis Bush. So instead of two middle names, his last initial became part of his nickname, so Jeb Bush technically means John Ellis Bush Bush
Yes, this is accurate. I am from Minnesota :), although I am not of German descent.
Have you ever been to New Ulm, Minnesota? It doesn’t get anymore Germanic than that!
YOUR PRONUNCIATION OF GERMAN NAMES AND PLACES IS PERFECT❤
NO IRONY.
@HumanBeing. I guess he is familiar with "Du bist Holländer?" I used to get asked this as it did not see "möglich" that I could be English speaking German.
In 1861 a Cavalry regiment was being formed of volunteers from the Ohio River Valley from Western Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. My great grandfather and two brothers had emigrated from Rhenish Bavaria in 1852, three years after the 1849 revolt there. They all had young families and started out working the coal mines that crossed the river from Mason City, WV into Pomeroy, OH. Frederick, the eldest brother crossed the river with other coal miners to form Company M of what would later be known as the 1st West Virginia Cavalry. Company M gained some unwanted attention demanding a Captain that could speak German. Company M spent the first year and a half in vedette duty, while other companies were detached for special assignments, including Second Bull Run under Gen. John Buford, who was wounded, and Antietam. When the Army of the Potomac was reorganized under Gen Joseph Hooker in 1863, Company M joined the rest of the regiment for the Gettysburg campaign. Frederick's first action was fending off an attack on the rear of the column by JEB Stuart's Cavalry. At Gettysburg, General Kilpatrick ordered an attack to be carried out by Gen. Farnsworth along with the 1st Vermont Cavalry on Law's Infantry brigade along the foot of Big Roundtop Hill and "Devil's Den". The 1st West Virginia settled into a skirmish with the 1st Texas Infantry that was spread out along some stone walls, while Farnsworth lead the 1st Vermont into "Devil's den" and a suicide charge resulting in his death. The action resulted in Law's brigade being distracted from following up "Pickett's Charge" with an organized attack from the east side of the field. On the evening of July 4th, Kilpatrick ordered the regiment to assist Gen. George A. Custer in pursuit of the retreating rebel supply train. Custer having order his own Michigan Cavalry to fight dismounted in a torrential downpour, order a charge of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry with drawn sabres to take the cannon at Monterey pass, which they did and continued to capture 8 miles of wagons and 1,300 prisoners. Two weeks after Gettysburg, John Hunt Morgan and 2,000 rebel raiders came through Pomeroy, Ohio scavenging for whatever was useful. There is no record of what my great grandfather Phillip or his brother Jacob did to safeguard their families, and Morgan was blocked at Buffington Island from crossing into West Virginia. In May and June of 1864, Frederick took part in the raids and battles of Newmarket and Lynchburg, Virginia, where he injured his knee, and spent much of his service in the regimental hospital as an assistant to regimental surgeon Col. Capeheart, until his end of term of service in January 1865.
I've been to Gettysburg and seen where a Union Artillery battery crewed entirely by Germans stopped a Confederate attack and rallied fleeing Yankee infantry.
cool story, greets from germany
Crazy to imagine these people travelling the world, actually searching for war... and even surving for quite some time.