Chancellorsville and the Germans : Nativism, Ethnicity, and Civil War Memory.

Intro -- Title Page -- Contents -- Index of Maps -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: German Americans, Know Nothings, and the Outbreak of the War -- Chapter 2: Before Chancellorsville: Sigel, Blenker, and the Reinforcement of German Ethnicity in the Union Army, 1861-1862 -- Chapter 3: The Battle of Chancellorsville and the German Regiments of the Eleventh Corps -- Chapter 4: ''Retreating and Cowardly Poltroons'': The Anglo American Reaction -- Chapter 5: ''All We Ask Is Justice'': The Germans Respond -- Chapter 6: Nativism and German Ethnicity after Chancellorsville -- Chapter 7: Chancellorsville and the Civil War in German American Memory -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Often called Lee's greatest triumph, the battle of Chancellorsville decimated the Union Eleventh Corps, composed of large numbers of German-speaking volunteers. Poorly deployed, the unit was routed by StonewallJackson and became the scapegoat for the Northern defeat, blamed by many on the flightof German immigrant troops. The impact on America's large German community was devastating. But there is much more to the story than that. Drawing for the first time on German-language newspapers, soldiers' letters, memoirs, and regimental records, Christian Keller reconstructs the battle and its aftermath from the German-American perspective, military and civilian. He offers a fascinating window into a misunderstood past, one where the German soldiers' valor has been either minimized or dismissed as cowardly.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.