During the War of Northern Aggression it has been reported by some sources that over 180,000 Germans fought in the Yankee armies.  This number was buttressed by thousands of Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, and Irish.  The majority of these were probably honest, hardworking people, yet the question must be asked --with a population of around 22 million in the North as opposed to around 9 million in the South--why did the North have so many foreign troops in her armies?

Francis Springer, in his excellent little book War For What puts the number even higher.  He has noted: "It seems strange that the North, with such vast human resources, should find it necessary to resort to recruiting men abroad.  The 1860 census shows 4,100,000 foreign born in the country, mostly located in the North, but there were 500,000 men in the Northern army of foreign birth, or 90,000 more than 10% of the foreign population, indicating that 90,000 Northern soldiers, and probably more, were recruited abroad."

Author William Burton, in his book Melting Pot Soldiers  deals with the foreign soldiers in the Yankee armies.  He quotes a correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph as stating that the foreign soldiers in the Union armies were nothing more than mercenaries.  It is interesting that many foreigners coming into Union armies had scant use for the abolitionists and their "holy crusade."  German immigrant Valentin Bechler, according to Burton, told his wife
"I wish all abolitionists were in hell."

One of the most carefully concealed facts about 
Mr. Lincoln's army is that he had an amazing number of European socialists under uniform during the War.  Only recently has information regarding this started to surface.  Up until a few years ago it was one of the most studiously ignored aspects of the War.  Establishment "historians" in their messianic quest to give us the "right:" spin on the War and the reasons for it, just knew in their hearts that we didn't need this kind of information so they tried to make sure we were not exposed to it. 

It has been reported that as many as 5000 European socialists and radicals from the failed 1848 socialist revolts in Europe served in the Union armies in one place or another.  Other sources would probably place the number even higher.  After these socialists failed in their revolutionary aims in Europe in 1848 and 1849, they came to America.  Many of them probably felt that what they had failed to do in Europe in the 1840s might possibly be accomplished in America during the War of Northern Aggression.  In Forty-eighters In The Union Armies it has been stated: "The failure of their revolutionary hopes in Europe did not prevent them from taking up arms again in 1861 to defend the very principles they had fought for in 1848 and 1849; union, freedom, and democracy."  Please go back and reread that last quote.  Let it sink in. 

These European socialist viewed the War of Northern Aggression as an extension of their socialist hopes for Europe.  If you consider that fact, the entire scope and reason for the War, from the Yankee perspective, takes on a different meaning.  No longer was it a struggle to "preserve the union" as given to us by the Founding Fathers, rather it was a struggle to extend the influence of European socialism in America!  Author William Burton has revealed that socialist Yankee general August Willich "...was not reluctant to lecture his soldiers on the virtues of socialism."  If we have a record of this one instance of such being done, one wonders how much of this kind of thing went on in the Yankee army camps that has gone unreported.

The amazing thing about these European socialist and Communists is how many of them ended up being high-ranking Yankee officers.  I will here list several so you get the idea.

Anselm Albert -- Lt. Col. 3rd Missouri, later chief of staff under John C. Fremont.

Sandor (Alexander) Asboth -- Brigadier General on Fremont's staff.

August Becker - called "Red" Becker [on account of his political leanings?].  He was a chaplain with the 8th New York.  A Communist chaplain? (Par for the course in some Yankee regiments). 

Ludwig (Louis) Blender -- Brigadier General of volunteers

Isidor Busch -- Captain on Fremont's staff.

Adoph Dengler -- Lt. Colonel of the German 43rd Illinois regiment. 

Christian Essig -- Captain and battery commander under the socialist General Franz Sigel. 

Johann Fiala --Lt Colonel and topographical engineer on Fremont's staff.  Fremont seems to have drawn these socialists like flies. (Bird of a feather?).

Adolph Gerwig  -- Freethinker (basically atheistic) and chaplain of 3rd Ohio infantry.

Louis Hoffman -- Captain of independent Missouri battery under the socialist Sigel.

Theodore Kaufmann -- Enlisted as a private. later went west to join Fremont.  (Sound familiar?) 

Johann Albert Neustaedter -- Captain of artillery in Missouri under Lyon and Fremont.

Robert Roskoten -- Appointed by Lincoln to serve on board examining army surgeons.  Brigade surgeon at Shiloh.

Wilhelm Stengel  -- Chaplain 9th Ohio infantry (Another socialist chaplain?) 

Scores of names of other socialist Yankees could be listed here, the majority of them officers, but I think you begin to get the idea.  The ethnic and ideological makeup of Mr. Lincoln's army has yet to be fully exposed. 

If we are to begin to try to understand the War from 
the Northern perspective, we must, at all costs, take the strong socialist influence exerted on Mr. Lincoln's army into consideration.

The fact that many European socialists looked upon
Mr. Lincoln's War of Aggression as an extension of their own aspirations and political desires should begin to speak volumes about the true nature of the Union cause.  Mr Lincoln was known to be friendly to the cause of socialism.  Establishment historian James McPherson has admitted that Lincoln championed the cause of the Forty-eighters in Europe.  In 1848 he was all in favor of secession (for the socialists in Europe) but in 1860 he was opposed to it for Christian Southerners.  That fact, alone, should tell you where Mr. Lincoln is really coming from and should explain why the socialist flocked to own his "holy cause." 

 The end