Italian Americans in the Civil War

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Italian Americans in the Civil War are the

Italian people and people of Italian descent, living in the United States, who served and fought in the American Civil War, mostly on the side of the Union. A contingent of soldiers from the former Kingdom of the Two Sicilies fought on the Confederate side, with most of these having been former prisoners of war who had fought against Giuseppe Garibaldi during his invasion of the Two Sicilies. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the civil war.[1]

In the Union army

Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola commanded a Union cavalry unit during the war.

Shortly after the onset of war, several hundred officers and soldiers in the Italian army went to the American legation at Turin and volunteered to fight in the Union army. Because of financial constraints, the U.S. army accepted only some of these volunteers."[2]

Most of the Italian-Americans who joined the

85th New York regiment, was made a brevet
brigadier general when the war ended.

Spinola Brigade. Later he commanded another unit, the famed Excelsior Brigade
.

Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola, a former Italian and British soldier and veteran of the Crimean War, commanded the 4th New York Cavalry and would rise to become one of the highest ranking Italian officer in the federal army.[4] He established a military school in New York City where many young Italians were trained and later served in the Union army. Di Cesnola received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Aldie.[5]

Two more famous examples were Francesco Casale and Luigi Tinelli, who were instrumental in the formation of the

39th New York Infantry Regiment. According to one evaluation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, there were over 200 Italians who served as officers in the U.S. army.[6]

At least 260 Italian Americans fought as sailors in the Union Navy.[7]

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1861

At the outbreak of the American Civil War,

H. S. Sanford, the U.S. Minister at Brussels, July 17, 1861.[9]
On September 18, 1861, Sanford sent the following reply to Seward:

"He [Garibaldi] said that the only way in which he could render service, as he ardently desired to do, to the cause of the United States, was as Commander-in-chief of its forces, that he would only go as such, and with the additional contingent power—to be governed by events—of declaring the abolition of slavery; that he would be of little use without the first, and without the second it would appear like a civil war in which the world at large could have little interest or sympathy."[10]

According to Italian historian Petacco, "Garibaldi was ready to accept Lincoln's 1862 offer but on one condition: that the war's objective be declared as the abolition of slavery. But at that stage Lincoln was unwilling to make such a statement lest he worsen an agricultural crisis."

Washington D.C. recruited many of Garibaldi's former officers.[12] On August 6, 1863, after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln: "Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure."[13]

In the Confederate army

Several Italian American soldiers of the Confederate States Army were veterans from the Army of the Two Sicilies who had fought against Giuseppe Garibaldi in, and were captured during, the Expedition of the Thousand during the unification of Italy. They were released after a treaty between Garibaldi and Chatham Roberdeau Wheat. In December 1860 and few months of 1861, these volunteers were transported to New Orleans with the ships Elisabetta, Olyphant, Utile, Charles & Jane, Washington and Franklin.[14] Most Confederate Italian Americans had settled in Louisiana. The militia of Louisiana had an Italian Guards Battalion that became part of its 6th Regiment.[15] Following the protests of many soldiers, who did not feel like Italian citizens since they fought against the unification of Italy, it was renamed 6th Regiment, European Brigade in 1862.

There also were Italian companies within regiments from Louisiana, Virginia, Tennessee and Alabama; as well as parts of a company from South Carolina.

Among the Confederate officer corps, General William B. Taliaferro had some Italian ancestry as a son of the Taliaferro first family of Virginia, descended from Italians in England in the 1500s who settled the Colony of Virginia in the 1600s.[16][17] General P. G. T. Beauregard, a Louisiana Creole, had Italian ancestry via his mother Hélène Judith de Reggio, who hailed from a prominent first family of St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana established in 1747 by her grandfather Francesco Maria de Reggio, an Italian nobleman of the House of Este.[18][19]

See also

References

  1. ^ NATIONAL ITALIAN AMERICAN FOUNDATION Archived 2013-05-20 at the Wayback Machine - Italian American Contributions.
  2. JSTOR 41330626
    . Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  3. ^ Belfiglio, p. 169
  4. ^ Belfiglio, p. 167
  5. ^ "LOUIS PALMA DI CESNOLA". Congressional Medal of Honor Society. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  6. ^ Belfiglio, p. 167
  7. ISBN 9781934043806
    .
  8. ^ Belfiglio, p. 164.
  9. ^ Mack Smith, Denis, Garibaldi, Prentice-Hall, 1969, pp. 69–70
  10. ^ Mack Smith, p. 70
  11. ^ Carroll, Rory (2000-02-08). "Garibaldi asked by Lincoln to run army". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 2011-07-04.
  12. ^ David Stephen Heidler, Jeanne T. Heidler, David J. Coles - "Encyclopedia of the American Civil War: a political, social, and military history" - Italian-Americans - W. W. Norton & Company, 2002, Page 1050. Retrieved 3 July 2011.
  13. ^ Mack Smith, p. 72
  14. ^ Italiani nella guerra civile americana
  15. ^ Lonn, Ella (2002). Foreigners in the Confederacy. University of North Carolina Press. pp. 113–115. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
  16. ^ Alduino, p. 294
  17. ^ Wagner, Anthony; Andrus, F.S. (1969). "The Origin of the Family of Taliaferro". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 77 (1): 22–25.
  18. OCLC 44521358
    .
  19. LCCN 55-7362
    .

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Italian_Americans_in_the_Civil_War&oldid=1204633914"