| Chancellorsville and the Germans: Nativism, Ethnicity, and Civil War Memory Contributor(s): Keller, Christian B. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0823226506 ISBN-13: 9780823226504 Publisher: Fordham University Press OUR PRICE: $85.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: June 2007 Annotation: Often called Lees 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 Stonewall Jackson and became the scapegoat for the Northern defeat, blamed by many on the flight of German immigrant troops. The impact on Americas 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. He critically analyzes the performance of the German regiments and documents the impact of nativism on Anglo-American and German-American reactionsand on German self-perceptions as patriots and Americans. For German-Americans, the ghost of Chancellorsville lingered long, and Keller traces its effects not only on ethnic identity, but also on the dynamics of inclusion andassimilation in American life. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877) - History | Military - United States - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - General |
| Dewey: 973.733 |
| LCCN: 2007017279 |
| Series: North's Civil War (Hardcover) |
| Physical Information: 0.97" H x 6.42" W x 9.18" (1.23 lbs) 238 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Topical - Civil War - Ethnic Orientation - German |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. He critically analyzes the performance of the German regiments and documents the impact of nativism on Anglo-American and German-American reactions-and on German self-perceptions as patriots and Americans. For German-Americans, the ghost of Chancellorsville lingered long, and Keller traces its effects not only on ethnic identity, but also on the dynamics of inclusion andassimilation in American life. |
Contributor Bio(s): Keller, Christian B.: - Christian B. Keller is Professor of History at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Along with many scholarly articles focusing on the ethnic experience in the Civil War, he is author of Chancellorsville and the Germans: Nativism, Ethnicity, and Civil War Memory (Fordham, 2007) and coauthor of Damn Dutch: Pennsylvania Germans at Gettysburg (Stackpole, 2004). He is currently editing and translating the memoirs of a German American soldier in the 41st New York |