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John C. Creighton had emerged as an important figure in Irish American politics in Memphis in 1866. He was elected recorder for the city and he had a following among immigrant voters. He reflected the anti-black sentiment of many Irish in the city and he fanned the flames of hatred against the rising number of ex-slaves moving to the Mississippi river port.1
In the year since the Civil War ended, antipathy towards blacks was rapidly becoming hatred as the newly powerful Irish community saw blacks as rivals not just for jobs, but for political dominance. In 1865 and 1866 the Irish had won most of the elected political positions in the city because both former Confederates and former slaves could not vote under Tennessee law. It was the immigrants, who had held themselves aloof during the war, who were the most fully enfranchised voting block in the city. With laws in the offing that would extend the suffrage to blacks, the Irish could well imagine that their grip on power might end if the African American population continued to swell.2
Blacks made up half of Memphis’s population, outnumbering both native-born former Confederates and the Irish. Many had arrived in the last year of the war as refugees from slavery on plantations, or had been drawn to the city after the war seeking the protection of the Union soldiers stationed there and assistance from the Freedmen’s Bureau. The population of blacks had grown from four thousand in 1860 to approximately 20,000 in 1866. 3
Soon after Union forces occupied Memphis in 1862, Fort Pickering began to house escaped slaves coming into the city seeking freedom from their Confederate masters. The discharged black soldiers involved in the opening hours of the Memphis Riots were living in Fort Pickering in April of 1866.
The Irish had newfound political power and the blacks had hard-earned freedom, but both groups were at the bottom of the economic scale. While the Irish and the blacks had both seen important improvements in their situations, they both struggled to feed and clothe their families, and they struggled with each other for many of the same poorly paid jobs.4
The Union military force in Memphis a year after the war ended was tiny compared to the task that would confront it in May. It had included a local artillery unit, the 3rd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery, which had originally been recruited in Memphis from the area’s black population. In spite of its name, it had served as an infantry unit during the war. On April 17, the 3rd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery was disbanded. Most of the discharged soldiers, without homes to go to, stayed at Fort Pickering south of the city even after their time in the army had ended. 5
Sergeant Tom Strawn of Company B, 3rd U.S. Colored Troops Heavy Artillery Regiment. During the Civil War African American recruits were placed in segregated units designated as United States Colored Troops (USCT)
The black troops who remained at the fort had access to guns and they did not have the restraining influences of family or church on their behavior. In the weeks after their unit broke up, some of the men were known to head into the city to drink and carouse, and to fight with the mostly Irish police force. Clashes between patrolmen and groups of United States Colored Troops veterans were becoming common by the end of April, and they often involved strong elements of communal bigotry. Police increasingly beat blacks accused of crimes, and veterans denounced the cops as “low Irishmen.”6
Rachel Dilts, a white woman from Illinois, witnessed the opening moments of the Memphis Race Riot on Monday, April 30, 1866. She testified before the Joint Congressional Committee investigating the riots that she saw several black men, wearing soldiers’ clothing, stopped by four policemen. “Some words were passed between them,” she told the Congressmen, and she recalled that “the policemen ran after one of the negroes , and I suppose struck him, for the negro fell and the policeman on top of him. “ The blacks escaped and began to run off down the street, but “one of the policemen ran after this negro that fell down and struck him on the head with his pistol…another negro ran and struck the policeman with a stick.”7
The next morning, May 1, residents in South Memphis were disturbed by dozens of discharged black troops drinking and celebrating their mustering out of the army. Recorder Creighton found four policemen and ordered them to disperse the blacks. The badly outnumbered police objected to the order, but eventually they tried to break up the gathering. Instead of dispersing, the former soldiers cursed and insulted the police. 8
The police withdrew, but some of the ex-soldiers pursued them, insulting the police and threatening them. When the police reached a bridge, some of their tormentors began to throw split logs at them. At least one of the black men fired a pistol in the air. The police drew their guns and more of the ex-soldiers begin firing, now at the police. 9
Although none in the crowd of soldiers or the among the policemen were killed in these initial encounters, word soon spread in both the black community and among the police that men on both sides were dead. Groups of armed men from the Irish community began to assemble.10
Major General George Stoneman was informed on the afternoon of Tuesday May 1, 1866 by the sheriff that a riot had broken out in South Memphis and that the Union troops under Stoneman were needed to quell it. Stoneman responded that he did not want to use soldiers until the local resources had first been exhausted. He said later that he had only recently turned protection of the city over to civilians and that he wanted to see if the civil authorities were “capable of taking care of themselves” before the United States troops intervened. The mayor of Memphis also requested assistance, but Stoneman said that while he readied his troops, he did not want to intervene immediately. He testified later that he kept his men from intervening at this crucial early stage “for the purpose of testing whether they [the police and sheriff] were capable of keeping peace and order themselves.” Stoneman had fewer than two hundred men at his disposal, but his decision to test the abilities of local authorities ended any chance that the worst phases of the riots could be avoided. 11
Union Major General George Stoneman had commanded thousands of men during the Civil War, but in Memphis in 1866 he only had two hundred soldiers available when the riots began.
Irish political leaders incited the growing mob to attack blacks in retaliation for the shooting of the police. Barbour Lewis, a white lawyer, testified that on May 1 he saw the police bringing in black prisoners along the street. “I am sorry to say that they pounded their prisoners,” he testified, “The policemen with their clubs would strike them…” A crowd gathered around the police and their prisoners calling for the blacks to be killed. Lewis said that he heard many wild rumors designed to incite the crowd, which included many Irish immigrants, including charges that the blacks were staging an uprising and that three or four whites had been killed. When Barbour Lewis approached the black district he did not see dead whites. Instead he saw the bodies of five black men. Groups of dozens of white men followed police back into the black community.12
John Moller, a white store owner, saw the growing number of white men heading into the black community. He heard some of the rioters say that “they were going to shoot every d—-d nigger.” Someone said that the Germans “ought to be killed too because they make the negroes free.”13
The riot was quickly passing beyond being a simple fight between the police and some discharged black soldiers. George Todd, a German immigrant, said that he saw John Creighton, an elected official, inciting the mob to “clean out” the blacks from Memphis that Mayday. A black man happened past the crowd, and the police began firing at him but he apparently slipped away. The next day Todd saw a crowd administer whippings to blacks on the streets.14
Union army Captain A.W. Allyn testified that after the initial disturbances by the black soldiers the larger violence was set off by the police attacking and beating blacks whom they encountered. Crowds collected around these policemen and joined in the attacks. The army officer said that along with some of the city’s Irish population, he saw rioters who appeared to be men from the countryside who had come in by train to join in the attacks on the black community.15
During the first hour of the revenge attacks, the police and their followers seemed to have focused on capturing or beating black men wearing articles of Union soldiers’ clothing. Soon, they began attacking blacks more generally. General Stoneman testified that while blacks had been involved in fighting at the beginning of the riots, after that “the negroes had nothing to do with the riot except to be killed and abused.”16
On May 2 African American men, women and children were attacked indiscriminately in South Memphis.
Lavinia Godell was a black woman whose husband was killed on May 2. Her husband had come home from work that evening and found that she was sick and that there was no food in the house. He went to a nearby store with a pan to get some corn meal.17
The white grocer who rented his basement to Jackson Godell was John Moller. He testified that Jackson was a “very quiet, …sensible man” who on coming home from work had come into Moller’s store “to get some cornmeal.” Three men “followed him with revolvers “and they knocked him on the head.” They knocked him down and fired two shots at him and left him bleeding in the gutter.18
A short time later, a friend burst in to Lavinia’s home and shouted that “Jackson is dead.” Lavinia testified that she found him lying in the street groaning. “I sat with his head in my hand.” She said that a man told her to get some friends to take Jackson off the street and into the house. She could not find help, and afraid for her own safety she stayed inside. The next morning Jackson’s body was missing. She found him dead at the local police station.19
Not all of the attacks were fatal. Henry Jackson was a black man who had lived in Memphis since the previous year. On May 2, he was standing with a friend when a policeman came by “and he just struck me and grabbed me by the beard and struck me again until the blood ran down all over my clothes. “ Frances Thompson, a black woman, testified that she and a sixteen year old girl were gang-raped by seven Irish rioters who included two policemen.20
Schools educating black children were a particular target of the mobs.
The riots were over by Thursday morning after General Stoneman at last took decisive action. A report three weeks later by the Freedmen’s Bureau said that the riots had been set off because of a history of mutual antagonism between the police and the African American soldiers in the city. It said that hatred of the black community had been stoked by pro-Confederate newspapers which had depicted the growing black community as a menace to working class whites. The propaganda had poisoned the atmosphere so much that “the slightest provocation [might] bring about an open rupture.” Reports estimated that thirty to forty-six blacks were killed, 50 wounded, and that 11 black churches and schools were burned. Two whites died, although both appear to have been killed by other whites. 21
Although only a small percentage of the city’s Irish community participated in the attacks on blacks, it is clear that some of their communal leaders encouraged them. Similar riots took place in a dozen cities throughout the South during reconstruction, none led by Irish politicians. A little over a year after the riots, organized political violence by the Ku Klux Klan and other groups established to terrorize freed slaves used violence to reestablish white control in the South. 22
After the riots, the Memphis Freedmen’s Bureau office became a place where burned out blacks could seek help. The Freedmen’s and Refugee Bureau had been established the year before to assist ex-slaves in the transition to freedom. A major function of the Bureau was to provide education for African Americans.
The Freedmen’s Bureau report concluded that freed blacks were extremely vulnerable in the post-war situation. The hostility towards them was deadly, as the Memphis riots proved. They could only be protected by the “bayonet.” 22
The policy of President Andrew Johnson of dramatically reducing the role of the Federal government and the Union army in protecting freed slaves in the South would soon be reversed by a Congress that passed two new Constitutional Amendments and Reconstruction and Civil Rights Acts to place the government of the United States between black communities and white terror.23
Video: Stephen Ash lectures on the Memphis Riots:
Resources:
The complete reports and testimony of the Joint Committee that investigated the Memphis Riots are available for free here.
A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2013) is the leading book on the riots. This series on the Memphis Riots draws heavily on Ash’s work.
The Freedmen’s Bureau report on the riots is available here.
The Memphis Riot Series:
This article is Part II of a two-part series. Part I is available here: Prelude to a Reconstruction Riot: Irish and Blacks in Memphis 1866
Sources: [To be completed April 25, 2016]
1. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 64; Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner; After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory P. Downs (2015); A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn (2005)
2. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013).
3. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 69.
4. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 74.
5. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 82.
6. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 83.
7. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 67.
8. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p.95-98.
9. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 98.
10. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 100-102.
11. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 50-51.
12. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 236-237.
13. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 87.
14. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 256.
15. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 245-248.
16. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 58.
17. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 78.
18. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 86.
19. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 78.
20. The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives Made During the First Session Thirty Ninth Congress 1865-1866 Volume 1 Washington Government Printing Office (1866) p. 73-74, 196.
21. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) pp. 170-173, 193.
22. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013)
23. A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War by Stephen V. Ash published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition (2013) p. 173.
24. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 by Eric Foner; After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory P. Downs (2015); A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn (2005).
The Immigrants’ Civil War is a series that examines the role of immigrants in our bloodiest war. Articles will appear twice monthly between 2011 and 2017. Here are the articles we have published so far:
1. Immigrant America on the Eve of the Civil War – Take a swing around the United States and see where immigrants were coming from and where they were living in 1861.
2. 1848: The Year that Created Immigrant America – Revolutions in Europe, famine and oppression in Ireland, and the end of the Mexican War made 1848 a key year in American immigration history.
3. Carl Schurz: From German Radical to American Abolitionist– A teenaged revolutionary of 1848, Carl Schurz brought his passion for equality with him to America.
4. Immigrant Leader Carl Schurz Tells Lincoln to Stand Firm Against Slavery.
5. …And the War Came to Immigrant America -The impact of the firing on Fort Sumter on America’s immigrants
6. The Rabbi Who Seceded From the South
7. The Fighting 69th-Irish New York Declares War
8. The Germans Save St. Louis for the Union
9. New York’s Irish Rush to Save Washington
10. Immigrant Day Laborers Help Build the First Fort to Protect Washington-The Fighting 69th use their construction skills.
11. Carl Schurz Meets With Lincoln To Arm the Germans
12. Immigrants Rush to Join the Union Army-Why?– The reasons immigrants gave for enlisting early in the war.
13. Why the Germans Fought for the Union?
14. Why Did the Irish Fight When They Were So Despised?
15. The “Sons of Garibaldi” Join the Union Army
16. The Irish Tigers From Louisiana
17. Immigrant Regiments on Opposite Banks of Bull Run -The Fighting 69th and the Louisiana Tigers
18. The St. Louis Germans Set Out To Free Missouri
19. Wilson’s Creek Drowns Immigrant Dream of Free Missouri
20. English-Only in 1861: No Germans Need Apply
21. After Bull Run: Mutineers, Scapegoats, and the Dead
22. St. Louis Germans Revived by Missouri Emancipation Proclamation
23. Jews Fight the Ban on Rabbis as Chaplains
24. Lincoln Dashes German Immigrants Hopes for Emancipation
25. When Hatred of Immigrants Stopped the Washington Monument from Being Built
26. Inside the Mind of a Know Nothing
27. The Evolution of the Know Nothings
28. The Know Nothings Launch a Civil War Against Immigrant America
29. The Know Nothings: From Triumph to Collapse
30. The Lasting Impact of the Know Nothings on Immigrant America.
31. Lincoln, the Know Nothings, and Immigrant America.
32. Irish Green and Black America: Race on the Edge of Civil War.
33. The Democratic Party and the Racial Consciousness of Irish Immigrants Before the Civil War
34. The Confederates Move Against Latino New Mexico
35. Nuevomexicanos Rally As Confederates Move Towards Santa Fe—But For Which Side?
36. The Confederate Army in New Mexico Strikes at Valverde
37. The Swedish Immigrant Who Saved the U.S. Navy
38. The Confederates Capture Santa Fe and Plot Extermination
39. A German Regiment Fights for “Freedom and Justice” at Shiloh-The 32nd Indiana under Col. August Willich.
40. The Know Nothing Colonel and the Irish Soldier Confronting slavery and bigotry.
41. Did Immigrants Hand New Orleans Over to the Union Army?
42. Did New Orleans’ Immigrants See Union Soldiers As Occupiers or Liberators?
43. Union Leader Ben Butler Seeks Support in New Orleans-When General Ben Butler took command in New Orleans in 1862, it was a Union outpost surrounded by Confederates. Butler drew on his experience as a pro-immigrant politician to win over the city’s Irish and Germans.
44. Union General Ben Butler Leverages Immigrant Politics in New Orleans
45. Thomas Meager: The Man Who Created the Irish Brigade
46. Thomas Meagher: The Irish Rebel Joins the Union Army
47. Recruiting the Irish Brigade-Creating the Irish American
48. Cross Keys: A German Regiment’s Annihilation in the Shenandoah Valley
49. The Irish Brigade Moves Towards Richmond-The Irish brigade in the Peninsula Campaign from March 17 to June 2, 1862.
50. Peninsula Emancipation: Irish Soldiers Take Steps on the Road to Freedom-The Irish Brigade and Irish soldiers from Boston free slaves along the march to Richmond.
51. Slaves Immigrate from the Confederacy to the United States During the Peninsula Campaign
52. The Irish 9th Massachusetts Cut Off During the Seven Days Battles
53. Union Defeat and an Irish Medal of Honor at the End of the Seven Days
54. Making Immigrant Soldiers into Citizens-Congress changed the immigration laws to meet the needs of a nation at war.
55. Carl Schurz: To Win the Civil War End Slavery
56. Carl Schurz: From Civilian to General in One Day
57. Did Anti-German Bigotry Help Cause Second Bull Run Defeat?
58. Immigrant Soldiers Chasing Lee Into Maryland
59. Scottish Highlanders Battle at South Mountain
60. Emancipation 150: “All men are created equal, black and white”– A German immigrant reacts to the Emancipation Proclamation
61. The Irish Brigade at Antietam
62. Private Peter Welsh Joins the Irish Brigade
63. Preliminaries to Emancipation: Race, the Irish, and Lincoln
64. The Politics of Emancipation: Lincoln Suffers Defeat
65. Carl Schurz Blames Lincoln for Defeat
66. The Irish Brigade and Virginia’s Civilians Black and White
67. The Irish Brigade and the Firing of General McClellan
68. General Grant Expells the Jews
69. The Irish Brigade Moves Towards Its Destruction At Fredericksburg.
70. Fredericksburg: The Worst Day in the Young Life of Private McCarter of the Irish Brigade
71. Forever Free: Emancipation New Year Day 1863
72. Private William McCarter of the Irish Brigade Hospitalized After Fredericksburg
73. The Immigrant Women That Nursed Private McCarter After Fredericksburg
74. Nursing Nuns of the Civil War
75. The Biases Behind Grant’s Order Expelling the Jews
76. The Jewish Community Reacts to Grant’s Expulsion Order
77. Lincoln Overturns Grant’s Order Against the Jews
78. Irish Families Learn of the Slaughter at Fredericksburg
79. Requiem for the Irish Brigade
80. St. Patrick’s Day in the Irish Brigade
81. Student Asks: Why Don’t We Learn More About Immigrants in the Civil War?
82. Missouri’s German Unionists: From Defeat to Uncertain Victory
83. Missouri Germans Contest Leadership of Unionist Cause
84. German Leader Franz Sigel’s Victory Earns a Powerful Enemy
85. Immigrant Unionists Marching Towards Pea Ridge
86. German Immigrants at the Battle of Pea Ridge: Opening Moves
87. Pea Ridge: The German Unionists Outflanked
88. German Immigrants at the Battle of Pea Ridge
89. The Organization of the “German” XI Corps
90. The Irish Brigade on the Road to Chancellorsville
91. The “German” XI Corps on the Eve of Chancellorsville
92. The “Germans Run Away” at Chancellorsville
93. The New York Times, the Germans, and the Anatomy of a Scapegoat at Chancellorsville
94. An Irish Soldier Between Chancellorsville and Gettysburg
95. Lee’s Army Moves Towards Gettysburg: Black Refugees Flee
96. Iron Brigade Immigrants Arrive at Gettysburg
97. Iron Brigade Immigrants Go Into Battle the First Day at Gettysburg
98. The “German” XI Corps at Gettysburg July 1, 1863
99. An Irish Colonel and the Defense of Little Round Top on the Second Day at Gettysburg
100. A Prayer Before Death for the Irish Brigade at Gettysburg: July 2, 1863
101. The Irish Regiment that Ended “Pickett’s Charge”: July 3, 1863
102. Five Points on the Edge of the Draft Riots
103. Before the Draft Riots: The Cultivation of Division
104. The New York Draft Riots Begin
105. Convulsion of Violence: The First Day of the New York Draft Riots
106. The Draft Riots End in a Sea of Blood-July 14-15, 1863.
107. Pat Cleburne: The Irish Confederate and the Know Nothings
108. Killing Pat Cleburne: Know Nothing Violence
109. Pat Cleburne: Arresting a General, Becoming a General
110. The Immigrant Story Behind “Twelve Years a Slave”
111. A German Immigrant Woman’s Gettysburg Address
112. Pat Cleburne: The Irish Confederate’s Emancipation Proclamation
113. Pat Cleburne: The South Can’t Use Black Soldiers Without Ending Slavery
114. The Suppression of Pat Cleburne’s Emancipation Proposal
115. An Irish Immigrant Colonel’s Warnings Ignored at Chickamauga
116. An Immigrant Colonel’s Fighting Retreat at Chickamauga
117. August Willich: German Socialist at Chickamauga
118. Hans Heg:at Chickamauga: Norwegian Commander on the Eve of Battle
119. Ivan and Nadine Turchin: Russian Revolutionary Aristocrats at Chickamauga
120. German Immigrants Pinned Down at Chickamauga
121. Hans Heg: To Die for His Adopted Country at Chickamauga
122. Patrick Guiney: An Irish Colonel on the Edge of the Wilderness
123. Immigrants March Out of The Wilderness and Into a Wicked Hail of Gunfire
124. Peter Welsh in the Irish Brigade’s Purgatory at Spotsylvania
125. Peter Welsh: What Sacrifice Must the Immigrant Make for His Adopted Land?
126. A Second Irish Brigade’s Catastrophe at a Forgotten Fight Near Fredericksburg
127. An Irish Man and a French Woman Between Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor
128. Two Irish Brigades Swept Away by a Hurricane from Hell at Cold Harbor
129. Petersburg: The Start of a Ten Month Siege that Devoured Men and Disabled the Irish Brigade
130. A Volcano in Virginia: The Battle of the Crater
131. 1864 Election: The Immigrant Voter & Abraham Lincoln
132. August Belmont: The German Jewish Immigrant Who Led the Opposition to Lincoln’s 1864 Reelection
133. Lincoln and the Superiority of the “Negro” over the Irish
134. Lincoln’s Germans and the Election of 1864
135. Lincoln’s German Lawyer Comes Out Swinging in the Election of 1864
136. Lincoln Wins the Election of 1864 With Immigrant Votes
137. American Refugee Camp in Civil War Kentucky Destroyed by Union Soldiers
138. Kentucky Civil War Refugee Camp Reborn and Reconstructed After Expulsions
139. Immigrant German “Hamburgers” Tormented and Captured at Petersburg
140. German General Weitzel and His African Canadians at Petersburg
141. Irish Regiment at the Beginning of the End of the Confederacy at Five Forks
142. Richmond Burning: The German Immigrant and Black Troops Who Saved the City
143. Appomattox: The Capture of a Confederate Army & the Fall from Grace of an Immigrant General
144. Lincoln Assassinated: John Wilkes Booth’s Immigrant Conspirators
145. Immigrants Hunt Lincoln’s Killers and Help Capture the Confederate President
146. Lincoln’s Murder and the New York Irish American
147. Lincoln’s Funeral in Immigrant New York
148. German General Carl Schurz Begins His Investigation of the Post-War South
149. Carl Schurz Warned That a “System of Terrorism” Was Taking Hold in the Post-War South in 1865
150. Immigrants in the Union Navy: Minorities in the Majority
151. How Immigrants Were Recruited into the United States Navy
152. African Canadian Sailors in the Union Navy
153. High School Student Proves Professor Wrong When He Denied “No Irish Need Apply” Signs Existed
154. The Fallout from No Irish Need Apply Article Spreads Worldwide
155. No Irish Need Apply Professor Gets into a Fight With Our Blogger Pat Young Over Louisa May Alcott
157. A Scottish Socialist and a German General Work to Help Slaves Become Freedpeople-Robert Dale Owen, Carl Schurz and the founding of the Freedmen’s Bureau.
158. Our Man in Sweden: Recruiting Immigrants to Strengthen the Union War Effort
159. German Immigrants and the End of Slavery in Missouri
160. 13th Amendment: Immigrants and the end of slavery in America
161. Finding Civil Immigrants Where You Wouldn’t Expect Them: The Irish and German Harvard Men
162. Recovering the memories of Jewish Civil War soldiers
163. Kate Cumming Confederate Immigrant Nurse and the Shiloh Disaster
164. Immigrant nurse reports on Civil War hospital organized by Nursing Nuns after Shiloh battle
165. Sarah Emma Edmonds: The Immigrant Woman As “Male Nurse”
166. Immigrant Women Struggled to be Recognized as Nurses After the Civil War
167. Prelude to a Reconstruction Riot: Irish and Blacks in Memphis 1866
168. The Memphis Massacre of 1866: A Race Riot Pits Irish Immigrants Against Newly Freed Slaves
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thank you for all your efforts that you have put in this.
Very interesting info.