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
"Stonewall" Jackson and became the scapegoat for the Northern defeat,
blamed by many on the "flight" of 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 and
assimilation in American life.