Yankee Dutchmen under Fire: Civil War Letters from the 82nd Illinois Infantry

Life and death, pride and prejudice, and combat in an ethnic Civil War regiment

Thousands of volumes of Civil War letters are available, but little more than a dozen contain collections written by native Germans fighting in this great American conflict. Yankee Dutchmen under Fire presents a fascinating collection of sixty-one letters written by immigrants who served in the 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The 82nd Illinois was one of the thirty or so predominantly “German Regiments...