Originally published April 5, 2012 in The Immigrants’ Civil War
The North was an ethnically polarized region at the start of the Civil War. Know Nothings hated immigrants and many immigrants feared freed black slaves.
The need to quickly raise an army to preserve the Union meant that men from all over the North were thrown together into the Army of the Potomac, the Union force charged with protecting Washington, DC. Nativist bigots served next to the Irish immigrants they despised and Irish Democrats were forced to confront slavery right where it existed…