Lincoln's Foreign Legion

Book excerpt: In the mid-19th century two struggles to define freedom overlapped: the Kingdom of Italy emerged from forty-nine years of war, and America erupted into Civil War. During the Italian Wars, thousands of soldiers: Italian, American, French, British, German, Hungarian, Polish, and others, received a unique schooling from the intrepid General Giuseppe Garibaldi. His training was of a type West Point could never have provided. Those men carried lessons with them during the American War onto the battlefields of Bull Run, the Wilderness, Gettysburg, through to Appomattox. The Garibaldi Guard, named after the illustrious general, was a unique meld of those foreign nationals who participated in the European revolutions and the struggle to save the Union. This was a polyglot regiment of exiled political idealist veterans of Europe's armies and navies, anarchists, adventurers, and even a few crooks; they came from fifty-two European principalities and fourteen American States and served under the leadership of a charlatan. The book covers the careers of some of the officers and men in the post-Civil War years. In addition, a list of all the men (over 2,000) and a brief synopsis of their time serving in the regiment is provided.