What might have happened if, in the early days of the Civil War, a militia with Southern sympathies had been allowed to seize the federal arsenal in St. Louis? Could this have cleared the way for the secession of Missouri from the Union? Lincoln viewed holding onto the border states (states in which slavery was legal, but which hadn’t seceded) as a crucial aspect of his strategy for victory. Whatever might have come of the plot to seize the arsenal, it’s largely thanks to German immigrants who volunteered for the Union army that it was stopped. It was an incident that would become emblematic of the role German-Americans played in the struggle to keep the country whole.
A new book from the University of Missouri Press, titled Fighting for a Free Missouri, illustrates the significant role of German immigrants in the sectional crisis that unfolded in the middle of the 19th century in America. German immigrants played a role in this conflict across the country, however, nowhere were their contributions quite so remarkable as in the state of Missouri.
Through a series of essays written by scholars affiliated with institutions such as Webster University, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and the State Historical Society of Missouri, Fighting For a Free Missouri unpacks these contributions and contextualizes them. Over the course of 10 essays, not including the preface and foreword, the book’s nine contributors trace the development of the German immigrant community in Missouri and help readers understand the various reasons why support for the Union and the cause of antislavery before and during the Civil War was so widespread among them.
This point in particular stands out in each chapter because although many Germans did support bringing an end to chattel slavery in the United States, their reasons were as varied as their individual stories and circumstances. Complicating matters, many Germans kept slaves themselves, including many who were otherwise outspoken about ending the institution.
As multiple essays in the book elucidate, a cadre of romantic revolutionaries who fled Europe in the wake of their failure to oust the monarchy of Germany in 1848 also joined the fight against slavery. This group, more educated and metropolitan than the agrarian class of German settlers who preceded their journey to Missouri (and in particular, St. Louis), tended to view slavery as an ideological problem. Their views were comparatively radical, and having already proved their militant commitment to their ideals, many of them, notably including Franz Sigel and Peter Osterhaus, took up arms once more to support the Union.
All of this is covered throughout the book with deeper explorations of individual figures and locations. These include the early German-language newspapers in Hermann and St. Louis and their editors, Turner societies and their role in the antislavery movement, and the role of the German community in reconciliation after the war. These essays are certainly written with a scholarly audience in mind, and they contain some of the formal conventions of that style that entries into the pop-history genre tend to lack. But the writing is always extremely clear, accessible, and transparent about the point it’s working in service of.
We can’t know how the world would differ if it weren’t for the role played by German immigrants in the fight against slavery. By understanding it though—by dissecting its origins, its leaders, the way it manifested itself—we come to better know the culture of this land we’ve inherited from ones who lived and died on it before we came, and thereby better know ourselves as Missourians. What we do with that knowledge is a matter for the future historians of our time, but thanks to books like this, it’s out there for us to make use of.
This article originally appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Missouri Life.
