Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • March 7, 2012 place. When I independently located Spangenberg’s files at the National Archives, I found that the threat of court-martial originated when Spangenberg, while on parade, called another German-American officer a “Schweinhund” and a “Schuf.” Dr. Lowry got back to one of his retired colleagues, a Viennese psychiatrist then in his 90s, and we all raked over the permutations of these insults. The upshot was that the resentment between Gilsa, a Prussian, and Spangenberg, who came from Baden-Wurttemburg, was based on their prior nationalities. The Prussians were the least anti-Semitic of Germans, so much so that Jewish bureaucrats were prevalent in their civil service and army medical corps. Baden was a holdover to the hostile attitudes of earlier times. This in itself did not appear to have caused the clash, but was reflected in the insult “Schuf,” which was what a Baden guy would call a Prussian guy. The clash was probably based on a collision of two rather arbitrary personalities, but guys from Baden at that time were mostly fugitive revolutionaries, while guys from Prussia were mostly captains or majors who had been passed over for promotion to colonel, the retirement rank. The Civil War German troops were a demographic sandwich. The German democratic revolutionaries from 1848-1849 got to be appointed generals in the Union Army. The Prussian anti-revolutionaries, who were professional soldiers rather than politicians, got to be appointed colonels, majors, and captains, and the rank-and-file soldiers and junior officers were generally skilled tradesmen whose working-class sympathies made them pro-democracy and anti-monarchy, and thus anti-Prussian. The Prussians saw the world as a harsh place and wanted a strong monarchy as a bulwark against foreign invasion and to protect their own social status. This tripartite balance probably explained the unbalanced performance of German troops in the Civil War. The officers spent so much time huffing and puffing over past resentments that neither the Anglo-Saxon senior generals nor their own German enlisted men took them seriously. This does not work well when faced with Confederate infantrymen who were, at the time, probably the best in the world at fighting on broken ground. Over the broader perspective of which ethnic group produced the most drunks, Dr. Lowry did a much wider statistical review than I did on a double handful of officers and a couple dozen enlisted men listed as killed or wounded at Gettysburg. The Civil War Union Army processed about two million men. Lowry was able to identify 75,962 courtsmartial that actually came to trial where verdicts were achieved. Crunching these numbers based on the ethnic origins of the names, he found that the stereotype of the drunken Irish soldier had a mild but ineluctable statistic support. “Of the courts-martial of Irish soldiers, 22.4 percent of the Irish described the involvement of alcohol. The Irish have more alcohol involvement in their courts-martial than the other two groups. The Americans had the least and the Germans fell somewhere in between.” Numerically, the charts show that 22.4 percent of the courts-martial involving Irish soldiers reported an involvement of alcohol, while the figure for the Germans was 18 percent and for the “Americans,” that is to say old settlers of predominantly Anglo-Saxon or Dutch ancestry, 15 percent. The difference – less than 10 percent between Irish and Anglo-Saxons, and only three percent between Irish and Germans -- most certainly does not indicate that all Irishmen were drunks and that all Anglo-Saxons and Germans were sober. The largest incident of alcohol offense by region, incidentally, came from Colorado Territory, where alcohol featured in more than 30 percent of the courts-martial. Most of these men would have been miners, and this particular group had a far worse record for violence after drinking and, not incidentally, for abuse of the local Indians and Chinese that neither the Irish nor the Germans happened to share. Irish problems with the Chinese were insignificant during the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, when Chinese work gangs had Irish foremen who actually liked them. The Chinese did the pick-and-shovel grading or tunneling work in advance and the Irish and other white men generally laid the track because Chinese in those days generally weighed about 100 pounds each and couldn’t lift the 1,000-pound rails. German hostility toward the Chinese was non-existent. Most of the subsequent hostility came because of job competition once the railroads were complete. The post-war Irish sometimes planted explosives against abusive AngloSaxon employers – or perhaps were framed for doing so -but the stories that they conducted reciprocal “gunpowder wars” against the Chinese are bogus. Given the number of other offenses that could lead to a court-martial, ranging from cowardice in the face of the enemy to what we would call “war crimes,” this does not in any way brand the Irish as bad soldiers or disparage their frequent acts of heroism. The involvement of alcohol could reflect a stereotype of the era, but the numbers are evidential at least of an observed tendency not based on tall tales of the time. Nobody, including Lowry, claims the Irish were not excellent combat soldiers and important to the Union victory during the Civil War, and once we get away from the era of war-time propaganda, we can understand that the Germans were also important, especially for their consistent opposition to slavery. Lowry’s numbers substantiate an observed fact: The Civil War was a watershed during which the previously resentful Anglo-Saxons gradually came to share the stage with the Irish and the Germans and, as time went by, with other groups. The war that ended slavery may also have been the war that established America as the land where all people could hope to be free. One of the legends of the American Civil War was that Irish-American troops saved the Union during the first two years, and remained a force to be reckoned with throughout the entire four years, but that they were as famous for flamboyant drinking exploits as they were for flamboyant courage. The other horn of the legend is that German-American troops were a constant disappointment, so much so that the 11th Corps – which was mostly comprised of Germans and central Europeans – was disbanded due to such a dismal reputation that the morale of new recruits was compromised. Dr. Thomas P. Lowry, an expert on Civil War courtsmartial and medical records, has tackled this exercise in ethnic mythology with his latest book, “Irish & German Whiskey & Beer: Drinking Patterns in the Civil War.” Dr. Lowry is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force medical service. He is a descendant of a Civil War officer and the son of a World War II Naval officer. He is also the father of an officer now serving in Afghanistan. A retired psychiatrist, he is very much a detail man. While he enjoys anecdotes and spins them well, his research is empirical rather than anecdotal. Lowry’s methodology is transparent. He and his wife Beverly spent 11 years in the National Archives researching Civil War courts-martial and creating a computer database where they could track the courts-martial by name and by charges against the defendant. I made good use of his services a few years ago when I was tracking a couple of officers in the 41st and 45th New York State Volunteer Infantry: Colonel Leopold von Gilsa and Captain Joseph Spangenberg. Gilsa was a former Prussian officer who came to the United States in 1850 and was selected as the commanding officer of the 41st New York at the outset of the war. Spangenberg made his first appearance in a book about the 41st, though he served in the 45th. During the battle of Chancellorsville, which was the Black Day of the Army of the Potomac, Spangenberg tried to warn Gilsa that the 41st and 45th New York were about to be attacked by a much larger number of Confederates: Stonewall Jackson’s famous attack through the woods that rolled up the whole Union Army. Nobody at headquarters took either of them seriously and they turned on one another, as people sometimes do in moments of stress. Two ego clashes between Gilsa and Spangenberg terminated when Gilsa hit Spangenberg on the top of his head with the flat of his saber and knocked him out. Spangenberg’s men apparently liked him enough to carry the unconscious man off the field, because he was never listed as a Confederate prisoner and was promoted, first to lieutenant colonel and then to colonel, just as the war was ending. I asked Dr. Lowry to locate the transcript of the courtsmartial that had been threatened both against Gilsa and against Spangenberg so I could find out what was brewing between them. The courts-martial never took place. He explained to me that a lot of courts-martial were threatened during the Civil War, but they very often did not take A legend succumbs to demographic research Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: We are longtime residents of Wyckoff who were heartened to read the Wintons’ letter to the editor of Feb. 22. We have also been aware of the agenda being promoted by a small but vocal group of activists who have moved to our town. Their goal seems to be a socialist ideal of a new urban utopia based on speedy change regardless of rule of law and past practice in our municipal government. Thanks to many decades of strong conservative leadership, Wyckoff remains a very attractive place to live. We are relieved that at least some vigilant citizens are speaking out against this group, which is determined to change those values that have guided us in the past. Marianne Van Blarcom James Van Blarcom Wyckoff Dear Editor: As a resident of Cottage Road, I would like to thank the Wyckoff Board of Adjustment. I have lived on this idyllic street for 25 years, and am proud of the beautiful homes and wonderful neighbors. The first comment most people make when riding down Cottage Road is what a beautiful and charming street it is. When a home on our street became available, a developer purchased the home and land with the intention of Let’s preserve town’s character building a large boxy dwelling totally out of character with the neighborhood. The residents of Cottage Road appealed to the planning board requesting that our street and its charm not be ruined by total disregard for the aesthetics of the neighborhood. It is refreshing that the volunteers who serve our community heard our voices and denied the request to build a totally inappropriate house on Cottage Road. Thanks again. Faye Rovegno Wyckoff Dear Editor: As 33-year residents of Wyckoff, my wife and I are very concerned about the proposed senior residential project known as The Vista at the Christian Health Care Center at Cedar Hill and Sicomac avenues. The CHCC is a wonderful humanitarian organization that has been helping people for decades. However, there are two key issues about The Vista that residents of Wyckoff need to understand. First, the CHCC has officially opposed the installation of a traffic light at this intersection. In testimony before the Wyckoff Zoning Board on April 25, 2011, Jerry Vogel, the CHCC’s attorney, stated that the only reason they have agreed to rebuild the entire intersection (which will change traffic patterns and present potential dangers to Wyckoff school children) is that Bergen County is forcing them to (continued on page 18) ‘The Vista’ should be scaled back Grateful for board’s decision