Ethnic Origins of the Enlisted Members of the 1st
Regiment
I
have completed a review of the origins of the soldiers of the "old"
regiment (AKA the "1st German Regiment"). At least 1,072 men (not
including officers) served in the regiment between September 1861 and September
1864, and were overwhelmingly new immigrants from Germany. The breakout of
where the soldiers were born is as follows:
Pennsylvania: 183
Other U.S. states: 23
subtotal: 206
Baden:
99
Bavaria:
87
Hannover:
31
Hesse (inc. both Darmstadt & Kassel): 153
Nassau:
10
Prussia: 128
Saxony:
52
Wurttemberg: 120
Other German states: 41
subtotal: 721
Austria:
8
France (Alsace/Elsa?): 33 (28)
Ireland:
8
Switzerland:
64
Other countries:
8
subtotal: 121
Unknown where born: 24
Total: 1,072
To some extent this chart
understates the German nature of the regiment, as most of the U.S.-born
soldiers were children of German immigrants, and the Austrians, Alsatians,
Swiss, and two "Spaniards" were all Germans as well. Of the non-Germans or non-German-Americans,
almost all were conscripts (or substitutes) who joined the regiment in 1863 and
1864.
The most out-of-place
individual in my mind was Private Jerry Freel, a 24-year-old immigrant from County
Donegal ("Dunnagall"), Ireland, who enlisted into the regiment in
Pittsburgh in September 1861. Freel was the only Irishman to serve in the
regiment from the beginning and I can't figure out how or why he would have
done so. I can only suppose he was a friend of one or more of the
German-Americans who enlisted into Company G, which was dominated by south
German Catholics (with 8 Alsatians, 1 Austrian, 14 Badeners, 10 Bavarians, 15
Wurttembergers, and 4 Swiss) -- and at least some of the 19 German-Americans in
Company G were children of south German immigrants; Joseph Neumeyer's family,
for instance, came to America in 1835 from the village of Schollbrunn in Baden.
Unfortunately, Private Freel was killed at Gettysburg and he appears to have
had no descendants.