This is a Lincoln biography, but with a specific focus. The subtitle of the book is “Abraham Lincoln and American Immigration”. Most of the biographies of Lincoln that I have read, and I certainly have not read them all, focus mainly on his early years, and then the years in the White House in the midst of the Civil War. This book covers those aspects, but through a different lens, and also discusses his early political career in more detail than I remember seeing before. The author looks closely at Lincoln’s evolution regarding minorities and immigrants, specifically German and Irish. In order win his election, and reelection, he had to have the support of a large portion of German and Irish immigrants, who were very different voting blocs.
Politics in the mid 1800’s was complicated. You had the nativist “Know Nothing” party, which was very anti-immigrant; and you had abolitionists, who may or may not have cared about immigrants. There was also, especially in a few large cities, populations of recent German immigrants, who were mostly pro-abolition, and populations of recent Irish immigrants, who, because they believed newly liberated slaves would compete with them for jobs, were against abolition. Lincoln, at least as far as getting votes for his reelection campaign, didn’t really concern himself with groups in the Confederate States, and this author does not either.
Lincoln realized that we would need immigrants in order to replenish the workers we had lost as a result of the Civil War. Rather blunt, but an accurate assessment. However, there were a number of people, inside as well as outside his administration, who were prejudiced against Germans and especially Irish people (as well as other minorities). Complicating this was the fact that a large number of German and Irish immigrants and children of immigrants were serving in the Union Army. Lincoln had put both German and Irish individuals into prestigious positions in the Union Army. Interestingly, many of Lincoln’s best known photos were taken by immigrants.
If this was your family, how would you research them? There are resources for researching soldiers in the Civil War, both Union and Confederate sides. The Soldiers and Sailors database through the National Parks System, https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers-and-sailors-database.htm, is free, while Fold3, https://www.Fold3.com, requires a membership, but there is also a library version you might be able to access. You should search naturalization records; FamilySearch or the National Archives are your best bets there. There were a number of German-language papers in the larger cities. The Library of Congress has a free site at Chronicling America, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/, but there are also paid sites for newspaper research. Also, you might check local libraries and historical societies.