Literally hundreds of thousands of immigrants in total joined both sides of the war during the battle. What effect do you guys think this had on the battle and the various things which occurred. Do you think that the U.S. purposely accepted more immigrants so that they could have more people fight for them?
I'm not aware of any specific immigration policies that were enacted to encourage more immigration during the Civil War. But, immigration, mainly from Europe, was booming during that time. Most of the immigrants who became soldiers in the war would have been on the Union side, of course. So, they helped win the war by adding to the number of troops, if for no other reasons. I'm also interested to see if there will be any comments relating to the specific roles they may have played, as I don't know too much about that.
