Battle of Cross Keys

Many immigrants fought for both the North and the South during the Civil War, and their numbers were especially high in Gen. Louis Blenker’s division of Gen. John C. Fremont’s Union army at Cross Keys on June 8, 1862. On this part of the field, Blenker’s three brigades were commanded by two Germans, Gen. Henry Bohlen and Col. John Koltes, and one Hungarian, Gen. Julius Stahel. Blenker and his lieutenants had been officers in European revolutions during the 1840s. German, Swiss, Irish, English, Italians, Russians, Algerians, Sepoys, Turks, Frenchmen, Poles, Croats, Hungarians, and Chinese served in Blenker’s “melting pot” division. One of Fremont’s staff officers, the Romanian Capt. R. Nicolai Dunka, was killed here while delivering a message to the front. Most immigrant soldiers fought for their adopted country and remained here after the war, while others sought military experience so they could return to their native countries to fight in or command revolutionary armies.

Virginia · United States