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True, but it surprises me that Germans would not use the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 for reenactments. Battles on the scale of Civil War ones, some bigger. Innovations such as the needle rifle and the chassepot changed warfare. The 1866 Battle of Sadowa saw the Prussian army with breech loaders against an Austrian one with muzzle loaders. All the major powers in Europe fought a major war within a ten year period of the Civil War. It surprises me that they look to our history when there is plenty to reenact in their own, without any political baggage.

Yes, the Seven Weeks War and the Franco-Prussian War would seem to carry little negative baggage today. The Dual Empire is ,unfortunately vanished, and the Second Empire is equally defunct. In the Wars of German Unification Prussia was very much seen by those on the left and right as a ‘progressive, modernizing ‘ state. Interestingly Prussia and the US had very good relations during this period and France was seen , with some justification, as a threat to US republican institutions. The French adventure in setting up a puppet ‘empire’ in Mexico certainly was a direct challenge to the Monroe Doctrine as well as being supportive of the CSA. During the 1870 war a number of US Army officers were attached as observers to the Prussian armies and MG Phil Sheridan was Bismarck's personnel guest at the Royal Headquarters during the critical stage of the war. Phil Sheridan recounted his experiences with great relish in the second volume of his memoirs.And last but not least, overwhelmingly Germans fought on the Union side. There were a variety of reasons, a lot of ‘Red 48ers’ emigrated to the US after the failure of the leftist wave of revolutions. They were ideological recruits. A substantial German emigration had begun to the US as early as the 1820’s when the formation of the Evangelical Church produced a rupture in many congregations of Pietist Protestants and led to immigration to the US to worship as they liked. Most of these people ended up in Ill and Wisconsin. Finally, during the war US agents recruited Germans and other Europeans by the boatload to serve in the Union Army. It was one way of filling the ranks and later a way to depress the actual number of men drafted.

In the seceded states and the border states allegiances were divided. In Missouri away from the large German population of St Louis most Germans favored the Union. Disunion was seen as leading to the political fragmentation that had made Germany a perpetual battlefield and the resort of a mass of parasitic petty nobility. On the frontier in Texas the German communities in places like Fredericksburg pretty much seceded from the Confederacy. The US Army was seen as the protector of the settlements from raiding Indians and secession removed this protection. For four years these towns lived like independent city states and formed their own home guard and negotiated with the local Indians to enlist them sin keeping distant raiders away.

In long settled areas such as North Carolina where there were significant German and Swiss-German communities there was pretty universal support of the CSA. In Charleston one of the three or four actually complete militia artillery units ‘The Charleston German Artillery Company’ took part in four years of operations starting with the firing on Ft Sumter and they were considered one of the premier artillery units in the Confederate forces.