What did the Dutch do in the American Civil War? 

My dutch ancestors came over in ~1860. They didn't fight, but a union officer acquired their horse, left for the war, somehow came back with the horse and returned it.

No doubt, in any given battle, the Dutch fought with great technical ability, then lost on penalties.

Dankjewel! This is really interesting. I knew there were multiple calvinist and comparable Dutch communities in North America, but I didn't realise how many fought in the Civil War.

My family comes from the area in West Michigan around Holland. You would assume that after 150 years people would be mostly assimilated, but most people there still have many Dutch last names (including me). My great great grandfather moved there from Groningen in the early 20th century. There's a bunch of Dutch place names there like Holland, Zeeland, Noordeloos, Vriesland, and Overisel to name a few

Can we get a video on the European powers and their reaction to the civil war and what they do during it

This is certainly a very interesting topic. If you want to include Polish people in this series, there's a book from 2016: _Sons of the White Eagle in the American Civil War: Divided Poles in a Divided Nation_ by Mark F. Bielski.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this series…thanks for doing this research, look forward to the highlighting of other nationalities

always a rare treat to see my home area and half my lineage discussed at length

Texas will take a good dutchman anyday, they can farm, engineer, manufacture, count, navigate, explore, imagine, create or war! Great European Stock!

Thank you, Hilbert. I love your history discoveries.

I am an American of a mix of European ancestry. I had two Dutch relatives whom served in the Union (US Army) with the 15th Iowa Infantry as volunteers. They fought at the Siege of Vicksburg and both survived, but one received injuries. Father and son, they also signed up together. The father had previously served in the Dutch Army. They immigrated to the Northern USA and originated from the region of Holland, the Netherlands, and came via a ship from Hamburg, Germany, and first came to New York City, and then traveled onto Iowa to enlist with the Union Army, and go fight as mercenaries, and then settle the farmlands of Iowa. Considering how many other men did the same, the unit likely had many other Dutch, German, and Scandinavian immigrants in it. Perhaps some Dutch and Germans on the same ship they came on, that left the same port in Hamburg, Germany. Actually in addition to the Irish, another big group to fight for the Union was the Germans. The Germans in the American Civil War is also a must. German Americans played a big role in the US Civil War especially for the Union people like Carl Schulz, August Willich, Franz Sigel, Osterhaus, Custer (Küster), Max Weber, Louis Blenker, Alexander Schimmelfennig, etc. Other groups were the Scandinavians (Norwegians, Swedish, Danes), and Austrians, Poles, Bohemians (Czechs), Slovaks, Hungarians, Romanians, (Habsburg area), as well as Italians, Scottish, French, Swiss, Belgians, English, Canadians, Spanish, Portuguese etc. and many other ethnic groups. On the opposite side of the conflict the famous Confederate Longstreet (Langestraet) was himself of Dutch ancestry. Great video.

As I've stated your video is so cool. I was marking the check boxes as you went along it applies to my relatives. My relatives spoke Dutch and Low German. They were also most likely Dutch Reformed religiously. And they fought in a Union Army Infantry Unit from Iowa.

Super interessant. Een stuk geschiedenis waar ik echt geen idee van had. Thanks!

Very interesting. Thanks for putting this together and greetings from Noord Brabant.

In my home province of Zeeland, southwest Netherlands ‘stelletje afgescheidenen’ was used as a sort of ‘name calling’ which translates as ‘a bunch of weirdos’. My father (77) still uses it sometimes.

Zeer interessant, Dankjewel. I only just discovered your videos and I'm really enjoying them. I was wondering, if you ever have time, it would be interesting to have a video on how the Dutch Antilles became dutch, in particular Sint Maarten. Thanks again for the hard work and interesting videos.

Very interesting! Go on with this research!

Finally some content about the dutch in the civil war I’ve always wanted to know about this since im dutch and a civil war fanatic

Awesome how u spoke out the Dutch names 👍 Great job man , truely a great job

This was a fascinating piece of local history for me living not too far from Holland, Michigan! Great video!

just clicked on your channel, and theres a vid uploaded 40 seconds ago lol

Interessant! At the start I was wondering how you could pronounce the Dutch names so well and then I got it. Very well made video with all that personal information like the letters. This Michael Douma, if he’s Dutch, will most likely say his name the English way, so does my brother 😄 and although I’m Dutch and live in NL, my first name isn’t very Dutch either 😅 keep up the good work and dankjewel.

I’ve never thought of this but it’s very interesting

Love hearing some good Dutch pronunciation in English videos! Great video!

Can we just take a minute to apreciate his pronounciation of Dutch names. It's rare for a non Dutch person, or are you Dutch? Because in that case props to you for speaking English without our signature accent ;)

Ik vond het erg interessant en leuk om te zien. dus ja, abonnee erbij.

My last name is Dutch and my ancestors immigrated to Zeeland, MI from Gelderland, Holland, and Zeeland during the 19th Century. Most of that side of the family live in Kalamazoo, not too far from Holland, MI. My grandfather and his siblings were the first to marry outside of the Dutch Reformist community after WWII, but I was named after my great-great grandmother in recognition of my Dutch ancestry.

I'm not sure if you knew this, but the mother tongue of the first natural born president of the U.S. Martin Van Buren was dutch.

Great video! The Dutch involvement in the American revolution might be a great topic too.

Hallo Hilbert Bedankt ik had hier nog nooit van gehoord en vond het erg interessant wat je allemaal verteld hebt. Heb begrepen dat religie bij deze Amerikanen van Nederlandse afkomst een grote rol speelt. De series die je maakt zijn geweldig en kan er nog wat van leren ook. Met de vriendelijke groeten van uit Zeeland.😃 👋

personally is my favourite topic to learn i know it is very cliche for a history nerd to say that but like i don't live in the US so iam i don't some thing which the regular american know is tough in school and aging i don't think most american just don't know the nuance of the war and this is why i thing this is just so interesting to learn about

Apparently I need to do a video about all the Dutch men from the Wisconsin Dutch communities who served in the Civil War! I've been researching them for some time.

I am Dutch and I approve this message! Very nice Documentation, here have my sub!

I have never seen or heard any of your videos. If you are not a Dutch National or have been raised by Dutch parents, I must congratulate you on your pronunciation. It is excellent!!! If you are, i must congratulate you on your English pronunciation. It is also excellent!

@historywithhilbert that was an interesting video. Thanks a lot for making it. There is another story to tell regarding the Dutch in the civil war. As the war was of great interest to the Dutch on our (that is the European) side of the pond as well. To name just two examples: the USS Kearsarge entered the port of Amsterdam to resuply before fighting the CSS Alabama off the coast of France. Then there where quite some prosperous Dutch farmers who invested their money in the Confederacy through a loan. Recently I found one of those bonds for a thousand dollars which was traded on the Amsterdam stock exchange during the war.

Hello Hilbert. Interesting video again. The letters home were reminiscent of how the TV series Civil War was done. I was struck with how these chaps were Americanised in the northern States, but with your "effing and jeffing" you had obviously been Geordied in a northern estate. The video that RU-vid recommended after was one you did on Boers and Zulus. This was more in keeping with the attitude of the chap who went to New Orleans, it seemed, yet they were also religious like the northern soldiers.

At 3:41 Albertus van Raalte. I've lived in Raalte for 14 years. It's located in the Eastern part of the country and not to special. There's one interesting festival in August called Stöppelhane to celebrate the clearing of the fields of wheat and other agricultural produce. What's left on the fields is called 'stoppels' in Dutch.

As someone who lives just south-east of the dutch colony of Holland, this is really interesting!

Appreciation for your pronounciation of the dutch names👍

As Dutch born and raised, and citizen I say, this is approved, and I even learned some new. Thank you!

I do know there was a pretty large German population that fought for the federal army as well! Would love to see that covered, as well as some of the more unique ethnicities that helped preserve the union

Een interessant onderwerp waar ik niets van wist. 👍

I had never been taught in school that other countries' citizens fought with our armies in the civil war. We were just taught that we tried to keep other countries out of it. Thanks for this....I always find you videos enlightening.

24:00 This is a truly fascinating point, as an American "Von". Thank you so much!

My grandmother when she was alive would still refer to the area around Zeeland county as Van Raalte's land lol

If you aren't already planning on covering them, I'd love to see a video about the French in the American Civil War. One of my ancestors was a French immigrant who fought at the battle of Gettysburg.

Grew up close to Holland, they say almost. nothing about their Civil War company outside of the local history museum. By and large their ancestors have invested heavily in the local tulip festival, which is all sorts of ironic.

Have you ever heard of Mr. Henry van der Weyde, who was migrated from Zeeland to New York at the age of 12 and years later fought in the Civil War as an officer. His father was a well known inventor (invented the compressor for refrigeration). In later life, after the war Heny migrated from the US to London and became a very famous society photographer making portraits of British royals, actors and actresses and the famous Hansen who travelled to the poles. Henry died, after being ruined by A.G. Bell who stole his patented inventions of fixed studio lightning (van der Weyde lighting), as an old pensioner making blocks of ice with his fathers invention for butchers to keep meat fresh. I am in the process of writing a novel about his life and have a number of letters written by him an his family members, some letters written while being a POW of the confederates. Some of those letters are very emotional.

I would love to know more about the hundreds of thousands of German immigrants in the civil war. One particularly fascinating thing are the german revolutionaries of 1848 many of whom served in the war, and many served as officers.

No flooding or mudding of battlefields, rerouting of rivers, windmills built to pump siege grounds dry, no skating regiments, kind of a disappointing contribution to this war.

I like the stories of different ethnic groups during the US Civil War. I think it’s really interesting to see other peoples views

The Dutch Reformed community mentioned still very well exists in those states mentioned and central California. It's mostly tight knit amongst those who are theologically conservative in some parts of the CRC and all of the URC churches.

Nice that Haarlem church on 2:03

My great great great grandfather Jan Roelof Arends immigrated to the USA during the 1860s he was later drafted to the Union army after the war he returned to the Netherlands and started a family

I looked up the 9th Michigan Volunteer Cavalry and what I found pretty wild. Not only were they arguably one of, if not the most engaged Michigan regiments, but one specific sergeant (Sergeant James W. Tobin,) lived like 5 minutes from where I live now. Which is crazy to think about imo

What a fascinating piece of history for me living in Tilburg (Noord-Brabant) in The Netherlands (Holland)

0:29 plays the Wilhelmus, shows the 'Prinsenvlag'...😅😅😅😅

Louis Dobbelman was a Dutch soldier for the Union, there’s a book about his history written by his great, great granddaughter. After the war, he returned to The Netherlands to start a pipe and tobacco factory in Rotterdam. My channel has a video about that story in case of interest.

Hello from West Michigan (abt 25 km from Holland)! Great video on the topic! I'm 100% ethnically Dutch as both my parents grew up in separate but close-knit and closely-connected Dutch communities across the US, though sadly my earliest US immigration was a Wassink in 1878. I also am descended from a Frisian Kooistra and I checked my tree for a Sake Kooistra...I haven't found him in any genealogical records though, so I'll be waiting excitedly for the video! I found the notes about the Van Raalte brother's "Americanization" particularly interesting in relation to the later divisions within the United States' Reformed Church in America (RCA/ it's the Netherlands Reformed...but *American*) and the smaller splinter group the Christian Reformed Church (Christilijke Geereformde) Protestant denomination. Though it partly grew out of the second Afscheiding in the Netherlands, the rift grew bigger as the RCA became seen as too American: holding services in English (CRC only changed to English services in the 1920s) and later sending their children to the US public school systems (to this day CRC folks typically support private religious schools). Interestingly, the Dutch Reformed reputation as Bible nerds has continued on as producers of theology and religious media! Two of the West Michigan Dutch started THREE major Christian publishers that survive to this day: Baker Books, Zondervan (one of the top religious publishers PERIOD), and Eerdmans. The archives of Hope College & Seminary (RCA) in Holland, Michigan, and Calvin University (CRC) in Grand Rapids,Michigan, are fantastic with regards to researching the Dutch immigrants.

Hey Hilbert. As a Dutchman with a particular interest in the US Civil War, I'd love to know what all of your sources were for this video. Were there any books or articles that specifically talk about this, besides the article by Michael J. Douma you discussed?

This is a really awesome video for me to have seen, personally a portion of my family is from that sect of immigrants that settled down in northwestern Iowa. And although both my Frisian and Dutch relatives had moved there in the 1880s some time after the closure of the Civil war, this was regardless a really neat way of learning more about those communities which they were a part of. Being so far removed from where my ancestors came from, and instead being fully American in identity (thoroughly blended up into the beautiful melting pot that is my country), makes it really easy to lose touch with the family history that is often so interesting and important to learn and preserve. For instance, I had absolutely no idea that the spelling of dutch last names which start with "van" being spelled with a capital "V" was a uniquely Dutch-American (Also: South African) thing, and yet I've been doing it all my life thinking it was normal everywhere. It's the neat little things like that which make me smile. Always enjoy what you put out there, keep it up! and I hope to see more Dutch American stuff from you in the future!

Never knew these videos were PowerPoint presentation all along

Sorry first time i watch this channel but are you dutch cause you say those dutch words so good

15:14 That is not just a Frisian surname, that is a Frisian first name as well. Douma is another Frisian surname btw.

We just wanted New York back.

For the curious, the channel History Matters did a video on various nations reactions to the Civil War in the video: "How did the World React to the American Civil War?".

Would you be interested in telling us about the Norwegian Regiment or the 15th Wisconsin volunteer infantry regiment?

Is this the start (or really the vast middle) of finding dutch accounts of narrower and narrower contexts you wouldnt expect? Like The Dutch in the first opium war or the dutch during the conquests of Justianian? (if so id love to see it)

I feel that RDR 1 and 2 explored this with Dutch, whose Dutch father--hence his name--was killed in Civil War, and said war did impact his philosphy.

Dutch people fleeing the liberal environment in the Netherlands is an example why we are liberal in the Netherlands, we don’t accept the hammer of religious zealots. It’s also the reason the Pilgrim Fathers left the Netherlands long before that.

Excellent story and excellent pronunciation of the Dutch language, Hilbert.

General Sherman is one of the most interesting generals during the war. His victories in Georgia helped Lincoln win re-election.

I'm really fascinated about different groups of people from Europe fighting in the American Civil War Feel like the Dutch learn new experience.

Wait a goddamn second that music at the start was the Ditty of Carmeana theme

We have actually quite a history together, I knew that but actually never educate myself further in it. And now this video pops up and I am triggered. Thanx for sharing!

Really very thought provoking. I have not really looked into my Dutch grandmother's family, but they may have been here (southwest Michigan) at that time. My Frisian grandfather didn't arrive until around 1900. It was interesting that a William Lewis was collecting his pension in the Netherlands. I don't think he was Dutch. What would his story be? We'll never know.

My great, great grandfather was in the 1st Michigan Mechanics and Engineers. I have his discharge papers. West Michigan is still very much influenced by Dutch culture and Reformed theology. Interesting video. Thanks.

How about how different Indian tribes sided with either the Union or the Confederacy. "Between Two Fires: American Indians in the Civil War" by Laurence M. Hauptman is a good starting point. Take care.

Liernur designed a few very interesting sewer systems in the Netherlands, using vacuüm.

can we get a video on Turkey’s operation Sword Claw and the ramifications for the various groups within Syria

Would be awesome to have a video about the Poles in the American Civil war. The northern 58th New York Infantry Regiment lead by Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski was almost exclusively polish. There were also some Poles from Silesia living in Texas (Panna Maria and Czestochowa) that got conscripted into the confederate army but didn't form any ethnically homogenous fighting units, although there existed a separate confederate infantry company called the Panna Maria Greys but they weren't ethnically polish. There is an interesting book in English about the Poles from Silesia in Texas called "The first polish americans - Silesian settlements in Texas" by T. Lindsay Baker

Could you do a video about Scandinavians or more specifically Swedes in the war?

I appreciate it very much that you use the correct flag of the Confederate States. So many people assume it's the 'Dukes of Hazard'-flag, when it is not! Anyway, nice educational video!

I read a book about Belgians who also fought in the Civil War... They were already in America before the started 🇧🇪

Sorry if this is a bit late, but I’d reckon you ought to have one of these videos be about Hungarians. I believe they were used by the Union as code-talkers during the war, kind of like the Navajo during WW2.

Could you do one of these on scandinavian people?

5 of the Presidents. Up to now! come from the Netherlands! Great, you've done some research! Greetings from Spakenburg, the Netherlands.

I have heard estimates as high as 60 000 Canadians fighting in the Civil War which seems kind of high to me. However, that is on both sides. The individual that comes to mind first would be Ephraim Brisebois who among other accomplishments established the NWMP fort in what is now Calgary.

Yoo Hilbert, nadat je afscheiding zei wist ik zeker dat je Nederlands bent lol. Je accent is super goed tho

Dutch enclaves around the world are / were surprisingly inward looking. At least when you compare it to the general tolerant nature of the home country. Their own newspapers, architecture, food and so on. And almost without exception very religious. For centuries.

What the British did during the American Civil War is VERY interesting. Particularly the blockade runners operating from Bermuda to the south, Liverpool's building of war ships for the south, and the "Trent Affair", where we nearly went to war with the U.S.

I didn't know that a small town like Zutphen has a namesake village/town in the USA.

Now this had been pointed out, they better be grateful on Saturday and give us the win

21:55 I bet that you stumbled on the surname Appeldoorn because you thought of the city Apeldoorn

1:59 Grote Markt Haarlem 😀

Most of the Characters in Sleepy Hollow I think from the 1820s were New York Dutch

je accent is echt onwijs goed. Normaliter hoor je meteen of iemand Nederlands is of niet

Many Dutch immigrants went to Grand Rapids, Michigan

You mention Iowa, but give very little info. The Dutch side of my family settled in Pella, Iowa, which full of Dutch Americans today. Yes, many from Pella Dutch fought in the Civil War for the Union. What's interesting about the Iowa Dutch is that when they first came to the US they settled in Texas (Confederate). They hated Texas and moved north into what is today Marion County, Iowa. The Pella Dutch are also still religious zealots today. In fact, the editor and creator of one of the most popular Bible translations used today (NIV, or the New International Version Bible) was from one of the Pella Dutch families. I'm related to him. About 60 years ago he was commissioned by the Zondervan Brothers (more Dutch) to make a new translation of the Bible. (He was a theology professor at Calvin Theological Seminary.)

I'm dutch but never realized our people would've participated in these battles