Let’s ditch the marble statues of generals on horseback for a minute and drop down to street level—St. Louis, 1860s, where immigrant dockworkers, bar-backs, typesetters, and seamstresses did a lot of the heavy lifting in the fight against slavery.
A 70-year-old German exile named Henry Boernstein—think of him as a semi-retired rabble-rouser with ink-stained fingers—wrote his Memoirs of a Nobody in the 1870s. Instead of bragging about generals, he reminisced about the real action: the print shops pumping out anti-slavery flyers, the beer halls echoing with revolutionary songs, the ‘Turner’ gyms where they practiced military skills, and the crowded tenements where families nursed each other through cholera outbreaks.
“We found out,” Boernstein said, “that this so-called republic was a crazy quilt sewn together by guys who had no clue how hungry the 1800s were for justice.” His stories show how the refugees of Europe’s failed 1848 uprisings gave the American heartland a political jolt.
Quick rewind: after the 1848 revolutions fizzled, tens of thousands of German socialists, freethinkers, and labor agitators scattered across the U.S. Midwest. Marx and Engels cheered them on from across the Atlantic, sending Lincoln a fan letter in 1864 that basically said, “Your war against slavery is the working class’s big break.”
By the eve of the Civil War, St. Louis was 60 percent immigrant, with Germans leading the pack. They didn’t just bring ideas; they brought clubs, mutual-aid societies, and newspapers that took baseball-bat swings at the “Slave Power.” Even Frederick Douglass tipped his hat to them, preaching that Irish, Germans, Africans—everybody—shared the same fight for justice.
Life in 1850s St. Louis wasn’t exactly a picnic. Pro-slavery “Border Ruffians” squared off against the abolitionist “Wide Awakes,” a nationwide youth insurgency that campaigned for Lincoln through torchlight marches. The city’s sewers couldn’t keep up with the cholera. Boernstein’s paper, the Anzeiger des Westens, became the bullhorn for every pissed-off dockworker and cigar-roller in town. Its serialized novel The Mysteries of St. Louis roasted Jesuit capitalists and plantation barons, flying off the shelves.
Politics moved from the page to the pavement. Shut out of the slave-friendly power clubs, German workers crashed caucuses, hijacked Democratic meetings, and organized block-by-block to elect anti-slavery candidates. When the old Whig and Democratic parties imploded, these same networks formed the backbone of Missouri’s brand-new Republican Party. In plain English: draymen, stonecutters, and beer-slingers kept Missouri from bailing on the Union.
Want proof? Their sheer numbers forced change: by 1860, St. Louis’s German wards voted 90% against secession, providing critical support for Lincoln’s blockade of Southern ports. Check the dusty union-meeting minutes, coded donation lists hidden in brewery ledgers, and letters traded between radical clubs. Immigrants, locked out of elite circles, built their own ecosystem—German-language papers, bilingual schools, co-op stores—that doubled as launchpads for cross-racial labor alliances.
Of course, the movement had its ugly sides. Some German radicals were happy to fight slavery but still clung to racist ideas about Black neighbors. Others cared more about protecting white workers’ wages than full emancipation. Even so, the raw numbers told a different story: by 1860, St. Louis’s German wards voted almost 90 percent against secession, giving Lincoln the political muscle he needed to squeeze the South.
Big-name radicals kept the fire stoked. Anarchist Johann Most snarled, “Turn the world upside down!” while former Prussian officer August Willich insisted workers should run their own show. Marx wrote that the Civil War was “labor vs. capital, emancipation vs. slavery.” Douglass tied it all together: “A man’s rights are a man’s rights, period—Black, white, native, or immigrant.”
Bottom line? The showdown over slavery wasn’t decided only in Congress or at Gettysburg or, more significantly, by African-Americans in the Union Army.. It was also hammered out in rowdy taverns, cramped print shops, and overcrowded tenements—places where people who knew the sting of chains swore nobody else would wear them. Add it up, and immigrants made up about one in ten of Union soldiers. Alongside African-American troops and countless other everyday fighters, they helped shove American history onto a new track—one pamphlet, one beer-hall meeting, and one hard-won vote at a time.
German Radicals vs. the Slave Power: A Grassroots Rebellion
Henry Boernstein, a 70-year-old German exile in Missouri, writing his memoirs, The Austrian Radical, 1849-1866, in the 1870s, didn’t simply look back on the 1860s to dwell on generals or politicians. Instead, he documented the street-level organizing of St. Louis’s immigrant working class—the typesetting shops where antislavery pamphlets were printed, the beer halls where revolutionary songs were sung, and the tenements where cholera-stricken families nursed one another through epidemics.
“We discovered,” Boernstein wrote, “that the republic was a mass of contradictions, stitched together by men who knew nothing of our century’s hunger for justice.” He offered a rare glimpse into how Europe’s radical diaspora of the 1848 revolutions reshaped America’s heartland. Recent studies expanded this narrative, emphasizing the role of ordinary immigrants—brewers, dockworkers, and seamstresses—in building networks that kept Missouri from seceding and joining the Confederacy.
The 1848 Revolutions in Europe, often dismissed as “failures” in their native countries, scattered tens of thousands of German socialists, freethinkers, and labor organizers across the U.S. Midwest. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, analyzing revolutionary movements, recognized the importance of grassroots upheavals. Marx and others noted in their congratulatory letter to Lincoln on his 1864 re-election:
“While the workingmen, the true political powers of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic, while before the Negro, mastered and sold without his concurrence, they boasted it the highest prerogative of the white-skinned laborer to sell himself and choose his own master, they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.
“The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.”
Frederick Engels echoed this idea, remarking, “The oppressed class must take control of its own destiny,” a principle clearly reflected in the immigrant-driven anti-slavery activism in St. Louis. By 1860, St. Louis’s population was 60% immigrant, with Germans forming the largest bloc. These newcomers brought not just ideas, but practices: mutual aid societies, Turnverein athletic clubs (which doubled as militia training grounds), and a press that relentlessly attacked the Slave Power.
Frederick Douglass, in several of his speeches, noted the German immigrants and condemned the systemic violence and economic exploitation upheld by the “slaveholding oligarchy,” calling for unity among oppressed peoples. He declared, “The cause of justice is the cause of all oppressed peoples—Irish, Germans, Africans, and Americans,” underscoring the importance of international solidarity.
For those arriving in 1849 amid cholera outbreaks and nativist violence, St. Louis was a battleground: pro-slavery “Border Ruffians,” who clashed with abolitionist “Wide Awakes,” while the city’s sewer-starved slums overflowed with refugees from Europe’s counterrevolutions. The German emigre newspaper, Anzeiger des Westens, became a megaphone for this polyglot underclass. It featured a serialized novel, The Mysteries of St. Louis (1851)—the first fictional work set in the city—excoriated Jesuit capitalists and plantation oligarchs alike, selling thousands of copies to workers hungry for stories that mirrored their struggles.
Henry Boernstein, mentioned above, who was constantly fleeing police, decided he had had his fill of Europe and European politics and joined the many hundreds of thousands of German-speaking emigrants who came to the United States at mid-century. During the late 1840s, he was living in bohemian Paris, where he combined acting with political journalism and had a fleeting collaboration with Karl Marx. Once in the U.S. in 1849, Boernstein had settled in Illinois but quickly rejected romantic notions about farming life. Little more than a year later, however, a twist of fate made him the editor of the Anzeiger des Westens in nearby St. Louis
But the real drama unfolded off the printed page. German immigrants, their pro-abolition voices excluded from pro-slavery institutions, formed their own political machinery. They packed caucuses, hijacked Democratic Party meetings, and mobilized block-by-block to elect antislavery candidates. When the Whig and Democratic parties collapsed, their antislavery grassroots networks joined with others and became the backbone of Missouri’s new Republican Party. It was “the drayman, the cigar-maker, and the stonecutter” who tipped the state toward the Union—not Missouri’s native elites.
Evidence of this mobilization appears in many places: minutes from union meetings, letters between radical clubs, and even coded brewery ledgers tracking donations to John Brown’s allies. Such findings underscore how immigrants weaponized their marginalization. Barred from elite circles, they built parallel institutions—ethnic newspapers, bilingual schools, and cooperative stores—that became incubators for cross-racial labor solidarity.
There were also negative fractures. Many German radicals opposed slavery but clung to prejudices against Black Missourians, refusing to endorse full integration. Others prioritized white workers’ wages over abolition, a tension that plagued the early Republican coalition. Yet their sheer numbers forced change: by 1860, St. Louis’s German wards voted 90% against secession, providing critical support for Lincoln’s blockade of Southern ports.
Insights from Douglass, and German Radicals
German radicals carried this revolutionary ethos into their activism. Johann Most, a prominent anarchist, proclaimed: “Revolution is the only way forward; the old world must be turned upside down.” His fiery words captured the spirit of many immigrants committed to radical change. August Willich, a former Prussian officer and revolutionary, emphasized mass action: “The worker must become the master of his own destiny, and only through organized struggle can freedom be achieved.”
Frederick Douglass, a towering abolitionist figure, recognized that the fight against slavery was part of a broader struggle for human rights. He stated: “A man’s rights are the same as another’s, whether he is black or white, native or immigrant. Justice must be universal.” Douglass understood that the liberation of Black slaves and the emancipation of oppressed immigrant communities shared a common cause. He also praised the international solidarity of oppressed peoples, asserting: “The workmen and the oppressed of every nation must unite; their cause is one and the same—liberty and justice.”
German Radicals, Marx, and Their Notations
German radicals, inspired by the revolutions of 1848, often expressed their revolutionary zeal in fiery speeches and writings. Johann Most declared: “Revolution is the only way forward; the old world must be turned upside down.” Their writings and activism helped forge a radical consciousness that challenged both the institution of slavery and the social order that sustained it.
As for Marx, he stated, “The Civil War is the struggle of the modern proletariat against the bourgeoisie, a fight for emancipation that will determine the future of the world’s oppressed” (The Civil War in the United States, March 21, 1862). Marx saw Lincoln’s victory as a step toward the abolition of slavery, but he also warned that true emancipation depended on the revolutionary consciousness of the working classes and oppressed peoples. He further wrote: “The war is not merely a struggle between North and South, but a decisive battle between labor and capital, between emancipation and slavery.” (The New York Tribune, July 4, 1862). Marx believed that the outcome of the war would shape the global struggle of oppressed peoples and that the working class must recognize its role in this historic upheaval.
This “history from below” reminds us that the fight over slavery and justice wasn’t settled solely in Congress or at Gettysburg but also in immigrant tenements, grassroots meetings, and raucous town squares. As one publisher put it: “Our revolution came not with cannons, but with typesetters’ ink and the sweat of men who knew the price of chains.” Comprising some 10% of the Union Army, the immigrant radicals, influenced by European revolutionary ideals and driven by their own struggles, join the African-American soldiers and others who played a decisive role in shaping the course of American history.