Acknowledgments
By the banks of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers, the ironclad USS Cairo sits protected by a constructed roof that naturally leads the eyes upward toward the Vicksburg National Military Park Visitor Center. Together with two friends, Rasmus Nielsen and Erik Hardick, I visited Vicksburg in December 2002, and there I found the database of Civil War soldier names that sparked this project. During my visit, I noticed many Scandinavian names that have been with me since, and in the process I met countless people who helped bring their stories to life.
After a decade of intermittent research, both helped and hindered by graduate school, the spring of 2013 proved a key turning point, as Eric Foner generously facilitated a visiting scholar experience at Columbia University that, with the help of Kevin Coyne, enabled me to finish a long-form story on the Scandinavian Civil War experience. Later that same year, April Holm organized a wonderful Civil War Conference at the University of Mississippi together with the ebullient John Neff. The conference introduced me to a number of great scholars, among them David J. Gerleman and J. David Hacker, who graciously shared some of their research with me, and Jim Downs, who co-organized the SHA conference in 2016 and kindly trusted me to chair a panel. The SHA conference, in turn, allowed me to meet Susannah Ural and her former editor Deborah “Debbie” Gershenowitz. For years, Debbie supported the book and eventually recommended it to her successor at Cambridge University Press, Cecelia Cancellaro. Aided by their excellent editorial assistants Rachel Blaifelder and Victoria Phillips, Debbie and Cecelia expertly guided the project through the publication stages. To all I am grateful.
Also among the people that deserve the most gratitude are Stephen Kantrowitz and Pernille Ipsen, who shared their insight on both sides of the Atlantic on several occasions. Steve and Pernille at one point opened their Wisconsin home, with a book-filled basement, for an entire summer, which allowed for one of the most productive immersion experiences of this project. Moreover, since Pernille is a Danish-born immigrant in the United States, and Steve a former Fulbright Professor at my home university, we have regularly met in Denmark. Thus, in Copenhagen, over a breakfast bowl of gröd (porridge) several years back, Steve in his sharp-witted way laid out some important connections between Scandinavian-born immigrants’ Old World ideology and New World experiences that have helped guide this project since.
A few years earlier, Julie Allen worked tirelessly to provide a visiting scholar opportunity in Madison during the Wisconsin winter, which proved to be another memorable experience of exploration, inspiration, and snow shoveling (thank you to Terri Regner, who let me stay at her house in exchange for clearing the driveway).
Inspiration and guidance also characterized my experience in Professor Martha Hodes’ graduate seminar in 2016 when I spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at New York University. On top of everything, Professor Hodes found time to offer crucial encouragement and continued inspiration. Also during my Fulbright year, Robert Boynton and Ted Conover, along with their talented students, provided a host of opportunities for stimulating storytelling, social experiences, and friendship. In addition, Karen V. Hansen kindly invited me to a warm and inspiring family dinner in New York City when I first arrived. Andrew Hartman, another former Fulbright scholar in Denmark, also opened up his home. Visits to the Hartman household in Illinois were convenient excuses for great conversation and an occasional high-quality beer. Andrew also introduced me to Andrew Zimmerman, who generously took time to talk transnational Civil War issues over lunch by the National Archives. In similar impressive form, Steven Hahn shared his thoughts on the Civil War and American empire over a cup of coffee at the Huntington Library.
Lastly, on the American academic side, thank you to Michael Douma, a kind of long-lost scholarly twin, who – as siblings do when they first learn of each other’s existence – got in touch out of nowhere in late 2013, after realizing we were both working on colonization and the West Indies. Together with Rob Faith, some of the most interesting discoveries related to citizenship and American empire in this book can be traced back to this collaboration.
In addition, several Americans – some Scandinavian descendants, others passionate librarians, and still others generous people offering a couch or a meal – have helped make this book much richer (and better illustrated). In no particular order they are: Steve Sayre, Roger and Leah Johnson, Anne Winslow, Laura Sadovnikoff, Helene Leaf, Georgia Kestol, and Ordelle Hill, who generously shared private family collections of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish Civil War–era immigrants. Moreover, Scott Cantwell Meeker, Lynette Brenzel, Louis Garcia, the passionate Diane Maurer–led volunteers at the Norwegian American Genealogical Center in Madison, and Vesterheim Museum’s Jennifer Kovarik also deserve thanks. John Mark Nielsen activated his enormous Danish-American network when I first started the research process, and Jill Seaholm, Susanne Titus, and Lisa Huntsha (as well as Amanda Hadzidedic) at Augustana College did the same on the Swedish-American side. Among archivists, Germain Bienvenu at Louisiana State University Libraries as well as Lee Grady, Simone Munson, Lisa Marine, Jenny Barth, and all the good people at the Wisconsin Historical Society – including Dee Grimsrud, now retired – are unparalleled, enthusiastic, and helpful. In Northfield, Minnesota, Norwegian-American archivists Kristell Benson, Christina Warner, Jeff Suave, and Amy Boxrud made sure I had an excellent and productive visit – one that even concluded with me seeing my first-ever bald eagle.
Among the many other hospitable Americans who have opened their homes to me during many research trips are Paul Supple in Texas, Lowell and Marilyn Kramme in Iowa, and John and Shawn Berry, my Maryland host-parents in 1994–5 as well as my hosts during several subsequent visits to the National Archives. At Ohio University, Phyllis Field pointed me to the rich Fritz Rasmussen material in Wisconsin and, together with Marvin Fletcher, sharpened my (under)graduate thinking in 2002–3.
At the University of Southern Denmark, before and now, I give thanks to superb teachers and scholars such as David Nye, Clara Juncker, Thomas Ærvold Bjerre, Tom Buk-Swienty, and Peter Bro, as well as other wonderful colleagues, students, and librarians. As an example, Rasmus Glenthøj alerted me to Hobsbawm’s writing on the threshold principle, and Morten Ottosen along with Michael Bregnsbo helped me understand the 1848 revolutions in Scandinavia more deeply while Kasper Grotle Rasmussen explained key French phrases and Niels Bjerre-Poulsen bought me valuable writing time by editing a special issue of American Studies in Scandinavia. Thanks especially though to Jørn Brøndal, who has mentored the project from the very beginning read countless drafts, and expertly organized a Scandinavian encounters network that included Dag Blanck and Gunlög Fur, whose scholarship continues to inspire. I also benefited from the assistance of Torben Grøngaard Jeppesen at Odense City Museums who generously shared his work and included me in several enlightening discussions, as well as a behind-the-scenes visit to Ellis Island, during the year I worked within his organization.
The book was aided as well by Morten Michaelsen, who found elegant phrases for tricky translations, and experienced researchers, museum workers, and illustrators such as Leif Ernst, Knud Aundorf, Jan Ingar Hansen, Michael Bach, Lisbeth Pedersen, Bendt Nielsen, and Mads Findal Andreasen. Also thank you to the host of genealogists in DIS-Odense (not least H. C. and Steen who taught me gothic handwriting) and Birgit Christensen, who helped read what I could not at key stages of this project.
Importantly, this project would not have been possible without the financial support of the Danish American Heritage Society, the Swenson Center, the University of Wisconsin – Friends of the Library, the Iowa State Historical Society, the Fulbright Program and Marie Mønsted, the Danish Council for Independent Research – Humanities, the University of Southern Denmark, The Carlsberg Foundation, Den Fynske Bladfond, Zetland, and not least Informations Forlag (including editors Jacob Maagaard and Jakob Moll).
Finally, thank you to my family, both immediate and extended. To Erin and Henry, who read and reread chapters; to Kristine, who organized writing retreats; to my parents, who bought me my first Civil War books; and to Zia, a literal light in the world.
A few sections of this book, here rewritten and recontextualized, appeared previously in:
Rasmussen, Anders Bo. “‘On Liberty and Equality’: Race and Reconstruction among Scandinavian Immigrants, 1864–1868.” In Nordic Whiteness and Migration to the USA: A Hierarchy of Colour, edited by Jana Sverdluck and Terje Joranger. New York: Routledge, 2020.
Douma, Michael J., Anders Bo Rasmussen, and Robert O. Faith. “The Impressment of Foreign-Born Soldiers in the Union Army.” Journal of American Ethnic History 38, no. 3 (2019): 76–106.
Rasmussen, Anders Bo. “The Spoils of the Victors: Captain Ferdinand Winslow and the 1863 Curtis Court of Inquiry.” Annals of Iowa 76, no. 2 (2017): 161–179.
Rasmussen, Anders Bo. “‘The States’ Readmission Puts an End to All Civil and Political Questions’: Scandinavian Immigrants and Debates over Racial Equality during the Impeachment of President Andrew Johnson.” Swedish-American Historical Quarterly 68, no. 4 (2017): 202–217.
Rasmussen, Anders Bo. “‘Drawn Together in a Blood Brotherhood’: Civic Nationalism amongst Scandinavian Immigrants in the American Civil War Crucible.” American Studies in Scandinavia 48, no. 2 (2016): 7–31.
Douma, Michael J., and Anders Bo Rasmussen. “The Danish St Croix Project: Revisiting the Lincoln Colonization Program with Foreign-Language Sources.” American Nineteenth Century History 15, no. 3 (2014): 311–342.
Rasmussen, Anders Bo. I krig for Lincoln [To War for Lincoln]. Copenhagen: Informations Forlag, 2014.
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