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| Prisoners at Camp Douglas (Chicago, IL) (Harper's Weekly sketch) |
“I have lived here long enough to love this land. I will not let it be taken without a fight.”
Charles Wrede was born in Germany and immigrated to Louisiana before the war. When conflict erupted, he enlisted in the Confederate Army—joining the 20th Louisiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment, a regiment known for its large German-speaking contingent. But Wrede wasn't starry-eyed idealist.
“I have no illusions about glory. I want only to return to my wife with honor - and with both legs."
His letters home, written in careful script and translated decades later, reveal a man torn between old loyalties and new roots. He fought at Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge, and was eventually captured and imprisoned at Camp Douglas in Chicago.
"They call us rebels, but I am no rebel to my conscience. I defend my home.”
His voice reminds us that immigrant identity in the South was layered—shaped by place, pride, and the pull of belonging.
There are millions of stories from the Irrepressible Conflict. This was just one of them.
Mac
Works Cited
[1] Kamphoefner, Walter D., and Wolfgang Helbich, editors. (2006) Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home. Translated by Susan Carter Vogel. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
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