page_title: Italian Americans in the Civil War
section_title: Giuseppe Garibaldi
hierarchical_section_title: Italian Americans in the Civil War / Giuseppe Garibaldi
caption_attribution_description: English: "arribaldi [i.e., Garibaldi] taken in Naples, Italy" "Giuseppe Girabaldi, half-length portrait, standing, facing front." "1 photographic print on carte de visite mount&#160;: albumen."
context_page_description: Italian Americans in the Civil War are the Italian people and people of Italian descent, living in the United States, who served and fought in the American Civil War on both the Union and Confederate sides, though the "Italian" Confederate soldiers were descendants from Bourbons who fought against Giuseppe Garibaldi. Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the civil war.
context_section_description: At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Giuseppe Garibaldi was a very popular figure. The 39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment was also named Garibaldi Guard. In 1861 Garibaldi himself volunteered his services to President Abraham Lincoln. Garibaldi was offered a Major General's commission in the U.S. Army through the letter from Secretary of State William H. Seward to H. S. Sanford, the U.S. Minister at Brussels, July 17, 1861. On September 18, 1861, Sanford sent the following reply to Seward:
  "He [Garibaldi] said that the only way in which he could render service, as he ardently desired to do, to the cause of the United States, was as Commander-in-chief of its forces, that he would only go as such, and with the additional contingent power—to be governed by events—of declaring the abolition of slavery; that he would be of little use without the first, and without the second it would appear like a civil war in which the world at large could have little interest or sympathy."
  According to Italian historian Petacco, "Garibaldi was ready to accept Lincoln's 1862 offer but on one condition: that the war's objective be declared as the abolition of slavery. But at that stage Lincoln was unwilling to make such a statement lest he worsen an agricultural crisis." Although the aging Garibaldi respectfully declined Lincoln's offer, Washington D.C. recruited many of Garibaldi's former officers. On August 6, 1863, after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, Garibaldi wrote to Lincoln: "Posterity will call you the great emancipator, a more enviable title than any crown could be, and greater than any merely mundane treasure."
caption: Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1861
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