Book Review: Hispanic Americans in the Civil War
Hispanic Americans in the Civil War. A.J. Schenkman. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2025. Softcover, 139 pp. $24.99.
Reviewed by Greg M. Romaneck
Near the end of the battle of Gettysburg, Adolfo Cavada wrote in a letter to his family about his combat experiences and how that momentous engagement affected him, “The night was intensely dark; the air laden with mist and pervaded by that strange musty smell peculiar to battlefields immediately after a battle…I need not say what gloomy thoughts filled my mind as I lay on the ground. My brother’s fate I knew not yet, and I had every reason to believe that he had fallen in that fearful charge and perhaps lay dead or wounded within the rebel lines or a prisoner in their hands.” (76) Adolfo’s brother, Federico Cavada, was indeed a rebel prisoner who would eventually serve a very difficult period of captivity in Libby Prison, which he memorialized in a wartime memoir.
Both Cavada brothers survived their Civil War service only to perish approximately five years later while serving as commanders within the Cuban rebel force that fought against their Spanish oppressors. The story of these two Cuban natives who fought for their chosen side during the American Civil War is but one chapter in this introductory work that tackles the broad issue of how and why Hispanic Americans served in the U.S. Civil War.
In addressing this broad-based subject, A.J. Schenkman adopts a sort of abridged biographical approach to offer some anecdotal information about the service of an entire ethnic group, their culture, and major motivations for joining one of the opposing forces. The author chooses to address the service of Hispanics in the Civil War via eight chapters, four of which are representative of each of the opposing sides. In this way, Schenkman offers his readers seven men and one woman who could trace their roots to places such as Spain, Cuba, or areas of the United States that had a significant Hispanic population. Each chapter is approximately ten pages in length with multiple photos and illustrations included to augment the text. Some of these chosen Hispanic soldiers or sailors have reputations that are familiar to readers, while others are fairly obscure. One, Admiral David G. Farragut, was a memorable and storied commander of Hispanic heritage, whose service was particularly noteworthy. Yet, Farragut’s contributions to the war, as impactful as they were, bear little similarity to those of the other individuals selected by Schenkman. The result is a series of interesting biographical sketches which, while individually engaging, have little connectivity with either one another, or the broader subject at hand.
In Hispanic Americans in the Civil War, the author demonstrates several very strong qualities and one organizational shortfall. Schenkman is a fine writer, and his narrative is well paced and filled with information drawn from primary and secondary sources. The author also has done justice to the soldiers and sailors he chronicles in this condensed biographical format.
Yet, what is missing is any overarching investigation of why Hispanics fought for either side, how the men who served were generally treated by non-Hispanic officers, or any cultural factors that influenced the service of the men who went off to fight in a war that could easily be seen as having little impact upon their families. Additionally, the encyclopedic approach used by the author, certainly limits the scope of the book to an introductory work rather than one that has a central hypothesis or can claim an innovative conclusion. In short, Hispanic Americans in the Civil War is a compilation of short biographies of individuals with Hispanic roots, with the primary narrative generally not addressing any underlying or leading cultural indicators that influenced their service.
For readers with little knowledge of Schenkman’s primary subject matter, this book can serve as an interesting jumping off point for further study about the roles Hispanics fulfilled during the Civil War. As an introductory work, Schenkman’s book is an interesting first step in learning about a fascinating, and fairly overlooked, aspect of the conflict. However, readers with deeper knowledge of this topic may find its content very much a generic publication despite the title, which seems to promise a more comprehensive approach than it actually delivers.
The result is a well written and concise look at a handful of service people, all of whom share a somewhat similar ethnic background. What is missing is any direct analysis of some of the mainspring factors that caused roughly 30,000 Hispanic men to take up arms in the Civil War. Add in the fact that less than a generation prior to the Civil War the U.S. Army fought a war south of the border that stripped away a vast swathe of territory previously owned by Mexico. Investigating these sorts of macro issues in at least some passing manner might well have deepened the impact of Schenkman’s book and offered his readers a more complete reading experience.
Greg M. Romaneck is retired after working for 34 years as a professional educator and consultant. During those years he held positions such as special education teacher, assistant principal, elementary principal, adjunct professor, director of special education, student teaching supervisor, and associate superintendent. Mr. Romaneck has also trained as a counselor and worked in areas such as crisis intervention, mediation, problem solving, and conflict resolution. Greg has had several books and numerous articles published on a variety of subjects such as Education, Psychology, Self-Improvement, Backpacking, Eastern Philosophy, Civil War history, Poetry, and Bible studies. Greg has also had nearly 3,500 book reviews published by Childrenslit.com, a popular source of information for educators, librarians, and parents regarding books for younger readers and has reviewed Civil War books for four decades for a variety of publications and magazines. Most recently Greg was the featured book reviewer for more than a decade with the Civil War Courier. Greg resides in DeKalb, Illinois and enjoys spending time with his family & friends, hiking, kayaking, backpacking, reading, and writing.
