Changes

The Chicago based Swedish language weekly paper, <i>Hemlandet</i>, and the Norwegian language weekly paper, <i>Emigranten</i>, out of Madison, Wisconsin were both vocal proponents of Lincoln, the Republican Party, and the Union war effort. Although written in their native languages, both papers stressed the importance of supporting their new country and that each person should do his or her part to defend their new homeland. The papers exercised immense influence throughout the Scandinavian communities with their ideas often being echoed in the words of the men who volunteered to fight. Once such Scandinavian volunteer named Hans Mattson articulated this idea very clearly in his memoirs:

Although most Scandinavians in the Union army probably held similar views to Mattson’s concerning their reasons for volunteering, the fact that he felt the need to point out that he did not join “for the sake of gain” suggests that a number of his kinsmen did join for more personal reasons. Not long after the war started, American embassies and consulates in Scandinavia acted as recruiters for the Union army. The embassies offered young Scandinavian men a free trip to America, a chance for excitement and glory, and a fast track to citizenship. Anecdotal evidence shows that the strategy was at least partially successful. The American consul in Stockholm reported on November 12, 1862 that he could get as many as 1,000 volunteers in a month and had already received over 2,000 applications by that date. <ref> Hokanson, p. 59</ref>