This is from Wikipedia, so we need to test the numbers below, but has anyone seen a breakdown like this of the composition of the "ethnic origin and nativity" of the opposing Civil War armies? Are these numbers accurate? If these numbers are accurate there is not much difference in the number of native-born, white Americans that fought in the Civil War. The dramatic difference in numbers appears to be a result of foreign-born and African-Americans.

I knew the Union army had a large foreign-born contingent, but I didn't realize how large?

Jim

Breakdown of the approximately 2.2 million Union soldiers [ethnic origin and nativity have be conflated inconsistently here by an editor]:

1,000,000 (45.4% of all Union soldiers) native-born white Americans.
516,000 (23.4%) Germans; about 216,000 were born in Germany.
210,000 (9.5%) African American. Half were freedmen who lived in the North, and half were ex-slaves from the South. They served under white officers in more than 160 "colored" regiments and in Federal regiments organized as the United States Colored Troops (USCT).[6]
200,000 (9.1%) Irish. [as many as 600,000 to 800,000 if the ethnic Irish are included with the foreign-born soldiers, e.g., ethnic Irish like Gen. Philip Sheridan, Gen. George Meade, Gen. John F. Reynolds, Dennis Hart Mahan and Alfred Thayer Mahan]
90,000 (4.1%) Dutch.
50,000 (2.3%) Canadian.
50,000 (2.3%) born in England.
40,000 (1.8%) French or French Canadian. About half were born in the United States of America, the other half in Quebec.
20,000 (0.9%) Scandinavian (Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Danish).
7,000 Italian
7,000 Jewish
6,000 Mexican
5,000 Polish (many of whom served in the Polish Legion of Brig. Gen. Włodzimierz Krzyżanowski)
4,000 Native Americans
Several hundred of other various nationalities.

Many immigrant soldiers formed their own regiments, such as the Irish Brigade (69th New York, 63rd New York, 88th New York, 28th Massachusetts, 116th Pennsylvania); the Swiss Rifles (15th Missouri); the Gardes Lafayette (55th New York); the Garibaldi Guard (39th New York); the Martinez Militia (1st New Mexico); the Polish Legion (58th New York); the German Rangers (52nd New York); the Highlander Regiment (79th New York); and the Scandinavian Regiment (15th Wisconsin). But for the most part, the foreign-born soldiers were scattered as individuals throughout units.

For comparison, the Confederate Army was not very diverse: 91% of Confederate soldiers were native born and only 9% were foreign-born, Irish being the largest group with others including Germans, French, Mexicans (though most of them simply happened to have been born when the Southwest was still part of Mexico), and British. Some Southern propaganda compared foreign-born soldiers in the Union Army to the hated Hessians of the American Revolution. Also, a relatively small number of Native Americans (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek) fought for the Confederacy.