There were a bunch of Communists and Socialists in the Union Army.
Seriously we need to take the whole Cowboy and Union Army thing be viewed as Socalist and Communist
Copy/pasting from a neo-Confederate site
Brigadier General Louis BLENKER, Lincoln’s army—radical socialist/Communist from Germany
Major General August WILLICH—often called “The Reddest of the Red ‘48ers” was a member of the London Communist League with Karl MARX and Fredrick ENGLES.
Brigadier General Carl SCHURZ –as a young socialist, was noted for helping Gottfried Kinkel of Bonn escape from
Spandau while imprisoned there for his socialist activities in the ’48 Revolts. Schurz came to America in 1848. He was a forty-eighter who became very active in the development of the Republican Party and in politics. He was given a high position by Lincoln in the Republican army. A great admirer of Karl Marx,
Brigadier General Alexander Von Schimmelfenning, like most of the other MARXISTS /Socialist/Communists who came to the U.S. after their failed uprising in 1848, fled Germany, and escaped retribution for his part in the attempted overthrow. Schimmelfenning’s history as a Socialist Revolutionary was no secret in Pittsburg when the Committee, headed by Republican J. Siebnick, recommended Schimmelfenning for Colonel of the new regiment of Pittsburgh German volunteers for Lincoln’s army.
Major General Franz SIEGEL, thought to be one of Lincoln’s most controversial and the poorest of his generals, was deeply involved in the German 1848 revolts as a commander of socialist troops in the failed 1849 German Revolution. A graduate of the German Military Academy, he served in the German army and the Socialist efforts to overthrow the German government.
Commander Friedrich Karl Franz HECKER, (exact military title not known) known as “Red” and “Flagrant Friedrich.” (work cited, p. 113) Educated in Germany, received his doctor of law degree in Munich. He was expelled from Prussia. Arriving in the U.S., he took part in the creation of the Republican Party, encouraged the proliferation of German newspapers carrying the Socialist propaganda
Captain Gustav von STRUVE was born in Germany to a woman of nobility and her Russian diplomat mate. Struve was one of the leaders, along with HECKER in the uprising in Germany in 1848
General John C. FREMONT was noted for his close association with all of the socialist/communists whom Lincoln placed in positions of command in his army. Fremont was the first Republican candidate for president. He was considered to be the “darling” of the most radical socialists.
Brevet Major General Frederick Charles SALOMON, one of a group of four radical socialist brothers, with highly similar names– three of whom were in the group of Socialist 1848ers. Frederick began his career in Lincoln’s army as a Captain in MO, wound up as a Colonel in the Ninth Wisconsin Volunteer Regiment, then a brigadier general and a brevet major general.
16. Brevetted Brigadier General Charles E. Salomon, also started his American military career with a bunch of MO volunteers. Born in Prussia, he, also, was one of the radical socialists arriving in the U.S. after the 1848 Socialist uprising failure and was a brother to Frederick Charles.
17. Governor Edward Salomon, a third Salomon brother, also born in Prussia, did not do military service, but ran for political office in Wisconsin, was elected lieutenant governor, becoming Governor of Wisconsin when the elected Governor drowned.
18. Sergeant Herman Salomon, the fourth Salomon brother, was markedly younger than the other three Salomon, but it is thought that he, besides sharing their surname, shared their family- devotion to Communism - not confirmed.
19. Colonel Fritz ANNEKE/ANNECKE was a Forty-eighter, with a strong leftward tilt. He was a Communist League member and a Baden Revolt veteran. He and wife, Mathilde Franziska Anneke, were a team of European communists. Fritz was a highly skilled artillery officer in the Prussian army where his equal skill as a socialist ideologue caused him to lose his commission and to be confined in jail
