In 1913 Gustaf Höglund cast his mind back over fifty years to a youth spent in the United States. He had long since returned to his native Jakobstad/Pietarsaari, but remembered much of his time in 1860s America. It was a land where fellow Finns were few and far between. “I had no fellow-countrymen at that time at the places where I was, belonging to a far-off country,” he explained.
Höglund’s memories of isolation are borne out by the historical record. When he first arrived in New York in 1861, the “Great Migration” from Finland across the Atlantic lay in the future. The 1860 US Federal Census, taken just months earlier, recorded just 165 Finnish-born people in the entire country.
As established by Finnish migration historians such as Reino Kero, immigration to America before the 1870s was highly sporadic. Prior movement was dominated by Finnish sailors, exploiting the opportunity their occupation provided to cross the world’s oceans. Gustaf Höglund was one such man. Now his story—and words—are among the dozens being revealed as part of a major new examination of sailors in the 1860s United States Navy. It takes as its focus an event that we now know doubled Finnish representation in the United States—the American Civil War.
Men who wore the US Navy’s “bluejacket"
Höglund is one of 152 Finnish-born wartime U.S. sailors identified thus far as part of the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council funded Civil War Bluejackets Project. Led by Professor David Gleeson of Northumbria University, it involves a multi-disciplinary team of historians and information scientists in the UK, Germany and the US. The project is using the extraordinary wealth of surviving wartime naval personnel records to reveal new insights into the c. 118,000 men who wore the US Navy’s “bluejacket.”
Many of these men were drawn from the poorest ranks of American society, including thousands of recently enslaved African Americans, and thousands of recent European immigrants. At the heart of the project is a major citizen science initiative to transcribe Civil War “muster rolls,” the lists of ship’s crews which record detailed information about individual sailors, including where they were born. The Finnish sailors represent one of the ongoing project case studies.
The data indicates that many of these Finnish sailors had not lived in the United States prior to the Civil War. Instead, most formed part of a concerted effort by the US navy to recruit from amongst the experienced European merchant crews that frequented American ports.
Details of the sailor’s pre-enlistment occupations demonstrates that 95 percent of Finnish recruits had a trade directly associated with maritime activity. Their place of enlistment further supports this, revealing that Finnish recruitment was concentrated in the major port cities of the Atlantic seaboard; more than half joined up in New York and Brooklyn alone. Additionally, where information is available on precise place of birth, it confirms Finland’s coastal towns as a major origin point, with cities like Helsinki, Oulu, Pori, Vaasa and Viipuri among those represented.
Such information confirms what is known about pre-1870s Finnish migration, but it is further enhanced by the more detailed analysis of individual men it facilitates. Much of this comes via American pension claims made by former sailors in the decades after the war. These records often provide remarkable degrees of detail, including direct statements from men such as Gustaf Höglund. By linking records in this way, the project is able to analyse the service and lives of wartime ethnic groups such as the Finns in greater detail than ever before.
Phenomenon of name-changing
A case in point comes with the phenomenon of name-changing that was such a feature of Nordic emigration. Relatively few Finnish sailors entered American service under their real names, but subsequent pension applications can offer a window into original identities. For wartime sailors, adopting the surname “Brown” was the most popular choice, followed by Johnson, Smith and Thompson.
Gustaf Höglund elected to go to war under the name “William Brown,” and remarkably we have an explanation as to why he chose it. The merchant sailor had made his way to the United States as a crewman aboard the SS Great Western, sailing from Liverpool, England. He related that when he first went aboard, the Captain told him his name was “hard to pronounce in English” and suggested “William Brown” as an alternative. Höglund related that he “accepted his proposal without hesitation and thereafter used that name.” Another who served as a “William Brown” was William Chelman, a Finn who had “been at sea since boyhood.” His name was almost certainly selected for him, given that he was “unfamiliar with the English language” when he joined the US Navy.
Tattoos revealed beliefs and sense of identity
The richness of detail available on some of these Finnish sailors even extends to descriptions of the tattoos that marked their bodies, offering insight into both their beliefs and sense of identity. Unsurprisingly, given their background, anchors were a popular choice. Andrew Nelson and Charles Wilson were among those who had the maritime mark tattooed on their hands. Ships were also popular; Charles Fisher and August Johnson had vessels depicted on their right arms.
Other themes included initials (for identification if lost at sea) and religious symbolism; William Brown had a crucifix on his chest, John Brown the crucifixion of Christ on his arm, and Frank Simberman bore a representation of Adam and Eve. Some even broadcast commitment to their new adopted home. Francis Brown from Pori had the US coat of arms, an image of Pocahontas, an eagle and the Goddess of Liberty permanently etched on his body.
The macro and micro data outlined here offers but a brief glimpse of the exciting potential this material has to enrich our understanding of these early Finnish migrants, and the role of European merchant seamen in the Union’s war effort. The Civil War Bluejackets project will continue to research them in the months and years head, endeavouring to add further detail to these men’s story, and setting it within the context of Finland’s nineteenth century emigrant experience.
If you are interested in learning more about the Civil War Bluejackets project visit www.civilwarbluejackets.com, where a more detailed early examination of these Finnish sailors is also available.
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Dr Damian Shiels is a Research Fellow based at Northumbria University, England where he works on the Civil War Bluejackets Project. A historian and archaeologist, he specialises in the study of conflict, diaspora, social history and public engagement, topics on which he has published and lectured widely. His books include The Irish in the American Civil War (2014) and The Forgotten Irish: Irish Emigrant Experiences in America (2016). He lives in Jakobstad, Finland.
