Editing Italian Americans (section)

===Civil War===
{{Main|Italian Americans in the Civil War}}
[[File:March past of the 'Garibaldi Guard' before President Lincoln, 1861-1865 (c1880).jpg|thumb|Review of the [[Garibaldi Guard]] by President Lincoln]]

Between 5,000 and 10,000 Italian Americans fought in the [[American Civil War]].<ref>[http://www.niaf.org/research/contribution.asp NATIONAL ITALIAN AMERICAN FOUNDATION] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130520214950/https://www.niaf.org/research/contribution.asp |date=May 20, 2013 }} - Italian American Contributions.</ref> The great majority of Italian Americans, for both demographic and ideological reasons, were in the [[Union Army]], including [[Francis B. Spinola]], the first Italian American to be elected to the [[United States House of Representatives]], who served as a general. Some Americans of Italian descent from the disbanded [[Army of the Two Sicilies]], which was defeated by [[Giuseppe Garibaldi]] after the [[Expedition of the Thousand]], fought in the [[Confederate States Army|Confederate Army.]] They included Confederate generals [[William B. Taliaferro]] and [[P. G. T. Beauregard]].<ref name="PGT">{{cite book|first=T. Harry|last=Williams|title=P.G.T. Beauregard: Napoleon in Gray|year=1955|publisher=Louisiana State University Press|isbn=0-8071-0831-6|lccn=55-7362}}</ref> Six Italian Americans received the [[Medal of Honor]] during the war, including Colonel [[Luigi Palma di Cesnola]], who later became the first director of the [[Metropolitan Museum of Arts]] in New York (1879–1904).

The [[Garibaldi Guard]] recruited volunteers for the Union Army from Italy and other European countries to form the [[39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment|39th New York Infantry]].<ref>''Images: A Pictorial History of Italian Americans''. New York, 1986, p.26</ref> The [[39th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment]], with 350 Italian members, was nicknamed Garibaldi Guard in honor of [[Giuseppe Garibaldi]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Belfiglio |first1=Valentino J. |title=Italians and the American Civil War |journal=Italian Americana |date=Spring–Summer 1978 |volume=4 |issue=2 |page=164 |jstor=41330626 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41330626 |access-date=December 21, 2022}}</ref> In 1861, Garibaldi himself volunteered his services to President [[Abraham Lincoln]]. Garibaldi was offered a major general's commission in the U.S. Army through the letter from Secretary of State [[William H. Seward]] to [[Henry Sanford|H. S. Sanford]], the U.S. minister at [[Brussels]].<ref>Mack Smith, Denis, Garibaldi, Prentice-Hall, 1969, pp. 69–70</ref>