Unlikely American Hero
Radical Warrior: August Willich’s Journey From German Revolutionary to Union General
By David T. Dixon University of Tennessee Press, 2020, $45
In the exhaustive annals of Civil War personalities, there are few who remain more deserving of a volume dedicated to their life than August Willich. Arguably one of the war’s least-written-about Union officers, and perhaps the most interesting, Johann August Ernst von Willich is at last given his due by David T. Dixon in his new book, Radical Warrior.
Dixon guides his readers through the impact the American Revolution had on the world, particularly the Patriots’ slow but steadily maturing ability to throw off the constraints of Great Britain, the strongest military force on earth. French radicals, inspired by America’s success,
