Title: United States and the Spanish Civil War
Headings: United States and the Spanish Civil War
United States and the Spanish Civil War
Primary Sources
(1) Bill Bailey wrote to his mother explaining why he was fighting in the Spanish Civil War (1937)
(2) Manchester Guardian (5th April 1937)
(3) Paul White deserted from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in March 1938. He drove to the French border. However, on hearing that his wife had given birth to a son, he began to feel remorse for what he had done. White wanted his son to be proud of his father and he returned to the front where he made a full confession of his actions. White was court-martialled and became the only American to be executed for desertion in the war.
(4) The Manchester Guardian (11th May 1938)
(5) Edwin Rolfe, New Masses (13th September, 1938)
(6) Bill Bailey was a member of the International Brigades parade in Barcelona on 15th November 1938.
(7) After the war Ernest Hemingway wrote about the role of the International Brigades.
(8) Milton Wolff, interviewed by Judy Montell in 1991.
(9) William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal (1963)

Content: Snow drifts over the mounds with small headboards. For our dead are a part of the earth of Spain now and the earth of Spain can never die. Each winter it will seem to die and each spring it will come alive again. Our dead will live with it forever. Over 40,000 volunteers from 52 countries flocked to Spain between 1936 and 1939 to take part in the historic struggle between democracy and fascism known as the Spanish Civil War. Five brigades of international volunteers fought on behalf of the democratically elected Republican (or Loyalist) government. Most of the North American volunteers served in the unit known as the 15th brigade, which included the Abraham Lincoln battalion, the George Washington battalion and the (largely Canadian) Mackenzie-Papineau battalion. All told, about 2,800 Americans, 1,250 Canadians and 800 Cubans served in the International Brigades. Over 80 of the U.S. volunteers were African-American. In fact, the Lincoln Battalion was headed by Oliver Law, an African-American from Chicago, until he died in battle.