I believe Louis Weichmann said he knew several languages including German, Latin, and French. So I will start by guessing those.

Very good, Roger, German and French are correct. Latin leads into a good "direction".
Being a language lover my initial idea was to issue a respective language lesson for each determined language, but I'he come to realize this might not attract the majority. So alternatively the prize for each is a "respective" dinner. Roger, you win a German and a French dinner (unless you prefer the lessons).

Now, six languages are left to guess.

Lets try adding Italian and Spanish

Let's try Gaelic (Scotch, Irish) based on McClellan's own background, Italian, Russian, Polish, Greek, and Spanish???

Gene, you win a Spanish and an Italian dinner!
Laurie, you win the same as Gene, plus a Russian menu.

Hint #1: Gaelic - nope. Think simpler!
Three dinners are still waiting for winners!

How about plain old English?

Let's try Portuguese, Swedish and Dutch

(01-26-2015, 02:37 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: Gene, you win a Spanish and an Italian dinner!
Laurie, you win the same as Gene, plus a Russian menu.

Hint #1: Gaelic - nope. Think simpler!
Three dinners are still waiting for winners!

Eva - I'll skip the Italian and Russian dinners. Having married into a family that was 100% Italian on one side and 100% Russian on the other, I have had enough tomato sauce and borscht (not at the same time, thank god!) to last me a lifetime.

Are you sure McClellan didn't speak Polish? I was looking forward to some pierogies!

Thank you for so many more wonderful guesses!

Very smart and logical, Scott - and absolutely correct McClellan tried English first. And I assure you the British cuisine isn't as bad as its reputation!

Gene, I'm sorry, he tried neither of these languages!

Laurie, since Polish looks and sounds more difficult than Russian and Italian together (almost zero vowels!) you may get the pierogies and Polish dinner instead of the other two!

Hint #2: One of the respective countries is partly, but not entirely on the European continent, the other isn't at all. One of the respective cuisines wouldn't serve pork, the other wouldn't serve beef.

Source: The Civil War Trust - "Maybe as much as a quarter of the Union Army was made up of foreigners—men who had not been born in America. Of these, the largest group was the Germans, followed by the Irish, Canadians, and English. Other nationalities represented in the army included Scandinavians, Swiss, French, Italians, Mexicans, and Poles. Often, regiments would be formed consisting entirely of men from one of these countries. The polyglot nature of the Northern forces could sometimes create confusion when officers barked orders in several languages."

Are any of the missing countries listed above? I had also wondered whether any Turks drifted our way after the Crimean War?

Hint #3: Think Columbus' intentions.
Hint #4: In one language, McClellan might have said: "Ne yazik ki cok az Türkce biliyorum" (- "I can only speak little....")

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Kudos, Laurie, Turkish is correct (and that was the missing word in hint #4)! In Germany there are most likely more Turkish restaurants than any other, btw.

(01-26-2015, 08:36 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: Hint #3: Think Columbus' intentions.
Hint #4: In one language, McClellan might have said: "Ne yazik ki cok az Türkce biliyorum" (- "I can only speak little....")

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Kudos, Laurie, Turkish is correct (and that was the missing word in hint #4)! In Germany there are most likely more Turkish restaurants than any other, btw.

Hint #3 - India?

Brilliant, Laurie, that is correct! McClellan “tried English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Indian, a little Russian and Turkish,” all without success" - here is the incident:

https://books.google.de/books?id=6jBnAgA...CAsQ6AEwAA

Now - "Guten Appetit" to all winners and thanks again for your wonderful guesses! Enjoy!

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PS: Even Chinese fought in the CW:
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=44949

PPS: I find Turkish the greatest "outsider" of these languages as it belongs to a different language family - the Turkic languages. All the other languages are Indo-European languages and quite related to each other.

In McClellan's days the sentence I posted in hint #4 would have been written in Ottoman script, which resembles Arabic and Persian script and is written right-to-left. In 1928, as one of Atatürk's Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman script was replaced with a Latin alphabet.

(01-26-2015, 08:41 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote: Brilliant, Laurie, that is correct! McClellan “tried English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Indian, a little Russian and Turkish,” all without success" - here is the incident:

https://books.google.de/books?id=6jBnAgA...CAsQ6AEwAA

Now - "Guten Appetit" to all winners and thanks again for your wonderful guesses! Enjoy!

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PS: Even Chinese fought in the CW:
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=44949

Thanks for sharing this - and part of Prof. Doyle's new book - with us. As for the Chinese, that was one of the languages I started to list on your original question. Glad I didn't since there is so little evidence of how many fought.