It would be strange if today the Gold’s Gym franchise began training paramilitary units across the United States — and even stranger if they were fighting for the Left instead of the Right. But at the beginning of the Civil War, the German Turner gyms did precisely that.

The Turners were one of the most influential athletic organizations of the nineteenth century, “turn” being German for “gym” or “gymnastics.” The German immigrants who made up the Turners’ ranks were heavily influenced by the mid-nineteenth-century radicalism of the country that they fled. In the 1850s the Turners transformed their Turnverein, or gym halls, into armed community centers.

The Turners first dedicated their efforts to advancing the message of socialism in the United States while defending themselves against nativist thugs. They went on to advocate abolishing slavery, defend the Union, and even act as Abraham Lincoln’s personal security detail. Along the way, they drank a lot of beer and lifted a lot of barbells.