To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1911, the ten-volume Photographic History of the Civil War was published. One of the photographs showed a group of ...
Spotlight
South Tipperary Military History Society Lecture
I had the good fortune to deliver a talk on the 17th ...
‘Rum Racker’s Club’: A Ballad of the 164th New York in the Field
Throughout the course of the war the New York Irish-American received regular correspondence ...
‘His Soul Escaped to the Bosom of His Maker’: A Limerick Man at the Battle of Shiloh
150 years ago today, Captain Michael Magevney Jr. and his company were ...
Irish in the American Civil War Podcast
I had the pleasure recently of participating in a discussion on Irish involvement in the American Civil War as part of the 1848 Tricolour Celebrations in Waterford. It took place in the Granville Hotel, on the site of Thomas Francis Meagher’s birthplace, and was organised as part of History Ireland magazine’s ‘Hedge School’ series. The [...]
James Wall Scully’s Unpublished Letters: Advance on Corinth, April-May 1862
In the latest instalment of letters from Kilkenny native James Wall Scully, the Irishman tells his wife of manoeuvres by Union forces towards Corinth, Mississippi. He laments his continued failure to hear news of a commission, and grows concerned as he has not received news from home. Meanwhile there is news of promotion for his friend and [...]
Where Were ‘Irish’ Soldiers From?: A Case Study of the 90th Illinois Infantry
Two previous posts on this site (here and here) examined the nativity of soldiers in the 23rd Illinois Infantry, ‘Mulligan’s Irish Brigade.’ This research was carried out to determine how ‘Irish’ the regiment really was, and where within the United States and Ireland the men hailed from. Jim Swan, friend of the site and author of Chicago’s [...]
American Civil War Veterans in Ireland: Part 1
Reminders of the American Civil War abound in the United States. Even regions far from the battlefield can point to local memorials and veterans graves as a reminder of those tumultuous times. In contrast, there is little on the island of Ireland to remind its citizens of the nearly 200,000 Irish involved in the war. [...]
Baptism of Fire: The Corcoran Legion at Deserted House, Virginia, 30th January 1863
Formed in late 1862, the early war experience of Brigadier-General Michael Corcoran’s ‘Irish Legion’ is often forgotten. Their first major battles would not come until 1864, when they suffered severe casualties during Grant’s Overland Campaign. However, their initial taste of Rebel fire had come over a year earlier, on 30th January 1863. This engagement, which [...]
St. Patrick’s Day in the Irish Brigade: Petersburg, 17th March 1865
The Irish Brigade celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day in 1863 are the most famous from the period of the American Civil War, recorded as they were by a number of writers and in a series of wonderful illustrations by Edwin Forbes. But what of festivities in honour of the Irish patron saint in other years? We [...]
Captain Lawrence Collins, 58th Illinois Infantry, and the Fall of Fort Donelson
In 1860 the Collins family lived in LaSalle, Illinois. The head of the house, Jeremiah, was a blacksmith, and he and his wife Ellen had done well for themselves. This was despite the fact that they had moved to their new home relatively late in life- the couple and their four adult sons had all been [...]
A ‘New’ Irish Recipient of the Medal of Honor Discovered?
As recent posts indicate, I am currently in the process of conducting extensive research into Irish-born Medal of Honor recipients from the American Civil War. Research work in the United States has added a number of names to the ‘Irish-born’ list, and I would like to put forward a further name that I feel may [...]
‘Any One Finding This Note…’: A 69th New York Soldier Prepares for His Death
The Irish Brigade’s first taste of active campaigning arrived in the summer of 1862, when Union forces advanced along the Peninsula towards Richmond. They had yet to experience serious action when they settled into ‘Camp Winfield Scott’, near Yorktown in April. Despite the absence of the enemy, death arrived in unexpected circumstances for one member [...]
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