In May 1861 Patrick O’Dea went to war. Leaving his home in Cattaraugus County, New York, the twenty-year old Co. Clare native left behind his widowed mother, Mary, who he was helping to support on her small holding near the town of Salamanca. Patrick enlisted for two years in the ‘Irish Rifles’, the 37th New […]
In the late morning of 17th September 1862, the first elements of Major-General William B. Franklin’s Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac arrived on the Antietam battlefield after a forced march. The bloodiest day in United States history was already in full swing, and Franklin’s lead unit, Colonel William H. Irwin’s 3rd Brigade of the […]
Much attention is rightly given to those boy soldiers who lied about their age to participate in conflicts such as the American Civil War. However, they were not the only individuals who provided false information to take up arms between 1861 and 1865. For some, it was the fact that they exceeded the age limit […]
It is just after 4p.m. on 1st September 1864, and the men of the XIV Corps of the Army of the Cumberland are ordered to the attack. Their objective is the right flank of Confederate Lieutenant-General William Hardee’s Corps, which is deployed just to the north of the town of Jonesboro, Georgia. If they succeed […]
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