Irish in the American Civil War

A previous post examined the large sums of money that were collected from Union military personnel in 1862 and 1863 for the relief of the poor in Ireland. Despite the horrors of the ongoing war, the potential crisis in Ireland saw Irish Relief Funds emerge across the war-stricken North. Thousands of men in uniform took […]

Michael William Burns was born in Ireland in 1834. He emigrated to the United States at the age of 14, and prior to the outbreak of the Civil War worked as a city inspector and a fireman. It was his connections with the fire service that led him to raise a Company to serve in […]