Irish in the American Civil War

A little over a year ago friend Jim Swan, author of the excellent Chicago’s Irish Legion sent me on an image of a cigarette case he had come across. It  commemorated a 50th anniversary dinner held in 1912 for the survivors of the Irish Brigade who served at Fredericksburg. I decided to research the object, which […]

Although some 170,000 Irishmen served during the American Civil War, it is extremely difficult to gain a picture of what service was like for them across a broad spectrum. This is a symptom of the fact that for the majority of Irish troops their wartime experience occured outside ethnic Irish units. I have been considering […]