Posts filed under: Battles & Units

Battles & Units

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...
Read More →
Shortly before midday on 21st July 1861 Captain James Haggerty of the 69th New York State Militia splashed across Bull Run creek, Virginia with the just over 1000 Irishmen of his unit. He and his comrades were moving to add...
Read More →
Color Sergeant Peter Welsh of the 28th Massachusetts Regiment has become one of the best known members of the Irish Brigade. The publication of his Civil War letters in 1986, under the title Irish Green and Union Blue, revealed the picture of...
Read More →
Shortly before 9pm on 2nd July 1887 a group of Confederate veterans disembarked from their train cars at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. There to greet them were some of their former foe, nearly 500 men of the old Union Philadelphia Brigade. Illuminated...
Read More →
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...
Read More →
James Wall Scully was born in Kilkenny in 1837. He emigrated to the United States and in 1856 enlisted in the U.S. Army, beginning an association that would continue until 1900 when he retired with the rank of Brigadier-General. Anthony...
Read More →
Over 25 Irish born officers commanded New York regiments during the American Civil War. The most well known led units in the Irish Brigade and Corcoran’s Irish Legion, but the majority of Irishmen did not serve in specific ethnic formations....
Read More →
It is the 27th June 1862. Colonel Thomas Cass and the 9th Massachusetts Infantry have just retraced their steps under orders, marching back towards their old camping grounds near a mill and millpond that empties into Powhite Creek, Virginia. The...
Read More →
It was just after 3 o’clock in the afternoon on 30th June, 1862 near Glendale, Virginia. Brigadier-General Joseph Hooker looked anxiously to his division’s right flank, where the Pennsylvania Reserve division under Brigadier-General George McCall had been ferociously attacked by...
Read More →
On 10th December 1864, Michael Dougherty made the following entry in his diary: I feel no better. My diary is full; it is too bad, but cannot get any more. Good bye all; I did not think it would hold...
Read More →