Among the most intriguing stories of widows and dependents in the Atlantic World are those of the African Americans who moved into Canada having escaped the shackles of slavery. In 1883, one of them was Priscilla Atwood. She made her...
During the height of the 1880 Presidential Election Campaign, a reporter from the Democratic Cincinnati Daily Enquirer visited the Central Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Veterans in Dayton, Ohio, to find out “What the veterans think about...
My interest in the remarkable information contained within the widows and dependent pension files extends well beyond just those claims associated with Irish-Americans. The files are of major importance for the study of all immigrant groups, as well as native-born...
This month is Black History Month in the United States. To mark that occasion, I wanted to once again explore an aspect of the often-fraught relationship between Irish-Americans and African-Americans during the Civil War era. It is a topic we...
150 years ago today the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishing slavery was ratified– it’s adoption was proclaimed on 18th December by Secretary of State William H. Seward. As we have explored on the site, the ideological motivations for the...
I recently came across the remarkable letters of Sergeant Thomas Mangan, which are here transcribed for the first time. The 22-year-old Dubliner was a recent emigrant from Ireland, who within a year of arriving in his new home found himself...
A total of sixteen Irish-born men reached the rank of either Colonel or General in the Confederate forces during the American Civil War. What was these men’s relationship with and investment in slavery, if any? The most famous slavery-related incident...
I have been thinking quite a lot recently about the type of historic events we choose to explore (and in some cases commemorate). This was spurred by the recent laying of a wreath by the Irish President Michael D. Higgins...
A previous post began to examine the fractious relationship between the Irish-American and African-American communities during the Civil War era. The majority of Irish were supporters of the Democratic Party, and many retained strong views in later years about why...
150 years ago this month the one of the defining moments in nineteenth century American history occurred, when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect. Abraham Lincoln shifted the war from one to preserve the Union to a struggle to both restore...