Irish in the American Civil War

The site has often explored the stories of American Civil War pensioners who returned to Ireland, and their dependents (see for example here, here and here). I usually carry out this research by looking through pension files to assess who was claiming from Ireland. But another means of uncovering some of these individuals is to examine […]

During the Civil War, newspapers frequently published correspondence written by soldiers and sailors at the front. Some servicemen took the opportunity to act as quasi-reporters for particular publications, ensuring that their views and opinions regularly appeared in print. In May 1864, letters from an Irishman who went by the pen name Garryowen began to appear in the […]

Although the main focus of this site is (and will remain) the Irish experience of the American Civil War, I thought readers may also be interested in some work I am conducting on a later aspect of the U.S. military, exploring the impact on Ireland of the thousands of Americans who were stationed here during […]

On 30th October 1864 the famed 69th New York Infantry suffered one of it’s most embarrassing moments of the war, when a large number of its men were captured having barely fired a shot. In the latest post I have used a number of sources to explore this event, seeking to uncover details about those […]

This project represents one of the most extensive resources yet made available on the site. Having examined in excess of 11,000 entries for Confederate veterans living in Alabama in 1907, I extracted the details on those men of Irish birth. I then combined it with analysis of the Irishmen’s service records and pension applications, creating […]

Each week I receive correspondence from people with Civil War ancestors in search of their family’s origins in Ireland– something which is unfortunately often extremely difficult to determine. However, today has seen the release of a set of records that promises to open up new avenues for those seeking such information. To much fanfare in Ireland, the National Library of […]

I have been building a database of information relating to the 219 U.S. military pensioners who were recorded as living in Ireland in 1883. These pensioners and their families have been the topic of numerous posts on the site and I hope in the future will form the basis for a book recounting their stories. […]

In 1869 Benjamin Apthorp Gould published Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers. Very much a scientific work of its time, it explored topics such as the nativity and ages of Union volunteers together with examinations of physical characteristics such as stature, complexion, dimension and proportions of the head and pulmonary capacity, to name […]

The latest addition to the Resources section of the site are the fatality details of 21 Irish regiments who served the Union during the Civil War. Check out the ‘More Resources’ tab on the top right of the site and access the drop down menu to see what else is available. In 1889 William F. […]

After a number of weeks work a new page has been added to the site, which looks at those Irish-born men who died in the Fetterman Fight. This action took place on 21st December 1866 and involved the annihilation of a command of 81 men from Fort Phil Kearney- the worst disaster to befall United […]