Women’s History
On 19th and 20th September, 150 years ago, the Battle of Chickamauga was fought. The titanic clash resulted in a resounding Confederate victory, sending William Starke Rosecrans’ Federal troops reeling back to Chattanooga. One of the Union regiments engaged during...
For women whose husbands went to war, it could often be long months before they heard news of their loved ones. For many the only means they had of gauging the well-being of their men was through the regularity of...
I have read the Widow’s Pension Files of many Irish families who were devastated by the American Civil War. The information contained in each reveals much about both the family behind the soldier and the long-term impact of the conflict...
Every week in the New York Irish-American a series of advertisements were run under the heading ‘Information Wanted.’ For $1 you could place a few carefully chosen lines in three issues of the paper, in the hope of finding a loved...
On 2nd May 1863, 150 years ago, hordes of Confederate troops appeared as if from nowhere and descended on the unsuspecting Yankees of the Eleventh Corps in the Virginia Wilderness. The blow Stonewall Jackson’s Rebels delivered to the Federal flank during the...
In May 1861 Patrick O’Dea went to war. Leaving his home in Cattaraugus County, New York, the twenty-year old Co. Clare native left behind his widowed mother, Mary, who he was helping to support on her small holding near the...
For the families of soldiers in the American Civil War, the possibility that their loved ones might not have a ‘good death’ was a constant fear. In a society accustomed to experiencing death by their families bedside, the remoteness of many Civil War fatalities denied family...
Previous posts on the site have explored the stories of remarkable Irish women such as Jennie Hodgers, who served as Albert D.J. Cashier in the 95th Illinois Infantry, and Mary Sophia Hill, who accompanied her brother to the front and...
As the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fair Oaks approaches, it is interesting to note the contribution of one Irish woman to the battle, which was remembered long after the war. New York newspapers in 1899 carried the obituary...
On 5th May 1862, Kerryman Lieutenant Patrick Henry Hayes led Company G of the 37th New York ‘Irish Rifles’ into action at Williamsburg, Virginia. As they charged toward the enemy, Patrick and his men also had to contend with nature;...