The Civil War world has been captivated in recent weeks by the identification of a previously overlooked burial map of the Antietam battlefield, prepared by Simon G. Elliot in 1864. The staff of New York Public Library first recognised the...
My primary area of research relates to wartime letters written home by soldiers and sailors, and which widow’s and dependents parted with in order to provide the Bureau of Pensions with evidence to support their claim. However, letters were not...
Many of the posts on this site explore elements of the Irish experience at the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, fought on 17th September 1862. Many of the widow’s pension files that I now...
Each month for much of the 1880s the octogenarian Timothy Durick travelled from his home in Lackamore, Castletownarra, Co. Tipperary to the nearby town of Nenagh. He made the journey to visit the Post Office and collect his pension, which...
In the late morning of 17th September 1862, the first elements of Major-General William B. Franklin’s Sixth Corps, Army of the Potomac arrived on the Antietam battlefield after a forced march. The bloodiest day in United States history was already...
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....
Captain Patrick Clooney of the 88th New York, Irish Brigade, was a native of Waterford. He had served with distinction in the Battalion of St. Patrick during the Papal War in 1860, and travelled to the United States in July 1861....
Tile Films are in the final stages of work on their two part docudrama Fág an Bealach (Faugh a Ballagh/Clear The Way) which focuses on the Irish Brigade. Each programme is 52 minutes in length and has been prepared for TG4...
At 6am on the morning of 17th September 1862, Colonel Henry B. Strong and his largely Irish 6th Louisiana Volunteers were drawn up in woods slightly to the north-west of a small Dunker Church, near the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland....
A new blog site has been established by James Doherty entitled Waterford Civil War Veterans, dedicated to exploring that county’s contribution in the American Civil War. One of the site’s main aims is to raise money for the restoration of...