“God Bless the Irish Flag.”
Said by President Lincoln when he kissed one of the green banners of the Irish Brigade, as a salute to the courage of the men who fought beneath the banners.
Some 150,000 Catholic Irish Americans fought for the Union in the Civil War and some 40,000 Catholic Irish Americans fought for the Confederacy. Those are the best numbers I can find, although I suspect the numbers are understated. Whichever side they fought for, the Irish troops were noted for pugnacity in attack and a merry gallantry that other troops often remarked upon and envied. Many elite units were made up of Irish volunteers, the most notable being the Irish Brigade of the Army of the Potomac.
Their valor, and the ministrations of Catholic nuns serving as nurses to the wounded on both sides, helped to alleviate anti-Catholic sentiment in the country and hastened the admission of American Catholics into the American mainstream.
In the movie Glory, I remember there was the character of that hard ass Irish Sergeant Major.
Consistent with G.K.Chesterton’s assessment of the Irish:
“The Celtic men of Ireland are the ones that God made mad;
For their wars are always merry, and their songs are always sad.”
In the movie Glory, I remember there was the character of that hard ass Irish Sergeant Major.
Many Irish immigrants had served in the British Army, or in other armies, and in the Civil War their military experience was invaluable.
There is also the Irish born Confederate General Patrick Cleburne who saw the inevitable defeat of the South and proposed emancipating then arming slaves to fight for the South in exchange for land grants.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/patrick-cleburnes-proposal-arm-slaves
Yes, although he was a Protestant. The number of Irish Americans who fought in the Civil War swells considerably if we include Protestant Irish and their descendants. By the time of the Civil War they were not commonly regarded as “Irish” unless they were fresh off the boat like Cleburne.
Cleburne was the best divisional general in the West for the Confederacy. His proposal to free and arm the slaves might have been a game changer if it had been adopted. This passage rings down through the years:
It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.
Gen. Robert E. Lee wrote a letter to the Confederate legislature suggesting that slaves be recruited; trained; paid wages; and treated no differently than other troops. The short sighted legislature would have none of it.
In connection with the quote from General Cleburne, who before taking part in the ill advised attack on the Union lines at Franklin ordered by Hood which cost him his life stated to his men: “if we are to die let us die like men”, on the quoted occasion also opined: “Surrender means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy, that our youth will be trained by northern school teachers; will learn from Northern schoolbooks their version of the war, will be impressed by all the influences history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as objects of derision. “
He was correct on both counts. A pity his advice did not prevail. He was a shopkeeper in Arkansas before the war.
:
He was correct on both counts.
Only a hundred and fifty years after the event. For a century after his death almost all Southern textbooks gave a very pro-Confederate version of the conflict. Confederate veterans, especially those maimed in the War, were regarded as heroes in the South and the graves of fallen Confederates were carefully maintained.
Coincidentally, I am re-reading Father Corby’s, “Memoirs of Chaplain Life.” He was Chaplain of the 63rd NY in the Irish Brigade for three years. Identical statues depicting his famous general absolution and patriotic words on 2 July 1863 stand on
the battlefield and at Notre Dame University.
My ancestor died at First Bull Run with the NY 69th before the Irish Brigade was formed.
Re: Fredericksburg. It was worse than that.
Also, coincidentally, nearly 40 years ago I was working in Knoxville, TN and would walk the neighborhoods on evenings. There were statues commemorating Union regiments that served in the area. Contrary to leftist morals none was defaced or covered with graffiti.
The war cost 600,000 lives and $6 billion, and transformed the Republic and its attitudes towardCatholics as citizens. The plots to free Eire never panned out.
If you could make that 100 years, we would be in agreement. I can only attest to the textbooks from 1950 forward. The ones I read were hardly pro Confederate, though certainly more even handed than today. I appreciate your respectful treatment of a side which I perceive you would have fought against. We all have a common enemy at this time. May God grant each of us the courage to emulate the dedication of the common soldiers on each side of that tragic conflict.
“I appreciate your respectful treatment of a side which I perceive you would have fought against.”
Thanks. I always recall these words of Lincoln in his speech of October 16, 1854:
Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up. This I believe of the masses north and south. Doubtless there are individuals, on both sides, who would not hold slaves under any circumstances; and others who would gladly introduce slavery anew, if it were out of existence. We know that some southern men do free their slaves, go north, and become tip-top abolitionists; while some northern ones go south, and become most cruel slave-masters.
It was a tragedy for the South, and the entire nation, that Lincoln was murdered before he could implement his plan of rapid re-admission of the former Confederate States to the Union. Lincoln truly believed in malice towards none.