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‘Tell Him I Am A Soger’: Lyrics, Loyalty and Family in the Letters of an...
Patrick Kelly emigrated from Co. Galway to Boston with his parents. In 1861 he enlisted in the 28th Massachusetts Infantry, an Irish regiment that ultimately served in the Irish Brigade. During his...
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Witnesses to History: A Memento of a Missing Man
The Witnesses to History series aims to connect an object or document which still exists today with the story of the people behind the item. Following the first post, which featured the 170th New York...
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‘In Account Of We Being Irish': A New Irish Brigade Letter After Fredericksburg
As some readers will be aware I am currently working on a long-term project identifying and transcribing the letters of Irish and Irish-American soldiers contained within the Civil War Widows &...
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Reporting the War in Irish Newspapers: Correspondence from the Petersburg Front
A constant stream of information about the American Civil War made its way to Ireland between 1861 and 1865. This came in forms such as family letters home, but it was also a hot topic for Irish...
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‘A Deep Blow to Your Heart': Patrick Clooney’s Newly Uncovered Description of...
On 16th September 1862, 33-year-old Ann Dunnigan appeared before an Albany judge to begin the process of claiming a widow’s pension. Her husband Patrick had been mortally wounded in the Irish Brigade’s...
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Speaking Ill Of The Dead: Eulogies & Enmity For An Irish Brigade Soldier
On 18th October 1862 the New York Irish-American published an article on the ‘gallant fellows’ of the Irish Brigade who had recently given their lives at the carnage of Antietam. One of them was...
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‘I Trust the Almighty Will Spare Me My Life': Charles Traynor & the Battle of...
In March 1865, Charles Traynor wrote home to his mother Catharine in New York. A veteran of some of the most famed Irish Brigade actions of the war, he was still at the front as the conflict began to...
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‘As Good A Chance to Escape As Any Other': A Cork Soldier’s Aid to His Family...
Occasionally, I am asked why any Irish impacted by the American Civil War should be remembered in Ireland. After all, the argument goes, these people left our shores, and they weren’t fighting for...
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The Madigans: Famine Survival, Emigration & Obligation in 19th Century...
Each pension file contains fragments of one Irish family’s story. They are rarely complete, but nonetheless they often offer us rare insight into aspects of the 19th century Irish emigrant experience....
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‘You Put Your Arm Around My Neck and Kissed Me’: Sex, Love & Duty in the...
Letters included in the pension file often contain some very personal information. Surely few match those written by the Irish Brigade’s Samuel Pearce to his wife Margaret. The correspondence details...
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Meagher’s ‘Drunken Freaks’& Old Abe ‘Astonished’: The Last Letters of John...
Corporal John Doherty of the Irish Brigade wrote a series of letters home to his family from Virginia and Maryland in the summer of 1862. Transcribed here for the first time, the letters detail John’s...
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The Irish Brigade at Antietam: A Photographic Tour
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...
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‘Our Pickets Were Gobbled’: Assessing the Mass Capture of the 69th New York,...
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...
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Analysing 19th Century Emigration, A Case Study: Dissecting One Irishman’s...
As regular readers are aware, I have long been an advocate of the need to study the thousands of Irish-American letters contained within the Civil War Widows & Dependent Pension Files. This unique...
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War Prices! War Prices! Advertisements Aimed at Irish Soldiers & their...
We live in an age of seemingly incessant and increasingly intrusive advertising. In a world where algorithms monitor our online browsing to offer us individually tailored ads, it is easy to consider...
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Charting Desertion in the Irish Brigade, Part 1
The Irish Brigade is rightly regarded as one of the finest units to take the field during the American Civil War. However, just like all other Union formations, they had their ups and down in battle,...
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Podcast: Beyond the Irish Brigade with The Rogue Historian
Last week I had a conversation with Dr. Keith Harris who runs The Rogue Historian website and podcast. Keith will be known to many readers for his very well-received book Across the Bloody Chasm: The...
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“I am so well accustomed…I don’t care about dancing on the bodies of dead...
Friend of the site Catherine Bateson of the University of Edinburgh has previously contributed a guest post on her work relating to Irish Songs in the American Civil War. I am delighted to welcome her...
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“I am the Same Boy yet”: The Civil War Letters of Daniel Crowley, Part 2
The site welcomes back Catherine Bateson of the University of Edinburgh for the second in her series on the 1864 letters of Cork native Daniel Crowley, who served in the 28th Massachusetts Infantry,...
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“I am so heartily sick of this life”: The Civil War Letter of Daniel Crowley,...
I am pleased to bring to readers the third and final instalment of Catherine Bateson’s guest posts charting the correspondence of Cork’s Daniel Crowley, who served in the 28th Massachusetts Infantry,...
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