Lincoln and the Irish

by Niall O'Dowd

  As a much older woman, Patti recorded “The Last Rose of Summer” on a phonograph in 1905, readily available on YouTube. Thus, you can hear the very same voice and song the Lincolns listened to all those years ago—a bridge back in time to what Lincoln heard.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Two Irish Become the First Casualties of the Civil War

  Following the 1860 election of Lincoln, the decision by seven southern states to secede made the Civil War inevitable. In Charleston, South Carolina, the Confederacy demanded the removal of the Union army there, but the Union commander, Major Robert Anderson, prepared for a lengthy siege by barricading his men in the sea fort known as Fort Sumter.

  Repeated demands by Confederates that the Yankees yield the fort were refused by Major Anderson. Beginning at close to dawn, at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, the Rebels commenced firing. After a day and a half, the Union garrison agreed to evacuate. During the surrender ceremony a jammed cannon exploded, killing two Union soldiers on April 14.

  Thus the first casualties of the American Civil War were two Irishmen, the first named as Private Daniel Hough from Tipperary, who was thirty-six-years old. The second soldier killed was Private Ed Galloway, an emigrant from Skibbereen, County Cork.

  A few months later, Ed’s brother Andrew was also killed. The Cork Examiner newspaper in Ireland carried Andrew’s obituary on April 11, 1863:

  At Baton Rouge, La., U.S.A. America, Major Andrew Galloway, son of the late John Galloway, Esq., Skibbereen. Having been wounded at the taking of Port Hudson, he was removed to Baton Rouge, where he died on the 9th July, a Christian soldier, fortified by all the rites of the Catholic Church, in the 26th year of his age.

  His brother Edward was the first victim whose life was sacrificed in the present American war. He was killed at Fort Sumter, on the 13th April, 1861, aged 20 years.—May they rest in peace.

  Daniel Hough was born in 1825 in Tipperary, Ireland. Irish historian Damian Shiels believes that based on a letter from Hough, or Howe’s brother (there were different spellings of the name in official records), he was from the town of Nenagh. He emigrated to the US and enlisted in the US Army in October 1849. He remained in the army and was at Fort Sumter in April 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War.

  He was one of the Union army defending Fort Sumter when the Confederates began attacking. An official account of his career states that he was an Irish immigrant who had enlisted in Battery D of the 1st United States Artillery Regiment.

  After serving out his enlistment, he re-enlisted on December 6, 1859 at Ft. Moultrie, South Carolina. This time he was assigned to Battery E, 1st United States Artillery. His military record states that he had gray hair, blue eyes, a fair complexion, and was five feet eight inches tall.

  Private Hough was serving as an artillerist, posted at Ft. Sumter, out in Charleston Harbor, when the Civil War began on the morning of April 12, 1861. The garrison put up a spirited defense, and the bombardment lasted until April 14, when the fort’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, decided to surrender. The Confederates lobbed cannonballs heated in furnaces into the interior of the fort.

  “They were coming down through the roofs of the barracks buildings and set those buildings on fire,” a witness said.

  The Union army was offered an honorable surrender and to give a 100-gun salute to the fallen fort.

  A cannon fired prematurely on the 47th round, killing Union Pvt. Hough, the immigrant from Tipperary, Ireland—the first death of the Civil War.

  Major General Abner Doubleday witnessed what occurred that April 14, 1861 when Hough died. “It happened that some flakes of fire had entered the muzzle of one of the guns after it was sponged. Of course, when the gunner attempted to ram the cartridge down it exploded prematurely, killing Private Daniel Hough instantly, and setting fire to a pile of cartridges underneath, which also exploded, seriously wounding five men. Fifty guns were fired in the salute.”

  In Washington, Lincoln had attended church services praying for a peaceful outcome to the Fort Sumter crisis. The death of the Irishmen in the Union blue uniforms helped convince him there was now no way back.

  On April 15, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln called up 75,000 federal militia members and the Civil War began. By the time it was over 600,000 would be dead on the battlefields. It was a war like no other. Mary Todd Lincoln’s brothers fought for the Confederacy. Stonewall Jackson’s sister cut off all contact with him when he sided with the rebels. It was too often brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, friends who were now foes. It would change America, and the world, forever.

  Would the Irish who were flooding into the country go to war for Lincoln, whose Know-Nothing supporters they despised? The answer would soon become apparent.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Three Men Convince the Irish to Fight for Lincoln: Thomas Francis Meagher

  Three men forged the path for 150,000 Irishmen to fight and very likely save the Union. They were Thomas Francis Meagher, Archbishop John Hughes, and Michael Corcoran.

  Another Irishman, General Philip Sheridan, arguably was the hammer on the anvil that brought the war to an end.

  “In (Meagher) we see the entire arc of so much crucial Irish-American history in one man’s life—persecution, famine, banishment, exile, revival, and finding your place in a strange land,” Timothy Egan, author of The Immortal Irishman, a book about Meagher, says.

  Thomas Francis Meagher was born in Waterford in 1823 and became the great hero of Irish America. He was the son of a prominent Catholic businessman who was an elected MP to the British Parliament from Waterford.

  Meagher rejected his wealthy background and became a revolutionary. He was a key figure in the Young Irelanders, young men and some women who were tired of waiting in the shadow of Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator who they believed had failed to capitalize on the mass movement he had created. The Young Irelanders consisted of highly educated and committed young men, including Thomas Davis, who wrote “A Nation Once Again” and was the most prominent leader and polemicist in “The Nation” newspaper he founded.

  The Young Irelanders built on the vision of Irish revolutionary Theobald Wolfe Tone who masterminded the 1798 Rising which hoped to achieve the unity of Catholic, Protestant, and dissenter, but did not shirk the staging of a violent revolution to bring it about.

  This was the group Meagher was deeply drawn to. A speech in Dublin on July 28, 1846, was his defining moment. A young upstart committed to revolution, he went head-to-head with the O’Connell family, whose patriarch was the great Daniel O’Connell. O’Connell saw constitutional means as the way forward.

  It was the same argument that had riven Ireland for centuries, even up to the present day. But young Meagher won this round heartily. Meagher turned on those who advocated no violence by recalling the American Revolution: “Abhor the sword, stigmatize the sword? No, my lord, for at its blow, a giant nation started from the waters of the Atlantic, and by its redeeming magic, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the crippled colony sprang into the attitude of a proud Republic—prosperous, limitless, and invincible!”

  “It was thrilling music,” said his friend and fellow compatriot Charles Gavan Duffy, editor of The Nation, “to wake the Irish from their national coma.”

  Two years later, and the young Demosthenes was on his way to penal servitude in Australia after the abortive 1848 Rising in Ireland. He was transported to a penal colony in Australia, from which he made a spectacular escape to America.

  That escape was an incredible one. His father had paid for a boat to pick him up at a particular postage stamp-sized island off of Tasmania in a particular time frame. Loosely guarded, he fled the mainland of Tasmania for Waterhouse Island, located on a shipping channel linking the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. The journey to the island through shark-infested waters and foul weather nearly killed him, and he was dropped off on the tiny dot of an island only a square mile in size.

  After ten days on Waterhouse Island a
nd living off birds’ eggs and fruit, a ship hove into view as arranged. The Elizabeth Thomson, organized in New York and paid for in Ireland by his father, had sailed the high seas and somehow found him within the expected time period—and at the correct location. Soon the ship was on the wide Pacific and New York bound.

  The boat took him to Pernambuco, Brazil. From there, concealing himself in the last bag of sugar beneath deck on The Acorn. Meagher came to the United States. Arriving on May 27, 1852, he stepped off The Acorn into New York Harbor, a free man.

  He was a sensation among Irish Americans when he arrived in New York, a genuine Irish hero who had spent his life fighting for Irish freedom. Here was the leader the Irish had been waiting for. As Timothy Egan reports in Immortal Irishman, his superb biography of Meagher, a Young Irelander supporter, Michael Cavanagh, was electrified to find Meagher in his midst.

  “Frank and free, he was Tom Meagher—the best beloved of his race and generation…on him were centered the hopes of his exiled countrymen…to unite them for the attainment of Irish freedom.”

  The New York Times would have plenty to say about Meagher in the future. So would Abe Lincoln, who became a close friend, and so would Meagher himself, who was faithful to the last to the president he so dearly admired and placed the young Irish men of New York firmly on his side.

  The New York Times remarked, “His arrival has created universal satisfaction here.”

  On his second night in town, dining at a friend’s house, 7,000 Irish, including members of the famed all-Irish New York Fighting 69th unit, showed up outside with the Brooklyn Cornet Band. There was bedlam at his arrival. “Meagher in America!” proclaimed The Nation newspaper headline.

  Meagher addressed huge public meetings, always on the topic of Irish freedom, but when the Civil War was imminent, he married the Irish thirst for freedom with the opportunity their new land had given them to start afresh. He was one of the key movers behind the Irish Brigade, a number of regiments that recruited Irish from across state lines, which was highly unusual at the time. The regiments coalesced under the names of the Irish Brigade and The Fighting 69th.

  He called on the Irish to join en masse. “It is the duty of every freedom-loving citizen to prevent such a calamity (secession) at all hazards. Above all, it is the duty of us Irish citizens who aspire to establish a similar form of government in our native land.”

  On August 30, 1861, the brigade was officially created.

  WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON.

  August 30, 1861

  COLONEL THOMAS F. MEAGHER, New York

  SIR – The Regiment of infantry known as the Sixty-Ninth Infantry, which you offer, is accepted for three years, or during the war, provided you have it ready for marching orders in thirty days. This acceptance is with the distinct understanding that this department will revoke the commissions of all officers who may be found incompetent for the proper discharge of their duties.

  Your men will be mustered into the United States service in accordance with General Orders Nos. 58 and 61.

  You are further authorized to arrange with the colonels commanding of four other regiments to be raised to form a brigade, the brigadier-general for which will be designated hereafter by the proper authority of Government.

  Very respectfully your obedient servant,

  THOMAS A. SCOTT

  Assistant Secretary of War.

  For Lincoln, the Irish Brigade made certain sense, marrying a great fighting unit with Democratic supporters, which was quite a coup for the Republican president. He saw in Meagher the perfect foil for this strategy. His dealings with the Irish Brigade always reflected favorably on them, and he clearly admired Meagher.

  On a visit to the Irish Brigade he made his sentiments clear that he wanted fair treatment for the brigade.

  Executive Mansion

  Major Gen. Halleck Feb. 12. 1863.

  Gen. Meagher, now with me, says the Irish Brigade has had no promotion; and that Col. Robert Nugent & Col. Patrick Kelly, both of that Brigade have fairly earned promotion. They both hold commissions as Captains in the regular army. Please examine their records with reference to the question of promoting one or both of them.

  Yours truly,

  A. LINCOLN

  Gen. T. Francis Meagher Washington, D.C.,

  New York. June 16, 1863

  Your dispatch received. Shall be very glad for you to raise 3,000 Irish troops, if done by the consent of, and in concert with, Governor Seymour.

  A. LINCOLN

  Major General Meade Executive Mansion,

  Army of the Potomac Washington, April 9. 1864.

  Suspend execution of private William Collins, Co. B. 69th. N.Y. Vols. Irish Brigade, and class him with other suspended cases.

  A. LINCOLN

  Lincoln also visited the Fighting 69th once and noted their bravery, grasping their banner and stating, “God bless the Irish.”

  The Fighting 69th Historian recorded that amazing visit by Lincoln to the regiment:

  During Lincoln’s visit to the army (after the battle of Malvern Hill), 1st Lt. James M Birmingham, adjutant of the 88th New York, emerged from a swim in the river. With his wet underwear drying on his body, the Lieutenant walked over to the 69th camp to visit his brother.

  When Birmingham turned a corner, he saw the president and Generals McClellan and Sumner speaking with Colonel Nugent. He ducked behind some cover and eavesdropped on the conversation. Forever after, the 88th’s adjutant would remember that he saw Lincoln, impressed by the Irish Brigade’s sacrifices, lift a corner of the 69th’s flag ‘and kiss it, exclaiming, ‘God bless the Irish flag.’

  Those were words that no British leader would ever speak, and Meagher recognized that. Lincoln had also called for freedom for Ireland when in Congress.

  With Senator Stephen Douglas vanquished (he died in 1861), it was clear the Irish needed a new American political leader. Why not the president? Besides, were not the British rooting for a Confederate victory? What better way to prepare someday to do battle than sign up with the Union army?

  Lincoln was a different kind of Republican, they argued. He had rejected the Know-Nothings, the anti-Catholic party. To the Irish, the Republican Party stood for two things: anti-Catholic and anti-slavery, and the former was far more important to them than the latter. Lincoln was different, however.

  In her thesis on Thomas Francis Meagher, Montana scholar Angela Faye Thompson notes: “In The Origins of the Republican Party, William E. Gienapp summarized the (Republican) party’s stance this way: ‘The Republican Party projected an anti-Catholic image, a fact readily perceived by nativists and Catholic voters alike. The Republican Party decided to focus on two issues: anti-Slavery and anti-Catholicism. These two issues spelled success in the 1850s.’”

  They were also at complete odds with each other. Why would the Irish fight for an alleged anti-Irish president? Most of the Irish American press was adamantly opposed to Lincoln throughout the war.

  Meagher persuaded many of them. He threw his influence behind Lincoln and became an outspoken opponent of slavery at a time when the majority of Irish in New York did not want to fight and die to free African slaves. He went further, demanding they be granted full citizenship, not just freedom. “The Black heroes of the Union army have not only entitled themselves to liberty but to citizenship,” he declared.

  He was fearless in his commitment to causes involving injustice anywhere and in his beloved Ireland.

  Meagher received his general’s commission directly from President Lincoln. “Lincoln liked Meagher, and vice versa,” says Meagher biographer Timothy Egan, “even though they were in different political parties. Lincoln made time to see Meagher even when he saw no one else. Lincoln shrewdly named Meagher a general as a way to win over the Irish masses to the Union cause.”

  Like Lincoln, Meagher soft-pedaled the issue of slavery at first as the reason to go to war, before later coming out in full-throated support of emancipation.

  When
explaining his decision to back the Union side when so many joined or supported the Rebels, Meagher stated, “Duty and patriotism prompt me.”

  He said:

  The Republic, that gave us an asylum—that is the mainstay of human freedom the world over—is threatened with disruption. It is the duty of every liberty-loving citizen to prevent such a calamity at all hazards. Above all is it the duty of us Irish citizens, who aspire to establish a similar form of government in our native land. It is not only our duty to America, but also to Ireland. We could not hope to succeed in our effort to make Ireland a Republic without the moral and material aid of the liberty-loving citizens of these United States.

  English support for the Confederacy was a further spur to Irish enlistment. King Cotton, enabled by the slave trade, kept the English economy booming and led to a decided Confederate tilt.

  Some ordinary English felt differently. Workers in a cotton mill in Lancashire refused to accept cotton from America picked by slaves. Lincoln wrote and praised them, saying it was “sublime Christian heroism, which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country.”

  The French Comte de Paris visited the US and wrote that the Irish “looked upon the war…as a favorable opportunity for preparing to crush England.”

  Shortly following his enlistment in the Fighting 69th New York, Meagher delivered one of his most influential speeches, “The Irish Soldier: His History and Present Duty to the American Republic.”

  Meagher stated that he remained a Democrat and a Union man. He said that although he had not voted for Lincoln, he was the legitimate president and the Confederate state was thus illegal:

  In a word, we find that there is not one substantial reason or pretext for this revolution… . How unnatural this war! How infamous! How horrible! But who began it?

  Hence it is that I have appeared in arms for the National Government; and hence it is that I have already and do invoke my countrymen to take up arms in the same righteous cause.