Fenians and the Memory of the Irish Brigade

Of the many famed units to come out of the American Civil War none have maintained the same fame much like the Irish Brigade. The Brigade’s fame has been solidified in almost every medium possible countless historians (of varying quality) have written books (of varying quality) about the brigade’s exploits through some of the bloodiest battles of the war. They are often the subject painters looking to recreate heroic scenes from American history. Films depicting the war have often featured portrayals of the brigade in some way or at least a reference here or there. Musical artists have produced albums of music about the brigade featuring songs from the Civil War period as well as from after the war. There’s even a bloody store in Gettysburg, PA called the Irish Brigade Gift Shop that sells Irish themed trinkets and such. It’s become hard to study the American Civil War without encountering the brigade in some way.

With all this coverage on the Irish Brigade however, comes myths and exaggeration. The Irish Brigade that everyone knows and the Irish Brigade that actually fought in the war are similar but still different. The key difference is the role Fenianism played in the brigade. There has been a popularly held notion that Irish soldiers fought in the American Civil War with the intention of gaining military training and experience to use in the next fight for Ireland’s independence. If you looked at the higher ranking Irish officers on both sides of the conflict, it would be pretty easy to see where this idea came about. Guys like Thomas Meagher and Michael Corcoran who both organized and lead whole brigades of Irish soldiers (“Corcoran’s Legion” is not as well know as Meagher’s Irish Brigade) were raging fucking Fenians. Meagher himself narrowly avoided a death sentence from the British government in the 1840s. There were many more Fenians in the ranks of both U.S. and Confederate armies during the war.

Thomas Francis Meagher, native of County Waterford and first Commander of the Irish Brigade. He later resigned command of the brigade due to frustration from not being allowed to recruit replacements for its depleted ranks.

We often see this Fenianism applied to the entirety of the Irish Brigade. After all, why shouldn’t it be? Meagher was a well known Fenian and organizations like the Fenian Brotherhood, precursor to the better known Irish Republican Brotherhood, actively recruited men for the brigade’s regiments as well as other volunteer regiments in the U.S. Army. To say Irish nationalism or Fenianism or whatever you want to call it played no role in the Irish immigrant’s experience of the war would be wrong. Equally incorrect would be to characterize that experience as yet another crusade for an Irish republic.

Let’s actually look at what Irish soldiers themselves were saying. Take for instance William McCarter of the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. McCarter was an immigrant from Country Down (part of modern day Northern Ireland). He had immigrated prior to the war and was living in Philadelphia at the beginning of the war. McCarter and his regiment were assigned to Meagher’s Irish Brigade shortly after the battle of Antietam in September of 1862. McCarter participated in a few small engagements throughout the autumn of 1862. He was severely wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg which ultimately led to his discharge from the army. But I’ve chosen to look at McCarter because his memoir is one of the few accounts of service in the Irish Brigade from an enlisted soldier. McCarter makes little mention of Irish nationalism in his account. In fact his assessment of the war reads:

But what an autumn of fire and sword for the good old state of Virginia-its rivers running with human blood, its fields covered with armed fighting men, father against son, son against father, friend against friend, right against wrong, and freedom against slavery and tyranny…The Old Dominion had fallen from all that was noble, great and good to be the veriest hotbed seat and throne of disloyalty, treason, rebellion and murder.

While this small excerpt says little about why McCarter volunteered, it does show how McCarter viewed his place in the war. He was not fighting to prepare for the next fight for Ireland’s freedom. He was fighting to preserve the ideals of American liberty from domestic enemies. Ireland would appear to be a long distant memory.

Peter Welsh served as colors sergeant of the 28th Mass. Volunteer Infantry. He died in 1864 from wounds he received at the Battle of Spotsylvania

McCarter is much like Peter Welsh in some ways. Welsh, who served in the 28th Massachusetts, saw the war somewhat differently. In a letter to his father-in-law, Welsh wrote, “Here thousands of the sons and daughters of Irland have come to seek a refuge from tyrany and persecution at home…America is Irlands refuge Irlands last hope”. Welsh, like McCarter, was fighting to preserve the United States because he viewed the US as a beacon of freedom to the oppressed peoples of the world. Both McCarter and Welsh believed that the ideal of America was something worth fighting for. Neither had any intention of returning to Ireland to dismantle British control over the island.

The role of Fenianism in Irish participation in the Civil War continues to shrink when we actually analyze the lyrics to some of the popular Irish-American songs of the period. There are a variety of options to look at (honestly enough to warrant an entire blog post), but we’re going to focus on two. The first is titled “The Harp of Old Erin and Banner of Stars”. The song was published some time in 1861 and was very clearly meant as a recruitment tool. It plays upon themes of Irish identity and a shared sense of disdain between Ireland and the United States directed towards Britain. It does not however say anything about fighting for an independent Ireland. It was a song written for Irish-Americans not Fenians. It played on themes of Irish identity to drum up support for an American cause.

The other song we’re going to look at is called “We’ll Fight for Uncle Sam”. Unlike the previously mentioned song, I had a little trouble figuring out when it was written but it was sometime during the war. “We’ll Fight for Uncle Sam” once again plays on themes of Irish identity for an American purpose. It also made promises of military glory and all that cool stuff you’d expect from a 19th century song about war. There is one mention of England in the song but it’s basically a warning against British intervention in the war. And while the song mentioned card-carrying Fenian, Michael Corcoran, no mention of the Fenian cause is ever made.

The final nail in the coffin of Fenianism’s role in the American Civil War is simple math. Over the course of the war approximately 150,000 Irishmen served in the United States military in some capacity, with about 20,000 dying while in service. So why did 130,000 Irishmen invade Canada in 1866, 1870, or 1871? Throughout the post-Civil War “Fenian Raids” into Canada, the largest force involved numbered little more than a thousand men and not all of them had served in the Civil War. The only logical conclusion to draw from this is that a majority of Irish soldiers saw little reason to continue fighting anyone after 1865 when the war ended.

The Battle of Ridgeway was one of the largest engagements of all the Fenian Raids, seeing roughly 700 Fenians go up against 800 Canadian Militia

Irish-Americans are among the largest European immigrant groups in the United States. Within this large and influential community, certain aspects of Irish identity have been emphasized much more than what they are/were in Ireland. Fenianism, a largely fringe political ideology in mid and late 19th century Ireland, was more prevalent in many Irish-American circles at the time. While Irish-American culture and politics have been as complicated as Irish culture and politics it has not been uncommon for ideas existing on the fringe of the latter to gain more mainstream support in the former. Such has largely been the case with the Irish nationalist movement. The mainstreaming of nationalism, and republicanism in particular, in Irish-American culture has left a lasting mark on Irish-American memory of the Civil War. Many still believe the Irish Brigade to be the noble Fenian force Meagher had envisioned. The reality is that many Irish soldiers saw their newly adopted home in peril and saw it as their duty to defend it. The fight they took was one not for Ireland but for the United States, and the experience of the Civil War forged a great deal of modern Irish-American identity.