BOOK OF THE DAY: FRANK McNALLYreviews Green, Blue and Grey: The Irish in the American Civil WarBy Cal McCarthy Collins Press pp260; €16.99
EVEN ARDENT critics of Ireland’s latter-day neutrality might have to admit that, in military terms, this country has paid its dues. Through centuries of emigration, it was the fate of Irishmen to participate in many foreign wars, from Fontenoy to Fredericksburg. And in a crude, earlier form of neutrality, they often fought on both sides.
The American Civil War is a case in point. Although most of its Irish protagonists lined out for the union, there were many in the confederate ranks too. Some were more committed than others, like Fr Jeremiah O’Neill, a Kerry-born citizen of Georgia who in 1860 told fellow secessionists that if breaking with the north meant war, he would “lade” them into battle.
On the union side, newly emigrated Irishmen overcame initial reluctance to fight “a war waged by Yankee Protestants for black freedom”.
As the north’s underclass they were despised by the white establishment and fearful of competition from freed slaves: fears that erupted in the Draft Riots of 1863 when protests over conscription turned into a racial pogrom in New York.
By then, Irish soldiers had already died in their thousands. In fact it was the perception they were being used as cannon-fodder that fuelled anger in New York and elsewhere. But the civil war would be a defining experience for their community. Soon, those same slaughters became the heroic myths out of which rose a more confident and powerful Irish America.
The image of the “Fightin’ Irish” was secured forever at Fredericksburg in December 1862, when Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish Brigade attacked the rebels’ impregnable hill-top defences with great heroism and appalling loss of life. One of the defenders, Confederate General Pickett later wrote to his fiancee: “Your soldier’s heart almost stood still as he watched those fearless sons of Erin rush to their death. The brilliant assault of . . . their Irish Brigade was beyond description.” Inevitably, many who repulsed the attack were Irish too: among them the 24th Georgia Infantry, commanded by Robert Emmet McMillan.
Green, Blue and Grey is a faithful and diligent account of Irish involvement in the key battles. As the author concedes, it adds no new research to the subject. Its aim rather is to draw existing threads of the story into a “flowing narrative” and it is, says McCarthy, “the first time Irish participation has been merged with the war itself”. There are limitations to this approach. In following the conflict battle by battle, there is no room for such important digressions as the Draft Riots, nor for much else in the way of context. And although McCarthy mentions most of the war’s Irish heroes, there are inevitable exceptions: notably Carlow-born Myles Keogh, whose exploits in various foreign armies epitomised the Fightin’ Irishman.
Keogh may have served with the French Foreign Legion in Algeria. He certainly fought for the pope against Garibaldi. Then he crossed the Atlantic in time for the civil war, where he won further fame. He only finally ran out of luck in 1876, at a place called Little Bighorn.
Then again, there were many Irish heroes of the civil war, and some whose heroism was questioned. Thomas F Meagher – “Meagher of the Sword” – absented himself from his brigades most famous engagement due to injury, and thereby survived to become governor of Montana. But rumours of cowardice dogged his later years until, in 1867, he fell off a riverboat in mysterious circumstances and drowned. His reputation, says McCarthy, is still debated.
Frank McNally is an
Irish Times
journalist