200,000 Irish-born soldiers fought in American Civil War; largest contingent from Cork

By Seán O’Riordan

One of the country’s leading battlefield archaeologists says 200,000 Irish-born soldiers fought in the American Civil War, with the largest contingent from Cork.

Damian Shiels is currently researching pension files and letters written by those who both fought and died in the 1861-1865 conflict.

Around 180,000 of the Irish fought for the Union (North) with the remainder on the Confederate side (South).

“I am working on drawing together hundreds of letters written by Irish-born Union soldiers and sailors to their loved ones during the war,” Mr Shiels said.

“These men were often illiterate and had their letters dictated for them. They are preserved because these men died as a result of their service and their widows, mothers and other dependents submitted the letters to the American government in order to secure a pension.

“Because of the level of social details the pension files provide, they represent the greatest source of social information on ordinary 19th-century Irish emigrant families available anywhere. Having identified the letters, I am using them to examine questions like why so many Irish fought for the Union? what their experience was like? and what impact did the war have on them and their families both in America and Ireland?”

Mr Shiels, who is undertaking his research at Northumbria University in England, said 1.6m Irish-born people were living in America when the war broke out.

“Though only 49 years separate it from the First World War, there is a huge gulf in how we remember both in Ireland,” he said.

“In terms of the counties that saw the largest emigration in this period, there was no doubt the American Civil War was far and away the largest both in terms of the numbers who served and died.

“Yet we tend not to have any memorials for them, or conferences about them, largely because they had emigrated. It is very much Ireland’s forgotten Great War,” Mr Shiels noted.

He’s estimated tens of thousands of Corkmen fought in the US war, more than any other Irish county.

One such emigrant was Thomas Bowler from Youghal.

“His decision to enlist in the Irish Brigade was almost certainly borne from a desire to help his wife and child, more than 3,000 miles away across the Atlantic by sending money home.”

The second soldier to die in the civil war was Edward Gallway from Skibbereen. He died at Fort Sumter. His brother was later killed in Louisiana.

Thomas Alfred Smyth from Ballyhooly was regarded as probably the finest Irish-born Union general of the war.

“He was the last Union General to die of wounds received in combat, passing away on the morning (Confederate) General Robert E Lee surrendered. Patrick Cleburne from Killumney was the highest ranking Irishman during the war. He was a Confederate Major General, and was killed at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee on 30 November 1864,” Mr Shiels said.

There were a number of other generals, and a large number of Cork-born men also earned the Medal of Honor (the American equivalent of the VC).

A number of leading Cork Fenians also served and some died in the war, a good example being Billy O’Shea, one of the Phoenix prisoners with O’Donovan Rossa, who was killed in action in 1864.