Damian Shiels's Blog, page 10

Video: The Civil War Life & Letters of New York’s Capital District Irish

In March I had the opportunity to speak to the Irish American Heritage Museum in Albany, New York, about some of my latest research. The talk focused on the experience of Irish Americans around New York’s Capital Region during the conflict, and it gave me an opportunity to discuss some of these men’s correspondence in more detail than I often can. The Museum have now put the talk up on their YouTube channel here and you can also catch it below. This was the first of my long distance talks that encountered a technical hitch, as I lost internet connection for 5 minutes midway, but thankfully power was quickly restored! I hope you enjoy it.

Gettysburg’s Immigrant Dead 1: 19th Massachusetts Infantry

This is the first in a new series which I have been planning to embark upon for a number of years. The intent is to attempt to explore the scale and range of immigrant service during the Civil War through the medium of a single battlefield. Periodically over the course of the coming months (and years) I will be examining individual units (Union and Confederate) in an effort to identify men born outside the United States who lost their lives as a result of the fighting at Gettysburg. As well as describing these soldiers in posts on the site, I will be endeavouring to map them onto the battlefield using QGIS, locating them relative to the contemporary memorial landscape. The first regiment featured is the 19th Massachusetts Infantry. They lost 15 men killed or mortally wounded as a result of the fighting on the Third Day, 33% of whom were born outside the United States (1 in Germany, 4 in Ireland). Details of the men are provided below, and they have been plotted relative to the 19th Massachusetts Monument.

I hope as the project progresses to gradually build up a sense of the scale of the immigrant contribution in visual form. Naturally due to the nature of the surviving records this can never be a complete picture, and cannot account for ethnic men born in the United States to immigrant parents. Nevertheless, I hope that it will raise some potentially interesting questions, and will help to examine the extent to which immigrants were present on the battlefield outside of “ethnic” formations. As each unit is posted, I would welcome any additions or clarifications readers may have on the foreign-born fatalities presented.

19TH MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY, 3RD BRIGADE, 2ND DIVISION, 2ND CORPS

Totals: Killed- 9, Mortally Wounded- 6. Immigrant Born- 5 (33%).

Company C

Donath, Herman. 1st Lieutenant.

Nativity: Iserlohn, Germany. (1) 21-year-old printer. Killed in action 3 July.

Company E

Doyle, Thomas. Private.

Nativity: Ireland. (2) 36-year-old tailor. Left a widow Bridget and four children, Anna (b.1853), John (b.1857), Thomas (b.1860) and Margaret (b. 1861). Had been arrested as a deserter in Roxbury in August 1862. Killed in action 3 July.

Roche, Edmund. Private.

Nativity: Ireland. (4) 30-year-old morrocco-dresser. Left a widow Ellen and two children, Annie (b. 1859) and John (b. 1862). Killed in action 3 July.

Company H

Reardon, Daniel. Private.

Nativity: Cork, Ireland. (3) 20-year-old sailor. Missing in action 3 July.

Scannell, Patrick. Corporal.

Nativity: Ireland. (5) 23-year-old bleacher. Killed in action 3 July.

[image error]The five immigrant men of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry who were killed or mortally wounded at Gettysburg on 3 July 1863. They are plotted around the 19th Massachusetts monument, which is located on Hancock Avenue, south of the Copse of Trees. (Damian Shiels created using QGIS)

References

John Busey. These Honored Dead: The Union Casualties at Gettysburg;

(1) Compiled Military Service Record, Nativity listed as Hanover on 1860 Census, Roxbury Ward 3, Norfolk, Massachusetts;

(2) Nativity listed as Ireland on 1860 Census, West Roxbury, Norfolk, Massachusetts;

(3) Compiled Military Service Record;

(4) Compiled Military Service Record;

(5) Compiled Military Service Record;

Waymarking.com (19th Massachusetts Monument Image Credit);

Andersonville Irish Spotlight. Grave 1139. James McMahon & His Widow Annie, “A Perfectly Abandoned Character”

One of the aims of the Andersonville Irish Project is to use the men identified within the National Cemetery as a vehicle for exploring the wider social story of 1860s Irish America. Just such an opportunity surrounds the case of Irish immigrant James McMahon, who rests within Grave 1139. James’s death in 1864 played havoc on his family, inflicting a blow from which they struggled to recover. This was particularly true for his widow Annie, who experienced many dark moments in the years that followed the Civil War– moments that brought near disastrous results for herself and her children.

The 1860 Census found James and Annie McMahon living in Philadelphia’s 17th Ward, where James was employed as a weaver. The Irish immigrants had married in the city’s St. Michael’s Catholic Church in 1850. By the time 1860 came round they had six young children, William (b. 1851), James (b. 1853), Patrick (b. 1854), Margaret (b. 1857), Elizabeth (b. 1858) and Mary Jane (b.1861). In August of 1861 James enlisted in what became Company F of the 73rd Pennsylvania Infantry. The 73rd formed part of the ill-fated 11th Corps, which experienced such difficult days at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. James survived them both, and was still with his regiment when it was transferred to the Western Theater. But further horrors awaited the 73rd at the Battle of Missionary Ridge, Tennessee on 25th November 1863. Although a Union victory, the regiment took enormous casualties during the fighting. James was one of many who fell into Confederate hands.

[image error]St Michael’s Church, where James and Annie were married in 1850 (Wmflanagan via Wikipedia)

James and his captured comrades were first sent to Richmond before their ultimate transfer to Andersonville in 1864. One of those taken with him was Joseph Fortescue, who later recounted James’s fate in the Georgia prison:

I saw him every day. In the latter part of March McMahon was taken sick with Chronic Diarrhoea and continued getting worse until he died on or about the 25th day of April 1864 [it was actually the 16th May]. I cannot state the exact day of the month, as every day seemed alike to us during our captivity. I was present with him about two hours before he died, and after death helped bury him.

[image error]The 73rd Pennsylvania in action, from their monument at Gettysburg. James McMahon fought with the regiment there (Einar E Kvaran via Wikipedia)

Back in Philadelphia, Annie had received news of James’s fate by the end of 1864. By then the eldest of her six children had just turned thirteen– her youngest was three. If she was to stave off economic disaster, she had to move fast in an effort to try and secure some financial assistance. She applied for a pension that December. Among those who witnessed it for her were her aunt, Mary Mallon, and another Irish American woman, Ellen Donnelly.

[image error]Like so many Irish working-class men and women, Annie was illiterate. This is her mark on her initial pension application (NARA)

Annie was successful in claiming a pension, but many difficulties lay ahead. The loss of her husband appears to have taken a major emotional toll on her, something that must surely have been exacerbated by the constant financial stress and strain of trying to raise young children alone while living on the margins. Worse, there is a strong indication that her youngest, Mary Jane, may also have died, as the young girl’s name ceases to be mentioned as a dependent child. Understandably, it all proved too much. By 1868, Ann was hitting the bottle, and hitting it hard. The scale of the problem was revealed in August that year, when Father Walsh of St Michael’s wrote the following letter to the Pension Bureau:

Dear Sir

You would confer a favor on the undersigned if you would retain for some time yet the pension of Mrs Anne McMahon. She is a drunken disorderly character and takes no care of herself or children. You will therefore retain it until you hear from me through her or her Aunt Mrs Mallon, a very worthy woman who has charge of her children. By complying you much oblige your humble servant,

M.A. Walsh

Pastor St. Michael’s

August 24th 1868

[image error]On the back of Father Walsh’s letter to the Pension Bureau the names of Annie’s dependent children were written. The eldest, William, was over 16 and so not classed as a dependent. Those recorded are Patrick, James, Margt [Margaret] and Lizzie [Elizabeth]. The name of the youngest, Mary Jane, is notably absent (NARA)

Society showed little sympathy towards working-class women like Annie in such situations. Rather than an acknowledgement of the trauma and untold hardship she had experienced, instead she was looked down upon as a woman of weak character and moral failing. In such instances the Pension Bureau were usually quick to suspend pension payments; Annie’s case was no different. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that there were very real concerns for Annie’s children. This was demonstrated by the actions of Annie’s aunt, Mary Mallon. In September 1868 Mary also wrote to the Bureau, declaring her intent to apply for guardianship of the children. Given that Mary had been one of those who had helped Annie first secure the pension, the comments she made as to why she was doing so reveal the extent of Annie’s illness:

Ann has become a perfectly abandoned character and is drunk whenever she can get a cent to buy liquor with…she does not support any one of the children but has pawned everything she could get hold of and deponent [Mary] fears she is past any reformation. If she draws her own Pension on the 4th September she will spend the whole of it for drink and none of it will be devoted either to the children or to buy any requisite comfort for herself.

[image error]Like her niece, Mary Mallon was illiterate. Her mark on her correspondence to the Bureau (NARA)

Mary’s actions clearly came from a place of real concern. She was successful in her application for guardianship, which was granted in March 1869. Had it ended here, the story would be yet another to add to the long list where alcohol abuse and Civil War loss combined to bring tragedy to the lives of Irish Americans. But Annie McMahon was a determined woman. Just three months later, Mary was giving another statement to the Pension Bureau about her niece, one that was much more welcome:

Ann has to every appearance reformed and she believes is going to be a better woman and will hereafter take proper care of her children. She has entirely abstained from drink for a time, and has taken a house and put her children in it and has promised and entire reformation.

[image error]The grave of Irish immigrant James McMahon at Andersonville National Cemetery (Find A Grave)

Mary asked that Annie’s pension suspension be revoked, and promised that she would help her niece as much as she could. Against the odds, Annie had managed to come back from the brink. Her “reformation” was confirmed by one of the Bureau’s agents, who met with the two women to assess the case:

Ann McMahon is now before me with her aunt Mary Mallon. Ann appears to be genteely dressed, and looks as if some considerable reformation has taken place and she assures me that however bad she may have been, or neglectful of her children that she is in the future going to be a better woman and mother– I think she had better be trusted and her pension paid her so as to enable her to do what she promised to do in reference to taking care of her children.

The treatment of Annie McMahon throughout her case is illustrative of the prejudicial and judgmental attitudes towards poor working-class immigrant women that were ever present within 19th century society, and which were a constant within the pension system. It is a testament to Annie that she succeeded in overcoming them in order to hold her family together. We will never know the extent to which this was a “happy-ending”. It is unlikely that the underlying causes of Annie’s alcohol problem simply disappeared, and she probably long struggled with the mental impact of the losses she had endured. However, she never again faced the censure of the Bureau for her drinking, and appears to have maintained her relationship with her children for the remainder of her life. In the end, Annie outlived her husband James by more than forty years. When she passed away in 1904–then in her early seventies–she did so at the home of her daughter Elizabeth. Today the Irish immigrant and her daughter rest together at the Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Philadelphia.

[image error]Holy Redeemer Cemetery, where Annie is buried with her daughter and son-in-law (mostholyredeemercemetery.com)

References

1860 Census

Find A Grave

Pensions

73rd Pennsylvania Infantry Muster Rolls

Video: Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day during the American Civil War

This March I delivered a short talk for the CelticMKE St. Patrick’s Day at Home Festival. I concentrated on how units such as the Irish Brigade and the 9th Massachusetts celebrated St. Patrick’s Day during the American Civil War, with a focus on the famed events of 1863. Needless to say, some good fun was had by both the officers and men! The talk is now available on YouTube, and you catch it below:

Introducing The Civil War Bluejackets Project

I’m delighted to say that a project myself and Professor David Gleeson of Northumbria University have been working on for quite a while is now live. Last summer we instigated a pilot project with a team of dedicated volunteer transcribers to examine muster rolls of the “City-class” ironclads of the Mississippi Squadron, pas we sought to learn what these records might reveal about immigrant and African-American sailors. We will be sharing some our findings at the newly established project website; you can find it here and by clicking on the image below. Of particular interest to readers here is one of our first posts, this examination of the story of Offaly native James Carey, of USS Carondelet. I hope you will consider following some of what we post on the new website, and many thanks to everyone who was involved in the project!

[image error]

Recovering the Voices of the Union Irish

When I started this blog back in 2010 I couldn’t have imagined where it would lead, both in terms of the community and friendships that have built up around it, and with respect to my own research. As many of you will be aware, the website–and your support of it–have led me to the publication of two books on the Irish in the Civil War, and also opened up the world of the widow’s and dependent pension files for me. Back in 2017, I decided to take the plunge and leave my employment to pursue a full time PhD on the Irish experience, based on letters I had collected over the years from those files. I’m pleased to say that journey ended last week, with the successful defence of my thesis, which is entitled Recovering the Voices of the Union Irish: Identity, Motivation & Experience in Irish American Civil War Correspondence, 1861-65.

I am extremely grateful to my supervisors Professor David Gleeson and Dr Ann-Marie Einhaus for all their advice and assistance, and to Northumbria University for the scholarship without which I couldn’t have pursued these studies. Thanks are also due to my examiners Dr James McConnel and Professor Aaron Sheehan-Dean, and of course to my family and friends who supported my work over the years. But I wanted to take this opportunity to extend a special thanks to all of you for your continued interest in this topic over the years, and for your engagement with it. A particular note of appreciation is due to the site’s Patreons, without whose support the website could not have continued beyond 2017. In due course I am hoping that the thesis will eventually be worked into a publication, so be sure to keep an eye out for news of that– and thank you again!

Interview: Irish in the American Civil War & Digital Humanities

I was recently invited by H-CivWar– H-Net’s network on scholarship, teaching, and outreach on the history of the American Civil War– to discuss my website and some of the resources and projects on it for their Civil War Era & Digital Humanities Interview Series. I had a really enjoyable time chatting through some of the content and its background with H-CivWar Resource Editor Chase McCarter. If you are interested in hearing our conversation, H-CivWar have now uploaded it to YouTube, so you can access it through the H-CivWar Channel here or watch along directly below.

Andersonville Irish Spotlight. Grave 7401. George Sullivan, Dingle, Co. Kerry

George was born around 1845 in Dingle. He had been enrolled at Lynn, Massachusetts on 3rd December 1863, becoming a private in Company H of the 2nd Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, a unit with a heavy Irish American contingent. At the time he was described as an 18-year-old laborer, who was 5 feet 5 inches tall with a fair complexion, grey eyes and light brown hair. George was among those sent to garrison Plymouth, North Carolina. Plymouth fell to Confederate forces in April 1864, and its defenders were sent to Andersonville. This large influx of prisoners came to be known as the “Plymouth Pilgrims” (you can find more about them here). George died of scurvy in the Andersonville Hospital on 31st August 1864.

While George’s headstone refers to him as George Sullivan “Jr.”, this would appear to be an error, as his father’s name was James. The appelation may have resulted from the fact that there was another Irish emigrant in his company who shared his name- Corporal George Sullivan from Cork- and it may be that he was called “Junior” to differentiate between them. The older George survived Andersonville, but not for long. The hardships he endured there put him in his grave in 1867.

George’s death caused his elderly father James, a widower, to apply for a pension based on his son’s service. James has been born in West Kerry around the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1866 his physician Michael Roberts described the shoemaker as “an old man in enfeebled health” who suffered from a number of debilitating ailments, and as a consequence was uanble to support himself by physical labour. The affidavits that James provided in order to secure his pension provide us with a number of insights into Irish emigration, Irish life in America, and Irish relationships in Andersonville.

[image error]Andersonville in the summer of 1864 (Library of Congress)

The Sullivans were part of a tight knit Irish American community that was centred on Lawrence’s Fourth Ward. Many of the emigrants that the Sullivans were closest too were also from around the Dingle area, and bear testament to the story of chain migration and transplanted community that typified the 19th century Irish American experience. Among them were factory operative James Ashe and John Connors, both of whom were also originally from around Dingle. In January 1867 they provided the following statement:

for more than thirty years we have been acquainted with James Sullivan…and during all that time have been on intimate social relations with him and his family…we resided in the same town with him and his family for many years in Ireland, and also after his emigration to America…for more than twenty years (to our personal knowledge) both in Ireland and this Country…he lived and co-habited with Mary Sullivan (whose maiden name was Mary Murphy) as his wife and had several children by her…[they] were always reputed and believed in the community where they were born and resided up to the time of their emigration to America, fourteen years ago, as lawfully wedded husband and wife…

This statement indicates that the Sullivans were among the wave of emigrants who arrived in the United States in the early 1850s. George was probably around seven or eight years old and James in his early fifties when they first arrived, hoping to carve out a new life in Massachusetts. James’s own statement in early 1868 provided a bit more context as to their Irish origins and subsequent movements in America:

I resided and cohabited with her as my wife in…Dingle from the time of my marriage to the time of my removal with her and the rest of my family to America, fourteen years ago…we cohabited and lived together there afterwards in Lowell Mass until her decease which took place in Lowell about nine years ago…the date of my marriage to the best of my knowledge and belief was the fourteenth (14th) day of May AD 1822…there is no public record of my marriage that I can discover…I am unable to procure the affidavits of any living witnesses who were present when the marriage ceremony was performed.

Not long afterwards, James added further detail to this statement:

I was married to my wife, Mary Murphy, at Kerry in Ireland more than 40 years ago by Rev. John O’Sullivan a Priest of the Roman Catholic Church…the said clergyman by whom the marriage ceremony was performed has since died and no one of the persons who were present at the marriage are now alive…

Mary may be the 40-year-old woman recorded as succumbing to a disease of the lungs in Lowell in May 1860. Her death and James’s failing health placed additional burdens on the children, which consisted of at least two sons and two daughters- the future soldier George was apparently the eldest boy. While he was around 15 when his mother died, his sister Mary was 17, Elizabeth was 13, and John 12. In 1866 Mary and Elizabeth defined George’s role within the family, and his contribution towards the household:

for years before his enlistment [George] was regularly employed and resided in Lawrence and his earnings were regularly paid over to his father for his said father’s control and benefit. That upon his enlistment he gave over the bounty received from the State of Massachusetts for his said father’s support and there was also paid over from the City of Lawrence up to the time of [George’s] death the sum of four dollars per month on account of said soldier for his fathers support.

It is apparent that George’s decision to enlist was at least partly motivated by economics, as it was for many Irish Americans (and other working-class men). He may well have also been keen to do his bit for the country where he had grown up. Ultimately, his time in active service could be counted in weeks. A final affidavit in his file was provided by two men who knew him in uniform, and here too we are provided with an insight into how Irish Americans interacted during the Civil War. Studies have demonstrated that Irish Americans tended to coalesce when serving in non-ethnic units, and they also did so within the confines of Andersonville. It is little surprise then that the two men who provided statements as to George’s fate in the stockade were fellow Irish Americans in the 2nd Massachusetts. They were Irish-born Patrick Quinn, also of Lawrence, and John Linehan, who though born in Salem, Massachusetts was almost certainly also Irish American. In 1866 they confirmed:

we were fellow prisoners with George…he died while a prisoner in the hands of the rebels at Andersonville, Georgia, on or about the 25th day of August 1864. of disease…we were then fellow prisoners of war with him confined at Andersonville and know the facts of his death of personal knowledge…

James eventually satisfied the requirements of the Bureau and received a pension from 1868. Though a long and arduous process, the steps he had to go through preserved much detail about his own life and that of his young son, whose emigrant journey–which began with a childood departure from West Kerry–ended a little more than a decade later in Georgia clay.

[image error]A burial party interring the dead at Andersonville (Library of Congress)

If you have any information on Irish Americans at Andersonville please contact us at the project via email, andersonvilleirish@gmail.com.

*Thanks to Ed Boots for his contributions of Irish Plymouth Pilgrims at Andersonville.

References

Pension Files

Compiled Military Service Records

Censuus Returns

Massachusetts Death Records

The Pension Building: A Photographic Tour of the Former Home of Irish American Civil War Pensions

As regular readers will be aware, over the last decade or so my work on Irish pension files from the American Civil War has driven much of the content on this site. Today, those files are gathered together and protected by the National Archives, stored within the “stacks” of the NARA building on Pennsylvania Avenue. But back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when most of the Irish files were active and in use, they had a different home- The Pension Building. This remarkable structure still survives today. It is located at 401 F Street NW in Washington D.C., where it is now houses the National Building Museum. I had the opportunity to visit a number of years ago, and to take some photos of the place where so many life-altering decisions were made.

[image error]The Pension Building in Washington D.C. (Damian Shiels)

After the Civil War, as the work of the Pension Bureau grew and the number of active files exploded, it became apparent to Congress that the Bureau would need its own building. As a result, in 1881 the Quartermaster General of the United States Army, Montomgmery Meigs, was tasked with providing one. Perhaps most famous for his involvement in the development of Arlington National Cemetery, Meigs saw to it that construction on the The Pension Building began in 1882. The Bureau became active there in 1884, and Meigs had completed the project by 1887.

[image error]Montgomery C. Meigs, the man responsible for the development of The Pension Building (Library of Congress)

The building that Meigs produced was state of the art. It was designed to be fireproof and to provide a spacious environment for the Bureau staff to go about their work. All the offices were located around a massive central hall, rising over two stories. This “Great Hall” was also intended to provide a large space for major events within the city, a role it continues to perform. Among them are its occasional use as a venue for the Inaugural Balls of newly elected Presidents.

[image error]The Great Hall of The Pension Building (Damian Shiels)[image error]The Presidential Seal on the floor of the Great Hall, put in place in advance of the Inaugural Ball held for President William McKinley in 1901 (Damian Shiels)[image error]Presindent McKinley’s Inaugural Ball at The Pension Building in 1901 (Library of Congress)[image error]The Great Hall as seen from the upper arcade. The doors visible along the sides housed the offices of the Pension Bureau staff (Damian Shiels)

Despite the impressive nature of the building’s interior, for me its most stunning aspect is the spectacular frieze that wraps the facade of the building, just above its ground floor windows. Designed by Caspar Buberl, the friese is three feet high and 1,200 feet long, and provides a highly visual indication of why this building came to be. The panels take for their subject the Union armed forces of the Civil War, and are designed to represent infantry, cavalry, artillery, navy, quartermaster and medical units. You can see some details of the frieze in the slideshow below.

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At its heart, The Pension Building was designed to be functional. This is where the correspondence of Irish American veterans, widows and dependent mothers ended up, whether they were corresponding from Manhattan or Mayo. Many of the staff in the Bureau who handled their inquiries and their cases were themselves veterans, some disabled by their service. The design of the building attempted to accomodate that. It is most noticable in the distinctive shallow brick steps that provide access between floors, which were specifically intended to allow access by employees with reduced mobility.

[image error]The Pension Buildings shallow steps, designed to provide easier access for Bureau staff between floors, some of whom had been disabled through Civil War service (Damian Shiels)[image error]A view of the offices and large lighting windows. During its use by the Pension Bureau, the Great Hall was also used for the storage of files and to sort mail (Damian Shiels)

On my visit to The Pension Building, I was especially struck by one particularly emotive reminder of the enormous number of people who were impacted by the work that went on there. Above the office doors there survives the original “Document Track”, a metal rail designed to carry a basket that could hold 125 pounds of paper. The Bureau staff used it to easily move the files around the building as needed. According to Montgomery Meigs, in 1887 this system could move over a ton of documents in the course of a single day. No doubt innumerable Irish American files were among those that travelled up and down this system, as the Bureau staff went about their tasks.

[image error]The Document Track at The Pension Building, designed to aid in the easy movement of large numbers of pension files and other documents (Damian Shiels)[image error]The Document Track bends around one of the architectural features in The Pension Building (Damian Shiels)

When Irish and European widows and dependents were faced with a pension crisis in 1893 (you can read my piece about that here), they often directed their appeals directly to the Pension Commissioner. His office is the only one that has remained the same through the building’s history, retaining a number of the original architectural features that adorned his suite.

[image error]The Commissioner of Pensions in his office (Damian Shiels)[image error]The original fireplace in the Commissioner’s office (Damian Shiels) [image error]The decorated ceiling in the Commissioner’s Office (Damian Shiels)

The Bureau left The Pension Building in 1926, when the space was taken over by the General Accounting Office. For almost four decades it had been the heartbeat of the vast pension system, which did so much for those who had sacrificed during the conflict, and which has done so much for us as we seek to research and netter understand their lives. For those of you who have not had an opportunity to visit, I highly recommend a pilgrimage to the building once we have put the current pandemic behind us!

*Special thanks to Jackie Budell for helping to facilitate my visit to the building back in 2017, and for sharing her expertise.

** The factual information in this post has largely been derived from the excellent booklet written by Linda Brody Lyons and produced for the National Building Museum, A Handbook to the Pension Building: Home of the National Building Museum.

The research and cost-of-running of the Irish American Civil War website is self-financed. If you would like to support the work and upkeep of this site you can do so via my Patreon site for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/irishacw, or by making a one-off donation to the site’s running costs via the “Donate” button in the right-hand sidebar.

Andersonville Irish: New Map & Database Update

The latest update to the Andersonville Irish project has just been uploaded. The database now contains the details of 225 Irish Americans who lost their lives at the Prison Camp- you can access it on the project page here. The interactive Ireland map has also had numerous additions, something which you can explore via the project page, or by clicking on the MapHub link below.

I am deeply indebted to the many individuals who have made contributions to the project thus far. The response has been phenomenal. The names of those who have contributed are being recorded along with the details of the servicemen. I am hopeful that in the near future some of the family stories of discovery relating to the Andersonville Irish will be featured as part of the project.

In addition to the crowd-sourced contributions, I continue to conduct research myself to add to the list. It is apparent that those we have thus far identified are just a small proportion of the total. If you have any information regarding any Irish Americans who were imprisoned or died at Andersonville we are eager to hear from you- contributions can be made by emailing andersonvilleirish@gmail.com.

The Andersonville Irish by irishacw · MapHub

The locations in Ireland associated with men interred in Andersonville National Cemetery, Georgia.