Damian Shiels's Blog, page 23

An Interview with Civil War Times Magazine

I was delighted to be interviewed recently by the Civil War Times magazine regarding my work on the Irish in the American Civil War. The piece was published in their most recent issue, and has now been made freely available online on the magazine’s website. The main points discussed are my work on the widows and dependent pension files and their value to those of us interested in 19th century Irish emigration history, among other topics. If you would like to read the piece you can do so by clicking here.

The post An Interview with Civil War Times Magazine appeared first on Irish in the American Civil War.

Hearing the Voices of 19th Century Emigrants: A Case Study of Pension File Affidavits

Regular readers will be familiar with my use of the Widows and Dependents Pension Files housed in the National Archives as the main building-block for the stories on this site. I contend that these files likely represent the most important source of detailed family-level social history available anywhere in the world on 19th century Irish people. The key element in these applications is the affidavit– the sworn statements of prospective pensioners and their supporters. It is in these statements that we gain the most insight into the lives and experiences of these emigrants, and can draw inferences relating to topics such as chain-migration and emigrant community cohesion. I rarely present these affidavits to readers in their original form, choosing instead to source information from them and craft a narrative history of the family. This post takes a different approach. To provide readers with an idea of how these affidavits appear in their original form, I have reproduced a series of them relating to a single Irish emigrant family, the O’Donnells of Co. Donegal. They had their origins on Cruit Island in the Rosses, and settled in Pennsylvania Coal Country. Arranged in chronological order by date of deposition, the affidavits were given across seven years in the 1860s. As you will see, they provide us with a tremendous amount of information on the O’Donnell family in Ireland and America, and also reveal aspects of the Donegal immigrant community of which they formed a part.

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Cruit Island, Co. Donegal where the O’Donnells came from (Copyright Christoph, licensed under Creative Commons)

The O’Donnell file was created as a result of the service of John O’Donnell. The 21-year-old from The Rosses had enlisted in the United States Regulars at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on 30th October 1861. A miner by trade, he was described as 5 feet 9 inches in height, with grey eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion. John became a private in Company A of the 3rd Battalion, 18th United States Infantry, and his brief service was in the Western Theater. By 1st April 1862 he had fallen ill, and was left among the sick at Columbus, Tennessee. His situation failed to improve, and had deteriorated so badly by 24th June that he was discharged on a Surgeon’s Certificate at Nashville, Tennessee. The illness that had brought the young Irish immigrant low was Typhoid Fever. John O’Donnell made the long journey home to Clifton, Carbon County, Pennsylvania, only to die there on 26th August. (1)

After John’s death, his mother Elizabeth applied for a pension, stating that her son had been her main financial support. Our first affidavit dates to December 1862, some three months after John’s death. It carries the statements of three men from Luzerne County, Condy O’Donnell, Patrick Gallagher and Peter O’Donnell, all of whom attested to John’s illness on his return for the army. The purpose of this evidence was to prove that John had contracted his illness in the line of service (as opposed to afterwards).

DECEMBER 1862

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

LUZERNE COUNTY

Personally appeared before me Condy O’Donnell who being duly sworn according to law deposeth and saith that he was acquainted with John O’Donnell the son of Elizabeth O’Donnell the applicant in the above case. That he saw the said John about the last of June 1862 immediately after his return from the army. He appeared to be very sick and miserable. He had a large swelling under his ear and complained of pain in his breast. From his appearance I thought that he would not live long. He last saw said John on the 4th day of July. That at said time he looked no stronger or more healthy than when he first saw him. Sworn & subscribed before me this 27 day of December 1862.

Condy O’Donnell HIS MARK

Patrick Gallagher being duly sworn saith- I was acquainted with John O’Donnell. I saw him the night he came back from the army. He was very weak and sick, so weak that he could scarcely walk. He said he had lost his health in the army had been discharged and thought he would not live long. He stayed at my a part of the time until he left WIlkes Barre for Clifton. He left for Clifton about the 16 of July. He was no stronger when he left than when he first came. I did not think he could live long. he was entirely temperate and of good habits in every respect. Sworn & subscribed before me this 27 day of December 1862.

Patrick Gallagher

Peter O’Donnell being duly sworn saith, I was acquainted with John O’Donnell. I saw him in the month of August a few days before he died. He was in bed and so weak he could hardly talk. I asked him what ailed him. He said “the lump on his neck had fell down in his throat” and he had a very bad pain in his breast and breathed with great difficulty. He had no lump on his neck before he went to the army but was strong and active. His habits were very temperate and good in every respect. I think he died of the disease contracted while in the service. He had the attention of a Physician but could get no relief. I have no interest direct or indirect in the prosecution of this claim. Sworn & subscribed before me this 27 day of December 1862.

Peter O’Donnell (2)

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John O’Donnell’s discharge from the army (NARA/Fold3)

Although Condy O’Donnell couldn’t sign his name, both Patrick Gallagher and Peter O’Donnell were able to do so. All three bore surnames that strongly suggest they were Donegal natives. We find Condy O’Donnell on the 1860 Census living in Hazle Township, Luzerne County. He was enumerated as a 31-year-old miner born in Ireland. With him in the house were his brother Manus, Patrick and Margaret Ward and their family, Bridget Melly, Lawrence Herren, Edward McLinn, John Gallagher and Hugh Boyle. All had been born in Ireland, and all the men were either miners or laborers. Again, the surnames strongly suggest that the majority of these emigrants were from Co. Donegal, or at least North-West Ireland. The deponent Patrick Gallagher may be the Irish-born laborer also recorded in Hazle Township on the 1860 Census, living with miner Charles Gallagher and his family, and laborer Dominick McLin. This first affidavit provides us with specific detail about John O’Donnell’s final days, but also opens a window into how close-knit the Donegal Irish community was in this part of Pennsylvania. As we will discover later, we know that Elizabeth and John O’Donnell left Ireland around the late 1840s, during the Famine. Here we have evidence from more than a decade later to suggest they were firmly a part of not only an Irish immigrant community, but specifically of a Donegal one. (3)

The next affidavit on the file was deposed the following August, when Peter O’Donnell and Patrick Gallagher again gave evidence. As well as showing that John O’Donnell had supported his mother and had no other dependents, it sought to assist Elizabeth with a major stumbling block she had encountered with her application. It had become apparent that Elizabeth was not a widow, but was in fact married to a man named James McGarvey. The existence of a husband meant that in order to keep her pension claim alive she had to demonstrate that her spouse was either unable or unwilling to support her. The two men sought to do this by recounting the fact that James McGarvey had abandoned Elizabeth, and that they in fact had never met him.

AUGUST 1863

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

LUZERNE COUNTY

Before me…Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County personally appeared Patrick Gallagher and Peter O’Donnell residents of Wilkes Barre Township, in said County and State, persons whom I certify to be respectable and worthy of credit, who being duly sworn say that they are acquainted [with] Elizabeth O’Donnell, the present claimant, and that they were acquainted with John O’Donnell, late a private in Company “A”, 18th Regt U.S. Infantry, who was her son. He died on the 26th day of August AD 1862, which was about a month after he came home discharged. His mother, the present claimant depended on him entirely for support. Before he enlisted in the army he lived with her, and while he was there he sent her a part of his wages, which we know. He had supported her by his work for about six years before he enlisted. Elizabeth O’Donnell has a husband now living. His name is James McGarvey. He married her about eleven years ago and after living with her about a year he left her and she has never seen him since. We have never seen him. He has not lived with her for the past nine years, during which time we have known her. He has not contributed at all to her support during that time. We do not know whether he is living now, or not. They have no interest in the prosecution of this claim. They also state that John O’Donnell left neither widow nor children. He was not married.

Peter O’Donnell

Patrick Gallagher

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF LUZERNE

Before me Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas of Luzerne County personally appeared Paul Dunn, whom I certify to be a person of respectability and worthy of credit, residing in Wilkes Barre, Luzerne County, Penna, who being duly sworn says that he knew John O’Donnell, who was a private in Company “A”, 18th Regt U.S. Infantry. That before he enlisted and at the time he was apparently sturdy and well. That he saw him about the 25th day of August AD 1862, when he first came back from the army, discharged. He was then very sick, and of that sickness he died in about a month. He also states that he has no interest in the claim.

Paul Dunn (4)

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An example of one of the affidavits. On this page Condy O’Donnell has made his mark, and Patrick Gallagher has signed his name (NARA/Fold3)

This affidavit adds a further layer of information. Peter O’Donnell and Patrick Gallagher reveal details about John’s support and James McGarveys abandonment, but also indicate that they did not know Elizabeth prior to her emigration to the United States. This is interesting given their likely shared Donegal origins and is further evidence for the existence of a distinct network of Donegal natives who aided each other in the Coal Region. Elizabeth had become a part of that community in America, which was wider than just those that had known each other personally in the Old Country. Of course, Irish immigrants were members of many social networks concurrently, and Elizabeth O’Donnell was no exception. We can see this through the affidvavit of Paul Dunn, who gave his statement to prove that John O’Donnell had not been ill prior to his enlistment. Dunn was not from Donegal, nor was he born in Ireland. However, it seems likely he was part of the wider Irish-American community around Luzerne and Carbon Counties. The 1860 Census reveals the Pennsylvanian was a coal miner in Wilkes-Barre, living at home with his widowed, and Irish-born, mother. (5)

A month later Peter O’Donnell and Patrick Gallagher were back to give a third affidavit. They reiterated their previous statements, as well as providing details of Elizabeth’s first husband, John’s father. Another man, Darby Farry, also added his mark to the statement. Although we have no details on Darby’s origins, the Ferry/Ó Fearadhaigh is another surname directly associated with Co. Donegal.

SEPTEMBER 1863

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF LUZERNE

We Peter O’Donnell and Patrick Gallagher of Wilkes Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania being duly sworn, on our oaths say that we know Elizabeth O’Donnell, that she was married to Patrick O’Donnell in Ireland as we believe. That about eighteen years ago she came to this Country with her son John O’Donnell, the dec’d. That they lived together up to the time of his enlistment in the army. That for the past five years he has supported her by his work. That after he enlisted he sent her five dollars per month, and at one time he send her fifteen dollars in March 1862. That what he sent her was absolutely necessary for her support, to pay her board. That she has no property whatever, and is now supported by her friends, not being able to work. That James McGarvey who married her about eight or ten years ago, left her after he had lived with her a year, and we have never seen him since, nor has he been back, and no one here knows where he is. Also, I Darby Fary of Wilkes Barre, Luzerne County, Penna on my oath say that I know the facts set forth above to be true, being myself personally acquainted with Elizabeth O’Donnell and having been acquainted with her son John O’Donnell and knowing all the facts set forth and we have no interest in the claim.

Peter O’Donnell

Patrick Gallagher

Darby Farry HIS MARK (5)

Elizabeth had to do more to prove that she had been married to John O’Donnell’s father. In order to achieve this she had to send back to Ireland for proof of their union. In doing so she revealed for us her precise place of origin in Co. Donegal- Cruit Island. The document also indicates how communications were maintained across the Atlantic, often over decades. Owen Sharkey, a resident of Cruit who had been at Elizabeth’s wedding, gave a statement attesting to that fact which was forwarded to America through the U.S. Consul for Londonderry. Additionally the local parish priest added an annotation to confirm that the marriage was duly recorded in the parish registers.

JUNE 1865

Forwarded by Alexander Henderson, Consul of the United States for the Port of Londonderry, 29 June 1865

SOLEMN DECLARATION

PETTY SESSIONS DISTRICT OF DUNGLOE

COUNTY OF DONEGAL

I Owen Sharkey of Cruit do solemnly and sincerely declare, that Elizabeth O’Donnell formerly of Cruit Island, Co. Donegal, Ireland, but now a resident of Eckley, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, America, was in my presence married to the late Patrick O’Donnell of the aforesaid Island of Cruit, by the late Revd. Bernard O’Donnell, then Parish Priest, of the Parish of Templecrone in the County Donegal.

And I further declare, that John O’Donnell, whom I knew and who, I am led to believe, died while in the service of the United States Government during the late war, was an issue of the said marriage.

Owen Sharkey HIS MARK

Subscibed this 6th day of June 1865

The register of this parish agrees with what is written & testified by the magistrates on the other side

Donl O’Donnell PP

Templecrone

Kinkaslough [Kincaslough]

Co. Donegal

26 June ’65 (6)

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Correspondence from the Londonderry Consulate appended to the details of Elizabeth’s marriage (NARA/Fold3)

The ever reliable Peter O’Donnell was back to give his fourth affidavit the following month, to again reiterate that John’s health had failed while in the army, and not before. This statement was strengthened by the addition of Francis Coll’s testimony. Francis was the same age as John O’Donnell and had enlisted on the same day with him into the same regiment. Five feet 9 inches in height, Francis was a miner by trade, with hazel eyes, dark brown hair and a sandy complexion. Born in Ireland, Francis’s surname strongly suggests he was from Co. Donegal, indeed he may also have been from The Rosses, where the surname is among its most plentiful. He had not been in a position to provide an affidavit in 1863 as he was still in service, having served out his three years with the regiment, along the way fighting in some of the major battles of the Western Theater. (7)

AUGUST 1865

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF LUZERNE

Personally appeared before me Prothonotary of Court of Common Pleas for said County Peter O’Donnell and Francis Coll citizens entitled to credit and on oath said they were personally acquainted with John O’Donnell private in Co A 3d Bat, 18th Reg U.S. Reg Inf. That at time of enlisting the said John O’Donnell was a healthy man and had been so as long as they had known him. That said John O’Donnell was honorably discharged from military service by reason of Surgeons Certificate of Disability about the 1st of July 1863. That the said John O’Donnell was very sick when discharged. That he died on the 26 of July 1863 of disease of which he was sick when he came home and which he contracted in service and that they have no interest in the claim.

Francis Coll: HIS MARK

Peter O’Donnell

Contents made known, marked, signed and sworn to before me this 8 day of August 1865 and I certify I have no interest in this claim.

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF LUZERNE

Personally appeared before me Prothonotary of Court of Common Please in said County Peter O’Donnell and Francis Coll, citizens to me well known and entitled to credit and on oath declared that they have been for eleven years acquainted with Elizabeth McGarvey. That she is the mother of John O’Donnell late a private in Co A, 3 Bat 18 Reg U.S. Reg Inf Vol. That Elizabeth McGarvey was formerly the wife of Patrick O’Donnell. That she had by said Patrick O’Donnell six children, Hugh, Patrick and John O’Donnell being three boys and Mary, Bridget and Ann O’Donnell being three daughters. That the father Patrick O’Donnell and Hugh and Patrick O’Donnell two sons died in Ireland. That the mother came to America with John O’Donnell her son and her three daughters aforesaid. That sometime after coming to America Elizabeth O’Donnell widow of Patrick O’Donnell married James McGarvey. That the said Elizabeth lived with the said James McGarvey as his wife for about two years, when owing to James McGarvey’s drinking so much liquor and not working she was compelled to leave him. That she the said Elizabeth McGarvey has not lived with James McGarvey for eight years or more. That the said James McGarvey continued drinking until he finally got deranged and for some three years has been wandering about from place to place, and when last heard from was in Brooklyn N.Y. That he has never contributed to the support of his wife the said Elizabeth McGarvey. That he is worth no property, is not able to, and cannot be made to by law. That the three daughters the said Elizabeth had by her first husband are now married and are unable to furnish anything for the support of their mother. That the said Elizabeth McGarvey is now old and very infirm in health and unable to support herself. That for the last six years she the said Elizabeth McGarvey has been wholly dependent upon John O’Donnell her son late a private in Co A the aforesaid for support. Their knowledge of this arose from the following sources: Peter O’Donnell was working in the mines with said John O’Donnell at Buck Mountain and knew that the said John O’Donnell up to the time of going to war used his wages to support his mother, paid the rent of her house, paid her store bill & c. Francis Coll was with the said John O’Donnell in the same Company and Regiment, and knew the said John O’Donnell sent his money home when he received his pay from the Government to his mother for her to use. That they have no interest whatever in this claim.

Francis Coll: HIS MARK

Peter O’Donnell (8)

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Elizabeth lived in Eckley at the time she sent to Ireland for proof of her marriage. Elements of the mining village that existed there survive to this day (Image: Jerrye & Roy Klotz MD)

The probability that Francis Coll’s family had known the O’Donnells in Ireland is further strengthened by his knowledge of their lives in the Old Country. The affidavit reveals that aside from her husband Patrick (who died around 1840), Elizabeth had lost two sons on Cruit, Hugh and Patrick Junior. It may have been these latter deaths that prompted the widow’s emigration, almost certainly travelling to the Coal Region in Pennsylvania to join other members of the Cruit emigrant community. This affidavit provides us with perhaps the greatest detail on Elizabeth’s “back story”, including the fact that her second husband James McGarvey had an alcohol problem. The next document, dated to September 1867, is the first time that we hear from Elizabeth herself. (9)

SEPTEMBER 1867

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF CARBON

On this day of September A.D. 1867 before me the Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas in and for said County personally appeared Elizabeth McGarvey who being my me duly sworn according to law makes the following statement in support of her claim 9,413 for pension:

That her age is about 61 years and that she was born in County Donegal Ireland where she was married to Patrick O’Donnell the father of her son John O’Donnell deceased and where the said Patrick died about 27 years ago. That some time after his death she emigrated to this Country where she again married James Garvey who lived with her for a period of nearly three years at the expiration of which time he abandoned and deserted the deponent and is now supposed to be dead although nothing definite concerning his fate is known. That Garvey has never from the date of their marriage contributed one penny toward the support of this deponent but that she has been entirely dependent upon her said son John O’Donnell for support who contributed all his earnings from his childhood toward her maintenance.

That the said John enlisted in the service of the United States on or about the 30th day of October 1861 and while in said service contracted the disease of which he died at Buck Mountain Carbon County Pennsylvania.

She hereby constitutes and appoints Ed C. Dominick of Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, Pennsylvania her true and lawful attorney for her and in her name to prosecute this claim and hereby revokes all powers of attorney by her at anytime heretofore made.

Elizabeth Garvey HER MARK

Also personally appeared Isabella Kennedy and James Gallagher residents of Mauch Chunk in the County and State aforesaid to me well known and whom I certify to be respectable and entitled to credit and who being by me duly sworn according to law declare that their ages are respectively forty seven and sixty five years and they have been for thirty years and more well acquainted with Elizabeth McGarvey above named that they knew her in Ireland as the wife of Patrick O’Donnell and know the fact that said Patrick died in Ireland. That they have known ever since her residence in the United States and know the fact that she married James Garvey who deserted her about three years after their marriage since which time they have hard nor seen nothing of them. They further swear from personal knowledge that since her marriage and up to the time of his death the said John her only surviving son kept the house & supported her, contributing the rent, food and clothing and all things necessary to her support and this he has done for a period of more than ten years.

They further swear that the said Elizabeth McGarvey has no property whatever wither real or personal but is in destitute circumstances and further that they have no interest in this claim.

Isabella Kennedy HER MARK

James Gallagher HIS MARK (10)

The interchangeability of surnames and surname spellings is notable in Elizabeth’s file, in which she is variously referred to as O’Donnell, McGarvey and Garvey. Her statement confirmed the facts provided by others, and the affidavit provides us detail on two more Donegal emigrants from The Rosses. Isabella Kennedy and James Gallagher made their homes in Mauch Chunk (Jim Thorpe) and had known Elizabeth in Ireland. Isabella appears in the town in the 1860 Census, when she was enumerated as 35-years-old and living with her husband Patrick, a laborer, and their four children. (11)

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Buck Mountain, where John O’Donnell spent time working as a coal miner (Image: Jakec)

That November Elizabeth got two more Irish-Americans to attest to her son’s health prior to his enlistment, and also procured a statement from the physician, A.A. Ziegenfus, who had cared for her son during his last days.

NOVEMBER 1867

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF CARBON

On this 21st day of November A.D. 1867 before me a Justice of the Peace in and for said County personally appeared A A Ziegenfus MD a resident practising physician of Buck Mountain to me well known and whom I certify to be respectable and entitled to credit and reputable and skilful in his profession and who being by me duly sworn according to law declares that he was the attending physician in the last illness of John O’Donnell who died on the 26th day of August A.D. 1862 of Phthisis Pulmonalis (Consumption of the Lungs) and that he has no interest in this claim.

A.A. Ziegenfus M.D.

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF CARBON

On this 21st day of November AD 1867 before me a Justice of the Peace in and for said County personally appeared Patrick Brannan and James Brannan residents of Buckmountain Carbon Co to me well known and whom I certify to be respectable and entitled to credit and who being by me duly sworn according to law declare that they have been for 16 years well acquainted with John O’Donnell deceased and know the fact that previous to and immediately after his enlistment in the service of the United States he was a strong healthy and robust man, a laborer by occupation and without any indication of disease and that he returned home after his discharge from said service in a dying condition, and further that they have no interest in this claim.

Patrick Brannan HIS MARK

James Brannan HIS MARK (12)

The final affidavit on file dates to July 1869. Again the first deponent was Elizabeth, supported again by James Gallagher of Mauch Chunk and this time by another new deponent, John Gallagher, presumably another Donegal emigrant.

JULY 1869

STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA

COUNTY OF CARBON

On this Seventh day of July AD1869 before me the Prothonotary of the Court of Common Pleas in and for said County. Personally appeared Elizabeth Garvey a resident of Buck Mountain in the County of Carbon and State of Pennsylvania aged about sixty six years who being first duly sworn according to law doth on her oath make the following declaration in order to obtain the benefits of the provisions made by the Act of Congress approved July 14th 1862: That she is the widow of Patrick O’Donnell and mother of John O’Donnell who was a private in Company “A” of the Eighteenth (18th) Regiment of United States Infantry in the war of 1861 who died at Buck Mountain aforesaid on the 26th day of August AD1862 by reason of disease contracted in the service of the United States and line of his duty. She further swears that her husband the said Patrick O’Donnell to whom she was married in the year 1826 died in Ireland about the year 1840 and that she was again married to James Garvey in June AD1852. That the said James Garvey lived with her for the period of two years and ten months at the expiration of which time he deserted her and she has neither seen nor heard of him since and verily believes that he is dead. That she said since his desertion of her [he] has never contributed anything toward her support and since that time she has been dependent upon her said son John.

She further declares that her said son upon whom she was wholly or in part dependent for support having left no widow or minor child under sixteen years of age surviving but having died unmarried and leaving no child declarant makes this application for a pension under the above mentioned Act and refers to the evidence filed herewith and that in the proper department to establish her claim.

She also declares that she has not in any way been engaged in or aided or abetted the Rebellion in the United States. That she is not in the receipt of a pension under the 2d section of the Act above mentioned or under any other Act nor has she again married since the death of her son the said John O’Donnell. That her post office address is Buck Mountain, Carbon County, Pennsylvania and she hereby constitutes and appoints Ed C Dominick of Mauch Chunk, Carbon County, Pennsylvania her true and lawful attorney for her and in her name to prosecute this claim and further that her maiden name was Elizabeth Campbell.

Elizabeth Garvey HER MARK

Also personally appeared John Gallagher and James Gallagher persons to me well known and whom I certify to be respectable and entitled to credit and who being by me duly sworn according to law say that they were present and saw Elizabeth Garvey make her mark to the foregoing declaration and they further swear that they have every reason to believe both from the appearance of the applicant and their acquaintance with her that she is the identical person she represents herself to be and further that they have no interest in the prosecution of this claim. And the said James Gallagher further swears that he and the said Patrick O’Donnell were born and brought up within three miles of each other in Ireland, that they were close friends while in the Old Country and he distinctly remembers the fact of the marriage of Patrick O’Donnell and Elizabeth Campbell though he was not present at the ceremony. The said Patrick died as this deponent is informed in the Old Country in the year 1840- his widow the said Elizabeth came to this country about twenty years ago and married James Garvey who deserted her a short time after their marriage.

They further swear that the said Elizabeth was dependent upon her son the said John to support for at least the period of two years previous to his death contributing regularly to her support a large proportion of his wages. That she is not now nor has she been since deserted by the said Garvey possessed of any property but since that time has been dependent and supported by her son. And the said John Gallagher further swears that he saw the said John O’Donnell the day he returned from the army he was then sick and obliged to go immediately to bed at the house adjoining this affidavit’s in the Borough of Mauch Chunk aforesaid. That the appearance of the said O’Donnell was then so altered by illness that this deponent with difficulty recognised him. That he remained at this house for a period of about ten days when he recovered sufficiently to be removed to his home at Buck Mountain where he shortly afterward died, this deponent attending the funeral.

John Gallagher HIS MARK

James Gallagher HIS MARK (13)

The July 1869 affidavits were finally enough to get Elizabeth’s application approved, some seven years after the death of her son. A total of 14 individuals gave statements in support of Elizabeth’s pension application. Of them it would seem that 13 were Irish-American, and as many as 12 were Irish-born. The bulk were also almost certainly Donegal emigrants. Given the origins of at least some of them in The Rosses, it is also likely that they grew up as native gaelic speakers. Although the affidavits themselves contain much of the same information, readers will have noted how each one often adds a subtly different piece of the puzzle, which when taken together offer us a glimpse of Elizabeth and her family’s experience. The range and backgrounds of those who assisted her also tell us much about maintained trans-Atlantic connections, and perhaps most strikingly, about the ties among a specific community of Donegal immigrants working the anthracite fields of North-East Pennsylvania. (14)

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The prison in Mauch Chunk (now Jim Thorpe). Large numbers of Irish miners lived in this area, and in 1877 a number of them, accused of membership of the Molly Maguires, were executed here (Damian Shiels)

* None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

(1) Register of Enlistments, WC133690; (2) WC133690; (3) 1860 Census; (4) WC133690; (5) 1860 Census; (5) WC133690; (6) WC133690; (7) Register of Enlistments, WC133690; (8) WC133690; (9) Ibid.; (10) Ibid.; (11) 1860 Census; (12) WC133690; (13) Ibid.; (14) Ibid.;

References

Register of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914.

1860 U.S. Federal Census.

Widow’s Certificate 133690 of Elizabeth Garvey, Mother of John O’Donnell, Company A, 18th United States Infantry.

Christoph Flickr Page.

The post Hearing the Voices of 19th Century Emigrants: A Case Study of Pension File Affidavits appeared first on Irish in the American Civil War.

A Newly Uncovered Letter from the “Angel of Andersonville”

On 26th October 1861 Kerry native Andy Moriarty made his way to Fort Leavenworth to join the United States Regulars. The 26-year-old had been making his home in Kansas Territory’s Davis County, where he ran a small farm. But now Andy had taken the decision to leave his wife and two small children behind to don Union blue. He had married fellow Irish emigrant Mary Breen in Cincinnati, Ohio on 24th April 1856, where their daughter Kate was born the following year. Probably tempted by the promise of the land, the young family had moved to the Kansas Territory by the time their son Daniel was born in 1860. (1)

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Leavenworth, Kansas in the 1860s (Library of Congress)

Andy wasn’t motivated by patriotism, or even by financial reward. Apparently he had been “involved in an unfortunate difficulty, which, in his estimation, made it expedient, for the time being, to assume another name than his own..and enlist.” What the “unfortunate difficulty” was isn’t known, but Andy though it prudent to use his wife’s maiden name for the duration of his enlistment. So it was that Andy “Breen” marched off to war as a private in Company F of the 2nd United States Infantry. Upon joining he was described as a laborer, with blue eyes, brown hair, a fair complexion, and standing 5 feet 5 1/2 inches tall. The Irish emigrant spent his service in the Eastern Theater, where the 2nd ultimately became part of the Army of the Potomac and were involved in some of the most famous battles of the conflict. (2)

It was sometime during the Mine Run Campaign in late 1863 that Andy was taken prisoner. Sent first to Richmond, he was later moved to Andersonville in Georgia, where he succumbed to dysentry in mid-August 1864. For many months Mary was unaware of what had become of her husband. Then, as the war wound down in April 1865, her employer– Kansas Bishop John Baptist Miège– received the following letter in Fort Leavenworth:

Savannah, GA, Apl 26th 1865

Rt Revd & Dear Bishop

I attended the Federal prisoners at Andersonville GA until they were removed last October. I attended hundreds of Catholics, I baptised hundreds, and received into the Church very, very many protestants. The deaths during my stay were over 11,000.

Andrew Breen (prisoner), whose wife is your house keeper, died about the 16th of last August. The inclosed form of will he handed to me, requesting that I would forward to you, and that you would look to his wife & children. He was a good man, and died satisfied with the will of God. This Civil War has had its sad effects, pray for me.

I am dear Bishop

Yrs Truly in Ct

Peter Whelan (3)

The correspondent, Father Peter Whelan, is often referred to as “The Angel of Andersonville.” Born in Clongeen, Foulksmills, Co. Wexford around 1802, he was roused by a call for priests from the Bishop of Charleston and departed for America in the 1820s. Ordained in Charleston in 1830, Father Whelan began his ministry in Locust Grove, Georgia, and was stationed in Savannah by the time war approached. An ardent secessionist, at the outbreak of the conflict he became chaplain of the Irish Montgomery Guards at Fort Pulaski, with whom he was captured in 1862. Following exchange Father Whelan became responsible for providing religious support to Confederate posts in Georgia, and it was in this capacity that he first visited Andersonville. (4)

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Father Peter Whelan (Catholic Church in America)

The Wexford priest was described by fellow Irish Confederate Chaplain James Sheeran as “an Irishman of the old style or fashion, with a big heart and some peculiar intellectual qualities”. His efforts to provide spiritual care for the prisoners at Andersonville proved memorable to many who had been incarcerated at Camp Sumter. He ministered to the Andersonville Raiders prior to their execution and in September 1864 raised money to buy flour so as to supply prisoners with much needed bread. Whelan was fondly remembered in the memoirs of a number of former POWs. Among them was John Vaughter:

I will not omit the ministry of a Catholic priest. He visited the prison regularly, giving the consolations of his church to the sick, shriving the dying, and sprinkling holy water on the dead. He was willing to talk to any one who cared for religious conversation. He seemed very industrious and earnest in his work. Suppose that of the thirteen thousand buried in that old field, there will be one who will at last arise justified through Christ. And suppose that the judgment shall be as Jesus described it. If so, of all the ministers in Georgia, accessible to Andersonville, only one could hear this sentence, “I was sick and in prison and ye visited me,” and that one is a Catholic. (5)

One of those that Father Whelan ministered was Andy Moriarty. His letter was likely one of many he wrote at the war’s conclusion regarding the fate of former prisoners. The correspondence, though brief, contains interesting insights into his time at Andersonville, particularly how he advanced adherence to the Catholic faith within the camp. Whelan had undoubtedly suffered great emotional strain during his time caring for the prisoners, and the experience had dampened his early war enthusiasm. Despite what he had witnessed, he did not blame those in charge of the camp, later seeking to come to the defence of the Andersonville commandant, Henry Wirz. Father Whelan died in 1871 and is buried in Savannah. Mary Moriarty used the Wexford priest’s letter, together with the testimony of Fort Leavenworth Irish– men like Galway born ragman Henry Sugrue, and former 2nd U.S. Infantry soldier Michael Lannan from Clare– to prove her husband’s identity and fate. Mary, who had emigrated to America at the height of the Great Famine in 1848, passed away in Des Moines, Iowa on 11th January 1921. (6)

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“The Midnight Storm” depicting exposed Andersonville prisoners (JP Davis)

* None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

(1) Widow’s Certificate; (2) Ibid., Register of Enlistments; (3) Widow’s Certificate; (4) Atwater 1866:70, Widow’s Certificate; Gleeson 2013: 153, 165-7; (5) Sheeran 2016: 286, Kellogg 1865: 171, Vaughter 1880: 62-3; (6) Widow’s Certificate;

References & Further Reading

Widow’s Certificate 51999 of Mary Moriarty, widow of Andrew Moriarty, Company F, 2nd United States Infantry.

Register of Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914.

Atwater, Dorence 1866. A List of the Union Soldiers Buried at Andersonville.

Gleeson, David T. 2013. The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America.

Kellogg, Robert H. 1865. Life and Death in Rebel Prisons.

Sheeran, James (edited by Patrick J. Hayes) 2016. The Civil War Diary of Rev. James Sheeran, C.Ss.R: Chaplain, Confederate, Redemptorist.

Vaughter, John B. 1880. Prison Life in Dixie.

Andersonville National Historic Site.

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Visualizing the Impact of the American Civil War on a Manx Family

As regular readers will be aware, I occasionally take the opportunity to explore some non-Irish emigrant stories on the site. On this occasion I have been researching the experiences of the Kermeens, a family who made their home on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. They were a family split by emigration; what they underwent demonstrates how the impact of the American Civil War could be felt for decades, even thousands of miles from the seat of fighting. I have chosen to turn once more to Knightlab’s StoryMap JS as a tool to visualize their story (for another example, see Visualizing One Irishwoman’s Experience of the American Civil War Using StoryMap JS). You can access the Kermeen StoryMap by clicking here or on the image below. [image error]

The post Visualizing the Impact of the American Civil War on a Manx Family appeared first on Irish in the American Civil War.

Introducing the New Irish in the American Civil War Website

After seven years operating the site on wordpress.com, I recently took the decision to migrate Irish in the American Civil War to a new home at wordpress.org. There are a number of reasons for the move, but the main one is that it provides more flexibility for the future as the site continues to grow. As part of the move I have engaged in a complete site redesign. In addition to the ever-present blog and resource sections, I have added a new page looking specifically at visualisations. In addition, I have added some pages about my own publications and expertise. Please bear with me as I continue to tweak the site over the coming weeks. As readers will appreciate it is no easy task to move hundreds of posts and pages and around 1,000,000 words to a new home! Everyone who has subscribed to the site will continue to receive notifications of new posts as normal, and there should be no material difference in the way you experience and interact with them. I am happy to receive any feedback readers have, and I hope you enjoy the revamp!

The post Introducing the New Irish in the American Civil War Website appeared first on Irish in the American Civil War.

Johanna Barry: The Story of an Emigrant Domestic in Ireland & America, 1836-1916

On 17th September 1862, 27-year-old tailor Denis Barry from Dunmanway in West Co. Cork ventured into Antietam’s West Woods with the 19th Massachusetts Infantry. He never came out again. One of the legacies of Denis’s death is the extraordinary detail it has left us about the life of his wife Johanna, covering her time in both Ireland and the United States across more than half a century. His death also allows us to examine the close links that many Irish emigrants maintained with those who remained in Ireland, as well as their friends and former neighbours who had made new lives in America. It is yet another exemplar of why the widow’s and dependent pension files are surely the greatest source on the individual experiences of 19th century Irish people available anywhere in the world. (1)

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Maids draw water from a well, 1864. Johanna spent the majority of her life in domestice service in Ireland and America (Oscar Gustave Rejlander)

Denis was born on Cat Lane in the town of Dunmanway to John and Johanna Barry (née Brennan). The couple’s eldest son, he was baptised on 27th November 1835. The following year, Johanna Sullivan was born in the same locality, and the two children grew up knowing each other. Between 1845 and 1852 both witnessed the full brunt of the Famine in West Cork, living as they did in one of the most severely impacted areas on the entire island. A measure of the conditions that were being reported from there can be visualised in this 1847 letter written from Dunmanway:

Truly the land is becoming…one vast Lazar house of the dead and dying. Literally the cry of famine is never out of our ears from dawn till late evening. And now the pestilence is raging, the poor creatures previously weakened by want of food, have no strength left to contend with fever, and are swept, away, notwithstanding all we can do to save them. Our own Poor House, intended for 400 persons, is now never without 800 inmates. We still have here the luxury of coffins, but how long that privilege of decent burials will be continued, we cannot tell…In some places near us, the dead are buried without coffins in heaps, and hungry dogs drag the corpses from their graves, and eat them. A man saw his wife’s head in a dog’s mouth… (2)

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Dunmanway from the Bridge on the Cork Road, 1848 (The Felon’s Track)

Denis and Johanna survived these hazardous times, but the two approached adulthood in what was a fundamentally changed country. Denis learned the trade of tailoring, possibly from his father. Meanwhile Johanna entered into a life of domestic service, obtaining a position as a servant in the priest’s house in nearby Enniskeane. On the 8th September 1857 in the parish Church of St. Mary’s the couple, who had spent all their lives in the same circles, married. They were united by the Reverend Father James Bowen with their friends Michael Kearney and Eliza Hurley standing as witnesses. At the time, Denis was 22 and Johanna 20. Before they wed the couple had already determined that their married life would not be in Ireland. Like many other newlyweds at the time, they decided to almost immediately make for the emigrant boat. Within days they were spending their last night in West Cork– under the roof of Denis’s parents on Castle Street. Perhaps they had something like an “American Wake” there, as they said farewell to many family and friends for the final time. (3)

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Marriage Certificate of Denis and Johanna Barry (NARA/Fold3)

Denis and Johanna Barry made their way to Liverpool, possibly via Queenstown and Cork Harbour. There they took passage on the Ship Australia bound for New York. On 4th November 1857, less than two months after their marriage, the couple arrived in Castle Garden on the southern tip of Manhattan. Their new life in the United States had begun. However, it dosen’t seem to have lasted long with the couple under the same roof. About a year after they first landed, Denis’s first cousin– also called Denis Barry, and also a tailor– came over from Cork. The two Denis’s struck out for Boston on the look out for employment, while Johanna stayed in New York and continued her work as a domestic. Whether there was more to their parting than just economic necessity is unknown, but according to Johanna the couple stayed in touch. She remembered:

She [Johanna] came once…to Boston in 1859, and went with her husband to East Cambridge in search of friends who had recently come from Ireland. She stopped with her husband four days at his boarding house and returned again to New York [as she] had no acquaintances in Boston and did not wish to remain…[Denis] came frequently to New York to see her and both her husband and his cousin came to see her in New York in March 17th St. Patrick’s Day 1861. (4)

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Castle Garden record pertaining to the arrival of Johanna and Denis in New York (NARA/Fold3)

Johanna might have been reluctant to move on from New York because she had obtained a good position. She may be the 24-year-old Joanna Barry recorded in 1860 as a domestic in the 16th Ward, living in the home of Ethan Watson, a New Yorker with a personal estate valued at $25000. Alternately she may be the 25-year-old of the same name who was a live-in servant with the Irish Mahoney family in the First Ward. Either way Johanna was still in New York in August 1861 when she received a letter from Denis informing her that both he and his cousin had enlisted in the army. On his enlistment Denis was described as 5 feet 5 1/2 inches tall, with blue eyes, a dark complexion and black hair. Unsurprisingly, the military records of Denis and his cousin were easily confused, particularly so after his cousin deserted the unit at Lynnfield, Massachusetts before the regiment left the state. According to Johanna, her husband’s cousin did so in order to travel to New York and join the Irish Brigade (he may be the Denis Brady who enlisted in the 69th New York on 30th September 1861, and was discharged following a wound at the Battle of Malvern Hill). Johanna’s Denis stayed with the 19th Massachusetts, and was with the regiment when it marched up Broadway on its way to the front. While stationed in New York Denis met Johanna, and “placed in her hands seventy-five dollars” which she immediately lodged in the Emigrant Savings Bank at 51 Chambers St. Over the course of the next year Denis corresponded regularly with his wife. At Glendale during the Seven Days’ fighting he was wounded in the head and apparently captured, but had recovered and was exchanged in time to participate in the Maryland Campaign. There his luck ran out, when he was killed in action somewhere near Antietam’s West Woods on 17th September 1862. (5)

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Dead on the Antietam battlefield (Library of Congress)

Johanna applied for a pension based on Denis’s service, which was granted in 1864. We can follow her through records like those of New York’s Emigrants Savings Bank. In 1863, while living in Cliff Street and working as a domestic, her account– 33449– bore a note to say she was “a widow of Denis Barry Co. E. 19th Mass. Vols., no child. In case of death she wishes her mother who is coming from Ireland to get the money.” Johanna seems to have been fastidious about keeping up contact with home, and in remitting money for the care of both her direct family and in-laws in Ireland. Although her mother may never have made the trip, in 1866 Johanna was reunited with a most welcome visitor from Ireland when her best friend arrived in America. Her name was Catherine Murray, and she stayed a while with Johanna in New York before making for her new home in East Cambridge, Massachusetts– the very place where Johanna had visited friends in the late 1850s. It is evident that East Cambridge was a major centre for emigrants from Dunmanway and Enniskeane, and it is little surprise that Johanna herself elected to move there by around 1870. (6)

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Irish emigrants sending money back to Ireland from the Emigrants Savings Bank in 1880 (Library of Congress)

When Johanna first moved to Massachusetts, she sought out her friend Catherine (whose married name was Barrett). The two “shared a yard” for four years, and the widow also spent two years living with the Fee family. She spent a year in the service of Edward McMahon, and two years as a tenant in his house. Edward would describe Johanna as of “very good character.” By 1880 she was boarding with Hannah Doran and her family. That was also the year her life began to unravel. Having claimed her pension for 16 years, she was notified her future payments were being suspended, as another woman had also been claiming benefits based on Denis’s wartime service. Her name was Catherine White; she maintained that she had married Denis Brady in St. Mary’s Church, Boston on 29th December 1858, and had borne him two children, William (b. 1860) and Catherine (b. 1862). Catherine had subsequently remarried, but her children had continued to benefit from pension payments. What was the truth of the matter? The dates that Catherine White put forward certainly did overlap with the time Denis was living away from Johanna in Massachusetts. Unsurprisingly, in all her future correspondence, Johanna (and the Barry family) claimed Denis had never remarried. The truth may be found in an account given by Johanna’s priest in East Cambridge. He wrote the following in support of her quest for reinstatement of the pension:

I am assistant pastor of the church at which she [Johanna] worships…I obtained her marriage certificate for her from her pastor in Ireland…Catherine White is not the lawful wife of…Denis Barry…Barry lawfully married…Joanna in Ireland and…sometime after emigrating to America he married Catherine White but without having his first marriage annulled and without divorce from his first wife. (7)

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East Cambridge in 1854 (Walling)

The loss of her pension caused Johanna significant financial hardship. In an effort to re-assert her claim, she drew on the strong connections that she had maintained with Dunmanway/Enniskeane emigrants, as well as those that had never left Ireland. In so doing she left us a record of how strong these ties often were– all the more notable as we know that Johanna was unable to either read or write. Among those who gave statements on her behalf was her childhood friend Catherine Barrett (Murray). Another was Catherine’s mother, Johanna Murray, who in 1880 was living at 20 North Street in East Cambridge. One of the lesser studied aspects of 19th century emigration is how those who left often later sent for their elderly parents. Johanna Barry had intended to do this, and Catherine Barrett (Murray) certainly did. When Johanna Murray gave her evidence she stated that she was 75-years-old, and that until her early 60s she and her husband had lived all their lives some five miles outside Dunmanway and a mile from Enniskeane. She had known all the Barrys well, and Johanna from the time she was born, as her Sullivan parents had their home only a half mile from her own in Cork. As a testament to how these emigrant communities stuck together, Johanna Murray noted that she had seen Johanna Barry almost every day since she had moved to East Cambridge. (8)

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Immigrants arriving at Castle Garden, 1880 (Harpers Weekly)

We know that the remittance of money by emigrants back to Ireland was an extremely important financial aid to many who never left the country. Johanna not only sought to do this for her own Sullivan family, she also tried to help her in-laws, Denis’s Barry family in Dunmanway. That she did so is clearly communicated in the following letter, which her mother-in-law, Denis’s mother (yet another Johanna!), had penned in late 1880:

Dunmanway

December 6th 1880

My Dear Daughter

I received your welcome letter, and I feel very glad to hear you were well in health, as this leaves us all in at present thanks be to God. You told me to go [to] the workhouse for your brother’s child. I went there and he was taken out a fortnight before by his aunt. If I had known before that he was there I would have taken him without you telling me in compliment of yourself if I never got a farthing for it. There was a good deal of money left after your mother, and they had no occasion to put the child in the workhouse. Any time that I can I’ll take the child. As soon as I’ll get him and send him to school. Let me know which of the neigbours put in the claim against you about your pension. Also let me know if there is any proof required that you are the right woman. If there is I am ready to prove that you are my first daughter-in-law, the wife of my eldest son Denis Barry. I hope it will be all right, and that there will be no occasion of having any bother about the matter as of course it is your right to get it. For my part I can only say you are one of the best daughter inlaws that ever went to America. You are better for me in the latter end of my days than all I ever had and the Lord will reward you for it even without my prayers and hearty thanks. You can show this to the people who spoke against you and my letter will make liars of them and make them be ashamed of themselves. When you send me your picture at Christmas please do let me know if there was anymore said about it and if there was I will go to the parish priest, and get your marriage certificate and send it to you. Don’t fail in sending your picture and writing for Christmas as I would spend the Christmas time happier if I had a letter from you. Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year I remain with fond love,

Your affectionate mother,

Johannah Barry. (9)

 Castle Street, Dunmanway as it appears today, and where the Barrys lived.

This fascinating letter reveals that our Johanna’s nephew had gone into the local workhouse in Dunmanway, and that she had become aware of it despite living in America. Johanna evidently felt a keen responsibility to make sure he was looked after and had requested of her mother-in-law that she see to his welfare. It also suggests that Johanna’s mother had never succeeded in making it to the United States and had died in Ireland. Another element that comes out of this correspondence is that Catherine White, the woman who also claimed to have married Denis, may also have been from Dunmanway. In anycase, it is evident that Denis’s mother was unaware there may have been a second marriage. What pours off the page is her mother-in-law’s gratitude for all the aid sent back to Ireland over the years, presumably financial. It is worth remembering that at the time of writing the two women had not seen each other in well over twenty years. It was not only Denis Barry’s mother who benefited from this remittance. At the end of the letter the following note was added, from Denis’s siblings:

Dear Sister

We also join in sending you our thanks, for your present, and hope you won’t forget us when you are writing to mother so far as remembering us. Of course we would wish you as well as anyone could and send you the compliments of the coming happy season of Christmas.

From your fond

Brother & Sister

Johannah & Jerry Barry

Kisses from all

xxxxxxxxx

P.S. It is just six years since your fatherinlaw died

J. Barry

Write soon. Answer this.

 

Direct your letter to the Widow Johannah Barry

Castle Road

Dunmanway

Co. Cork

Ireland. (10)

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Johanna was unable to read and write, but that did not stop her corresponding by letter. Here is her mark from one of the documents in her file (NARA/Fold3)

As promised, Johanna’s mother-in-law provided an official statement with respect to her son’s marriage. It was sent in 1881 via the U.S. Consulate in Queenstown (now Cobh), Co. Cork; the Consul E.P. Brooks noted that “the ordinary fee…is one guinea, but I presume the parties are poor, as pensioners generally are, & I therefore ask you to send me only 10/6.” The evidence was clear– even if her husband had married twice, Johanna had been the first. Her pension was duly reinstated, and she received it for the rest of her life. Around this time Johanna was living in 96 Gore Street in East Cambridge, where she spent a number of years before moving to rented accommodation at 1126 Cambridge Street. The evidence suggests that Johanna continued her policy of looking after family. The 1900 Census records her living with her nephew Daniel Sullivan, a day laborer, who had been born in Massachusetts and who provides further evidence of local Dunmanway/Enniskeane emigration to the area. The 1900 Census provides another insight into Johanna’s life. That tells us that she had given birth to a child, which had not survived. This tragedy must have occurred in the late 1850s, presumably while she was living in New York. By the time of that census Johanna was approaching her mid-60s, and had been in the United States for 43 years. (11)

 Gore Street, East Cambridge, where Johanna spent a number of years.

Unfortunately, Johanna’s final years were difficult ones. On 5th June 1906 a solicitor called Minnie B. Winward was appointed her legal guardian, and claimed the pension on Johanna’s behalf. The reason for the appointment was that Johanna had been “adjudged insane.” In the early 20th century this term was used for a broad range of ailments– it maybe that Johanna was beginning to experience the onset of dementia. Her condition had not improved by the time her guardianship was transferred to solicitor John J Coady, nor would it ever again. Johanna’s final decade of life was lived under guardianship until her death at the age of 80 on 1st June 1916. I have been unable to determine where Johanna spent that final decade, or where she was buried. For a woman who had taken such care to look after others during her long life, it is to be hoped that she enjoyed the comfort of family and friends in her final years, but given the state of her guardianship that was perhaps not the case. The widow’s pension file relating to her case when combined with other sources, allows us to build a picture of an ordinary emigrant life. Despite its undoubted hardship, in many ways her life seems remarkable to us now, given the breadth of her experiences. Aside from gaining an insight into Johanna’s own life, the story further reinforces the extent to which local communities maintained bonds– both social and financial– in both America and Ireland across the decades. (12)

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An elderly woman in the early 20th century (Library of Congress)

* None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

(1) WC13083, Denis Barry Service Record; (2) Irish Catholic Parish Registers: Dunmanway, WC13083, Tri-Weekly Ohio Statesman 1847; (3) WC13083; (4) WC13083; (5) 1860 Census, WC13083, Denis Barry Service Record, New York Muster Roll Abstracts; (6) WC13083, Emigrant Savings Bank Records; (7) WC13083, 1880 Census; (8) WC13083; (9) Ibid.; (10) Ibid.; (11) WC13083, 1900 Census; (12) WC13083;

References & Further Reading

WC13083 of Johanna Barry, Widow of Denis Barry, Company E, 19th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

Denis Barry 19th Massachusetts Infantry Service Record.

New York Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts.

1860 U.S. Federal Census, New York Ward 16, New York.

1860 U.S. Federal Census, New York Ward 1, District 2, New York.

1880 U.S. Federal Census, Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts.

1900 U.S. Federal Census, District 0964, Cambridge Ward 2, Middlesex, Massachusetts.

Emigrant Savings Bank. Emigrant Savings Bank Records. Call number *R-USLHG *ZI-815. Rolls 1-20. New York Public Library, New York, New York.

Irish Catholic Parish Registers, Diocese of Cork and Ross, Parish of Dunmanway, Baptisms June 21, 1818- April 24, 1838 (Microfilm 04805/03).

Tri-Weekly Ohio Statesman 19th May 1847. Dreadful Disasters in Ireland.

Antietam National Battlefield.

Civil War Trust Battle of Antietam Page.

Filed under: Battle of Antietam, Cork, Massachusetts, New York Tagged: Cork Emigrants, Famine Emigration, Irish American Civil War, Irish Bridgets, Irish Domestic Service, Irish in Massachusetts, Irish in New York, Widow's Pensions

"I Will…Avenge His Death": Shared Community, Life, & Death through the Battle of Chickamauga

The afternoon of 20th September 1863 found Privates Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary facing into a maelstrom. Fate and circumstance had placed them on the line at Chickamauga, as a tide of Confederate infantry swept towards the position they had been rushed forward to hold. With the crescendo of battle reaching fever pitch, Company E of the 96th Illinois Infantry was not a good place to be. As the opposing lines threw curtains of lead at each other, men quickly began to stagger and fall. One who was there claimed the firing kept up “until the muskets were so hot that a ball could not be got down in them.” In the midst of the ferocious exchange a Rebel Minié ball spun through the trees in search of a target. It found one in Daniel Harrington. Striking him just above the navel, the missile drilled through his bowels before blasting out beside his backbone. As the 20-year-old crumpled to the ground, Denis O’Leary rushed to his side. The two young men were not only brothers-in-arms, they were tent mates and life-long friends. Leaving the firing line, Denis dragged his mortally wounded comrade to the regimental surgeon, positioned only 15m behind the firing line. Denis knew his friend was doomed. Leaning Daniel against a tree, he shouted to the physician above the din of battle: “I will leave Harrington with you, and go back and avenge his death.” With that Denis O’Leary rushed back to the fight, and his own appointment with eternity. Within moments Daniel Harrington had breathed his last. Only minutes later, Denis too went down, struck in the right hip, spine and bowels, perhaps a victim of the charge of grape shot that “cut out almost every man for several files near the centre.” Twenty minutes after Daniel Harrington had fallen, the 96th Illinois were retreating, forced to leave behind not only Daniel’s lifeless body but also the gravely wounded Denis O’Leary. Denis was captured, but was so badly maimed he was soon returned. The 22-year-old died from his injuries in Chattanooga on 26th October. The experiences of Daniel and Denis on the firing line at Chickamauga are just one vignette from thousands on that savage field. But who were the two men behind that combat experience, and what was the path that had led Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary to their ultimate doom in Georgia on 20th September 1863? (1)

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Monument to the 96th Illinois on Horseshoe Ridge at Chickamauga, near where Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary fought and fell (Byron Hooks, Civil War battlefield Monuments)

Both Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary were American born, but their stories were ones of Ireland and America. Indeed, in many respects their lives had remarkable parallels. Both sets of parents were Irish emigrants and may even have been from the same part of Ireland– the O’Learys came from Bantry Bay in West Cork, an area closely linked with the Harrington surname. Both families initially settled in New York, where Denis was born around 1840 and Daniel around 1843. And by the late 1840s, both the Harrington and O’Leary families felt that their future lay in the west– more specifically in Wisconsin. Daniel’s and Denis’s fathers shared a trade that drew them to a burgeoning settlement in Lafayette County that was quickly becoming home to large numbers of Irish. The village of New Diggings was especially welcoming of those who had the skills that John Harrington and Denis O’Leary Senior possessed; they were miners, and New Diggings was experiencing a lead mining ‘boom.’ This growing rough and tumble town was where Daniel and Denis grew up, and where they became friends. A description of New Diggings at the time gives an insight into the locale:

From 1840 to 1850, the village grew…In early days, the miners “burrowed” for protection from the blasts of winter, or lived in huts of primitive comforts or conveniences. When the village became an established fact, frame houses were substituted for the caves and huts, and woman’s taste was evidenced in the neatness of surroundings that had theretofore been “shiftless.”…Like all young villages, its ways were not ways of pleasantness…the residents, as a rule, are measured by their excesses [rather] than the absence of them. Gambling and drinking were usual, and the saloons, where these accomplishments were held in high regard were numerous as the lice in Egypt, and equally as voracious. (2)

1860s Engine House of the Mountain Mine, Allihies, West Cork. Many of the emigrants from where the O’Learys (and likely the Harringtons) hailed from were already part of mining communities (Peter Bell)

In October 1850 both families were enumerated on the New Diggings census. Daniel was recorded as 7-years-old, living with his older brother Philip (10, also born in New York) and parents John (35) and Julia (30). Denis was 10-years-old, while his father Denis Senior was 42 and mother Catharine 37. Also in that household were Denis’s older sister Mary (13), who had been born in Ireland, his younger siblings Catharine (8), James (6) and John (4), born in New York, and 9-month-old baby Hannah who had arrived in Wisconsin. As the two young Irish-Americans grew to adulthood in the 1850s, the fortunes of New Diggings dipped somewhat. The coming of the gold rush in California had drawn many of the miners away, abandoning the pursuit of lead in hopes of finding a path to fortune on the west coast. These circumstances forced Daniel’s father and a number of other Irish miners in New Diggings to range further in search of work. They eventually found it in a coal mine at French Village, Illinois, near the Missouri border. There disaster struck on 3rd December 1851, when John Harrington was killed during a mine collapse. His Irish companions dug him out, and bore their sad tidings with them back to their homes in New Diggings. Some three years later Denis’s father also died, reportedly succumbing to cholera. (3)

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Miners at the Penna Benton Mines, New Diggings, Wisconsin in 1915. Many of these miners were likely descendants of some of the Irish emigrants who settled here in the 1840s and 50s (Library of Congress)

Both young men now had added financial burdens to bear. Daniel Harrington seemingly did not want to do so by carrying on with mining– a decision perhaps influenced by the loss of his father. Instead, he sought out a position as a farm labourer. Each season from 1854 on he worked the land of Ohioan-born John Chambers, who had a farm near New Diggings, at White Oak Springs, Wisconsin. It was here that 17-year-old Daniel was recorded on the 1860 Census. His efforts, along with that of his brother Philip, allowed them to secure for their mother a one-half share in 10 acres of land and a couple of cows, as the family sought to exploit the opportunities for improvement that had brought them to Wisconsin in the first place. Daniel was not the only Irish miner’s son from New Diggings working the land in White Oak Springs in 1860. The neighbouring farm, owned by North-Carolinian farmer Samuel Scales, had two agricultural hands– one of whom was none other than Denis O’Leary. (4)

[image error]

The New Diggings General Store & Inn, New Diggings, Wisconsin (Wikipedia)

Daniel may have combined some seasonal farm labouring with mining– it seems that Denis certainly did so. By 1862 Daniel was also making the journey across the state line to Apple River, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, to work the farm of Ohio-born Louis Chambers. It was while labouring there that Daniel learned of a regiment being newly recruited in Jo Daviess and Lake counties. That August both he and Denis enlisted in what became the 96th Illinois Infantry– the regimental history claims they did so at Scales Mound, Illinois. As the two friends marched off to war, Daniel asked Louis Chambers if he could send him money to pass to his mother, a request to which the farmer agreed. Meanwhile Denis’s mother reportedly “turned gray before [he] had been in the army long.” Perhaps mercifully, she had reportedly passed away before the autumn of 1863, when both Daniel and Denis found themselves rushing to stem the flow of Union defeat in the wooded landscape of Northern Georgia. (5)

[image error]

The battle-torn National Color of the 96th Illinois Infantry (Library of Congress)

For Julia Harrington, Daniel’s death at Chickamauga did not bring an end to her suffering. Her surviving son, Philip, was drafted from New Diggings on 29th September 1864. He became a private in Company A of the 17th Wisconsin Infantry, the state’s Irish regiment. On 15th March 1865 Philip died at the regimental hospital in Fayetteville, North Carolina, succumbing to apoplexy. His death meant that the Irish emigrant woman was now alone. Having been widowed due to the mining accident, she had lived to see both her children lost to the war. In an effort to survive she sold her share in the ten-acres, exchanging it for flour and fire-wood. Worse was to come in her endeavours to claim a pension. The fact that her son’s body had not been recovered, combined with the misfortune that Denis had also died, meant that it took her more than four years to prove her claim. The last reference I have located for her is in the 1880 Census for New Diggings, where she was recorded as a pauper. (6)

[image error]

A young Illinois soldier in the Civil War (Library of Congress)

The descriptions of Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary’s final actions at Chickamauga are preserved because a number of veterans of the 96th Illinois provided Julia Harrington with their recollections of those events so she could prove her son’s fate. Those final moments open for us a window, allowing us to glimpse these soldiers lives in a fuller, more comprehensive fashion. In so doing they become more than just the sum of their last actions at Chickamauga. Their lives are revealed as parts of a family and community, with shared experiences stretching back to Wisconsin’s Irish miners, to the Irish of New York, and ultimately all the way to West Cork, where the decisions were first made that set in train their presence on the bloody fields of Chickamauga.

[image error]

Chattanooga National Cemetery, where many of those who died at Chickamauga are buried (Robert Rynerson)

* None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

(1) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Partridge 1887: 215, Register of Deaths of Volunteers; (2) Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections; 1850 Federal Census, Butterfield 1881: 567-8; (3) 1850 Federal Census, Butterfield 1881: 566; (4) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Leonard Family History, 1860 Federal Census; (5) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections, 1860 Federal Census, Partridge 1887: 787, 789, Leonard Family Tree; (6) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Wisconsin AG 1886: 51, Register of Deaths of Volunteers;

References & Further Reading

Widow’s Certificate 126005 of Julia Harrington, Dependent Mother of Daniel Harrington, Company E, 96th Illinois Volunteers.

US Register of Deaths of Volunteers, 1861-1865.

US Federal Census 1850, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1850, Apple River, Jo Daviess, Illinois.

US Federal Census 1860, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1860, White Oak Springs, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1880, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections as told to her family [sister of Denis O’Leary], scanned at Leonard Family tree, Ancestry.com.

Butterfield, Cosul Willshire 1881. History of La Fayette County, Wisconsin.

Patridge, Charles A. 1887. History of the Ninety-Sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry.

Wisconsin Adjutant General 1886. Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865.

Civil War Battlefield Monuments.

Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.

Chickamauga Civil War Trust Page.

The post "I Will…Avenge His Death": Shared Community, Life, & Death through the Battle of Chickamauga appeared first on Irish in the American Civil War.

“I Will…Avenge His Death”: Shared Community, Life, & Death through the Battle of Chickamauga

The afternoon of 20th September 1863 found Privates Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary facing into a maelstrom. Fate and circumstance had placed them on the line at Chickamauga, as a tide of Confederate infantry swept towards the position they had been rushed forward to hold. With the crescendo of battle reaching fever pitch, Company E of the 96th Illinois Infantry was not a good place to be. As the opposing lines threw curtains of lead at each other, men quickly began to stagger and fall. One who was there claimed the firing kept up “until the muskets were so hot that a ball could not be got down in them.” In the midst of the ferocious exchange a Rebel Minié ball spun through the trees in search of a target. It found one in Daniel Harrington. Striking him just above the navel, the missile drilled through his bowels before blasting out beside his backbone. As the 20-year-old crumpled to the ground, Denis O’Leary rushed to his side. The two young men were not only brothers-in-arms, they were tent mates and life-long friends. Leaving the firing line, Denis dragged his mortally wounded comrade to the regimental surgeon, positioned only 15m behind the firing line. Denis knew his friend was doomed. Leaning Daniel against a tree, he shouted to the physician above the din of battle: “I will leave Harrington with you, and go back and avenge his death.” With that Denis O’Leary rushed back to the fight, and his own appointment with eternity. Within moments Daniel Harrington had breathed his last. Only minutes later, Denis too went down, struck in the right hip, spine and bowels, perhaps a victim of the charge of grape shot that “cut out almost every man for several files near the centre.” Twenty minutes after Daniel Harrington had fallen, the 96th Illinois were retreating, forced to leave behind not only Daniel’s lifeless body but also the gravely wounded Denis O’Leary. Denis was captured, but was so badly maimed he was soon returned. The 22-year-old died from his injuries in Chattanooga on 26th October. The experiences of Daniel and Denis on the firing line at Chickamauga are just one vignette from thousands on that savage field. But who were the two men behind that combat experience, and what was the path that had led Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary to their ultimate doom in Georgia on 20th September 1863? (1)

[image error]

Monument to the 96th Illinois on Horseshoe Ridge at Chickamauga, near where Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary fought and fell (Byron Hooks, Civil War battlefield Monuments)

Both Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary were American born, but their stories were ones of Ireland and America. Indeed, in many respects their lives had remarkable parallels. Both sets of parents were Irish emigrants and may even have been from the same part of Ireland– the O’Learys came from Bantry Bay in West Cork, an area closely linked with the Harrington surname. Both families initially settled in New York, where Denis was born around 1840 and Daniel around 1843. And by the late 1840s, both the Harrington and O’Leary families felt that their future lay in the west– more specifically in Wisconsin. Daniel’s and Denis’s fathers shared a trade that drew them to a burgeoning settlement in Lafayette County that was quickly becoming home to large numbers of Irish. The village of New Diggings was especially welcoming of those who had the skills that John Harrington and Denis O’Leary Senior possessed; they were miners, and New Diggings was experiencing a lead mining ‘boom.’ This growing rough and tumble town was where Daniel and Denis grew up, and where they became friends. A description of New Diggings at the time gives an insight into the locale:

From 1840 to 1850, the village grew…In early days, the miners “burrowed” for protection from the blasts of winter, or lived in huts of primitive comforts or conveniences. When the village became an established fact, frame houses were substituted for the caves and huts, and woman’s taste was evidenced in the neatness of surroundings that had theretofore been “shiftless.”…Like all young villages, its ways were not ways of pleasantness…the residents, as a rule, are measured by their excesses [rather] than the absence of them. Gambling and drinking were usual, and the saloons, where these accomplishments were held in high regard were numerous as the lice in Egypt, and equally as voracious. (2)

[image error]

1860s Engine House of the Mountain Mine, Allihies, West Cork. Many of the emigrants from where the O’Learys (and likely the Harringtons) hailed from were already part of mining communities (Peter Bell)

In October 1850 both families were enumerated on the New Diggings census. Daniel was recorded as 7-years-old, living with his older brother Philip (10, also born in New York) and parents John (35) and Julia (30). Denis was 10-years-old, while his father Denis Senior was 42 and mother Catharine 37. Also in that household were Denis’s older sister Mary (13), who had been born in Ireland, his younger siblings Catharine (8), James (6) and John (4), born in New York, and 9-month-old baby Hannah who had arrived in Wisconsin. As the two young Irish-Americans grew to adulthood in the 1850s, the fortunes of New Diggings dipped somewhat. The coming of the gold rush in California had drawn many of the miners away, abandoning the pursuit of lead in hopes of finding a path to fortune on the west coast. These circumstances forced Daniel’s father and a number of other Irish miners in New Diggings to range further in search of work. They eventually found it in a coal mine at French Village, Illinois, near the Missouri border. There disaster struck on 3rd December 1851, when John Harrington was killed during a mine collapse. His Irish companions dug him out, and bore their sad tidings with them back to their homes in New Diggings. Some three years later Denis’s father also died, reportedly succumbing to cholera. (3)

[image error]

Miners at the Penna Benton Mines, New Diggings, Wisconsin in 1915. Many of these miners were likely descendants of some of the Irish emigrants who settled here in the 1840s and 50s (Library of Congress)

Both young men now had added financial burdens to bear. Daniel Harrington seemingly did not want to do so by carrying on with mining– a decision perhaps influenced by the loss of his father. Instead, he sought out a position as a farm labourer. Each season from 1854 on he worked the land of Ohioan-born John Chambers, who had a farm near New Diggings, at White Oak Springs, Wisconsin. It was here that 17-year-old Daniel was recorded on the 1860 Census. His efforts, along with that of his brother Philip, allowed them to secure for their mother a one-half share in 10 acres of land and a couple of cows, as the family sought to exploit the opportunities for improvement that had brought them to Wisconsin in the first place. Daniel was not the only Irish miner’s son from New Diggings working the land in White Oak Springs in 1860. The neighbouring farm, owned by North-Carolinian farmer Samuel Scales, had two agricultural hands– one of whom was none other than Denis O’Leary. (4)

[image error]

The New Diggings General Store & Inn, New Diggings, Wisconsin (Wikipedia)

Daniel may have combined some seasonal farm labouring with mining– it seems that Denis certainly did so. By 1862 Daniel was also making the journey across the state line to Apple River, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, to work the farm of Ohio-born Louis Chambers. It was while labouring there that Daniel learned of a regiment being newly recruited in Jo Daviess and Lake counties. That August both he and Denis enlisted in what became the 96th Illinois Infantry– the regimental history claims they did so at Scales Mound, Illinois. As the two friends marched off to war, Daniel asked Louis Chambers if he could send him money to pass to his mother, a request to which the farmer agreed. Meanwhile Denis’s mother reportedly “turned gray before [he] had been in the army long.” Perhaps mercifully, she had reportedly passed away before the autumn of 1863, when both Daniel and Denis found themselves rushing to stem the flow of Union defeat in the wooded landscape of Northern Georgia. (5)

[image error]

The battle-torn National Color of the 96th Illinois Infantry (Library of Congress)

For Julia Harrington, Daniel’s death at Chickamauga did not bring an end to her suffering. Her surviving son, Philip, was drafted from New Diggings on 29th September 1864. He became a private in Company A of the 17th Wisconsin Infantry, the state’s Irish regiment. On 15th March 1865 Philip died at the regimental hospital in Fayetteville, North Carolina, succumbing to apoplexy. His death meant that the Irish emigrant woman was now alone. Having been widowed due to the mining accident, she had lived to see both her children lost to the war. In an effort to survive she sold her share in the ten-acres, exchanging it for flour and fire-wood. Worse was to come in her endeavours to claim a pension. The fact that her son’s body had not been recovered, combined with the misfortune that Denis had also died, meant that it took her more than four years to prove her claim. The last reference I have located for her is in the 1880 Census for New Diggings, where she was recorded as a pauper. (6)

[image error]

A young Illinois soldier in the Civil War (Library of Congress)

The descriptions of Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary’s final actions at Chickamauga are preserved because a number of veterans of the 96th Illinois provided Julia Harrington with their recollections of those events so she could prove her son’s fate. Those final moments open for us a window, allowing us to glimpse these soldiers lives in a fuller, more comprehensive fashion. In so doing they become more than just the sum of their last actions at Chickamauga. Their lives are revealed as parts of a family and community, with shared experiences stretching back to Wisconsin’s Irish miners, to the Irish of New York, and ultimately all the way to West Cork, where the decisions were first made that set in train their presence on the bloody fields of Chickamauga.

[image error]

Chattanooga National Cemetery, where many of those who died at Chickamauga are buried (Robert Rynerson)

* None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

(1) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Partridge 1887: 215, Register of Deaths of Volunteers; (2) Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections; 1850 Federal Census, Butterfield 1881: 567-8; (3) 1850 Federal Census, Butterfield 1881: 566; (4) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Leonard Family History, 1860 Federal Census; (5) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections, 1860 Federal Census, Partridge 1887: 787, 789, Leonard Family Tree; (6) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Wisconsin AG 1886: 51, Register of Deaths of Volunteers;

References & Further Reading

Widow’s Certificate 126005 of Julia Harrington, Dependent Mother of Daniel Harrington, Company E, 96th Illinois Volunteers.

US Register of Deaths of Volunteers, 1861-1865.

US Federal Census 1850, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1850, Apple River, Jo Daviess, Illinois.

US Federal Census 1860, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1860, White Oak Springs, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1880, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections as told to her family [sister of Denis O’Leary], scanned at Leonard Family tree, Ancestry.com.

Butterfield, Cosul Willshire 1881. History of La Fayette County, Wisconsin.

Patridge, Charles A. 1887. History of the Ninety-Sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry.

Wisconsin Adjutant General 1886. Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865.

Civil War Battlefield Monuments.

Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.

Chickamauga Civil War Trust Page.

Filed under: Battle of Chickamauga, Cork, Illinois, Wisconsin Tagged: 96th Illinois Infantry, Battle of Chickamauga, Cork Emigrants, Irish American Civil War, New Diggings Lead, Step Migration, West Cork Miners, Wisconsin Miners

“I Will…Avenge His Death”: Exploring Shared Community, Shared Life, & Shared Death through the Battle of Chickamauga

The afternoon of 20th September 1863 found Privates Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary facing into a maelstrom. Fate and circumstance had placed them on the line at Chickamauga, as a tide of Confederate infantry swept towards the position they had been rushed forward to hold. With the crescendo of battle reaching fever pitch, Company E of the 96th Illinois Infantry was not a good place to be. As the opposing lines threw curtains of lead at each other, men quickly began to stagger and fall. One who was there claimed the firing kept up “until the muskets were so hot that a ball could not be got down in them.” In the midst of the ferocious exchange a Rebel Minié ball spun through the trees in search of a target. It found one in Daniel Harrington. Striking him just above the navel, the missile drilled through his bowels before blasting out beside his backbone. As the 20-year-old crumpled to the ground, Denis O’Leary rushed to his side. The two young men were not only brothers-in-arms, they were tent mates and life-long friends. Leaving the firing line, Denis dragged his mortally wounded comrade to the regimental surgeon, positioned only 15m behind the firing line. Denis knew his friend was doomed. Leaning Daniel against a tree, he shouted to the physician above the din of battle: “I will leave Harrington with you, and go back and avenge his death.” With that Denis O’Leary rushed back to the fight, and his own appointment with eternity. Within moments Daniel Harrington had breathed his last. Only minutes later, Denis too went down, struck in the right hip, spine and bowels, perhaps a victim of the charge of grape shot that “cut out almost every man for several files near the centre.” Twenty minutes after Daniel Harrington had fallen, the 96th Illinois were retreating, forced to leave behind not only Daniel’s lifeless body but also the gravely wounded Denis O’Leary. Denis was captured, but was so badly maimed he was soon returned. The 22-year-old died from his injuries in Chattanooga on 26th October. The experiences of Daniel and Denis on the firing line at Chickamauga are just one vignette from thousands on that savage field. But who were the two men behind that combat experience, and what was the path that had led Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary to their ultimate doom in Georgia on 20th September 1863? (1)

[image error]

Monument to the 96th Illinois on Horseshoe Ridge at Chickamauga, near where Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary fought and fell (Byron Hooks, Civil War battlefield Monuments)

Both Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary were American born, but their stories were ones of Ireland and America. Indeed, in many respects their lives had remarkable parallels. Both sets of parents were Irish emigrants and may even have been from the same part of Ireland– the O’Learys came from Bantry Bay in West Cork, an area closely linked with the Harrington surname. Both families initially settled in New York, where Denis was born around 1840 and Daniel around 1843. And by the late 1840s, both the Harrington and O’Leary families felt that their future lay in the west– more specifically in Wisconsin. Daniel’s and Denis’s fathers shared a trade that drew them to a burgeoning settlement in Lafayette County that was quickly becoming home to large numbers of Irish. The village of New Diggings was especially welcoming of those who had the skills that John Harrington and Denis O’Leary Senior possessed; they were miners, and New Diggings was experiencing a lead mining ‘boom.’ This growing rough and tumble town was where Daniel and Denis grew up, and where they became friends. A description of New Diggings at the time gives an insight into the locale:

From 1840 to 1850, the village grew…In early days, the miners “burrowed” for protection from the blasts of winter, or lived in huts of primitive comforts or conveniences. When the village became an established fact, frame houses were substituted for the caves and huts, and woman’s taste was evidenced in the neatness of surroundings that had theretofore been “shiftless.”…Like all young villages, its ways were not ways of pleasantness…the residents, as a rule, are measured by their excesses [rather] than the absence of them. Gambling and drinking were usual, and the saloons, where these accomplishments were held in high regard were numerous as the lice in Egypt, and equally as voracious. (2)

[image error]

1860s Engine House of the Mountain Mine, Allihies, West Cork. Many of the emigrants from where the O’Learys (and likely the Harringtons) hailed from were already part of mining communities (Peter Bell)

In October 1850 both families were enumerated on the New Diggings census. Daniel was recorded as 7-years-old, living with his older brother Philip (10, also born in New York) and parents John (35) and Julia (30). Denis was 10-years-old, while his father Denis Senior was 42 and mother Catharine 37. Also in that household were Denis’s older sister Mary (13), who had been born in Ireland, his younger siblings Catharine (8), James (6) and John (4), born in New York, and 9-month-old baby Hannah who had arrived in Wisconsin. As the two young Irish-Americans grew to adulthood in the 1850s, the fortunes of New Diggings dipped somewhat. The coming of the gold rush in California had drawn many of the miners away, abandoning the pursuit of lead in hopes of finding a path to fortune on the west coast. These circumstances forced Daniel’s father and a number of other Irish miners in New Diggings to range further in search of work. They eventually found it in a coal mine at French Village, Illinois, near the Missouri border. There disaster struck on 3rd December 1851, when John Harrington was killed during a mine collapse. His Irish companions dug him out, and bore their sad tidings with them back to their homes in New Diggings. Some three years later Denis’s father also died, reportedly succumbing to cholera. (3)

[image error]

Miners at the Penna Benton Mines, New Diggings, Wisconsin in 1915. Many of these miners were likely descendants of some of the Irish emigrants who settled here in the 1840s and 50s (Library of Congress)

Both young men now had added financial burdens to bear. Daniel Harrington seemingly did not want to do so by carrying on with mining– a decision perhaps influenced by the loss of his father. Instead, he sought out a position as a farm labourer. Each season from 1854 on he worked the land of Ohioan-born John Chambers, who had a farm near New Diggings, at White Oak Springs, Wisconsin. It was here that 17-year-old Daniel was recorded on the 1860 Census. His efforts, along with that of his brother Philip, allowed them to secure for their mother a one-half share in 10 acres of land and a couple of cows, as the family sought to exploit the opportunities for improvement that had brought them to Wisconsin in the first place. Daniel was not the only Irish miner’s son from New Diggings working the land in White Oak Springs in 1860. The neighbouring farm, owned by North-Carolinian farmer Samuel Scales, had two agricultural hands– one of whom was none other than Denis O’Leary. (4)

[image error]

The New Diggings General Store & Inn, New Diggings, Wisconsin (Wikipedia)

Daniel may have combined some seasonal farm labouring with mining– it seems that Denis certainly did so. By 1862 Daniel was also making the journey across the state line to Apple River, Jo Daviess County, Illinois, to work the farm of Ohio-born Louis Chambers. It was while labouring there that Daniel learned of a regiment being newly recruited in Jo Daviess and Lake counties. That August both he and Denis enlisted in what became the 96th Illinois Infantry– the regimental history claims they did so at Scales Mound, Illinois. As the two friends marched off to war, Daniel asked Louis Chambers if he could send him money to pass to his mother, a request to which the farmer agreed. Meanwhile Denis’s mother reportedly “turned gray before [he] had been in the army long.” Perhaps mercifully, she had reportedly passed away before the autumn of 1863, when both Daniel and Denis found themselves rushing to stem the flow of Union defeat in the wooded landscape of Northern Georgia. (5)

[image error]

The battle-torn National Color of the 96th Illinois Infantry (Library of Congress)

For Julia Harrington, Daniel’s death at Chickamauga did not bring an end to her suffering. Her surviving son, Philip, was drafted from New Diggings on 29th September 1864. He became a private in Company A of the 17th Wisconsin Infantry, the state’s Irish regiment. On 15th March 1865 Philip died at the regimental hospital in Fayetteville, North Carolina, succumbing to apoplexy. His death meant that the Irish emigrant woman was now alone. Having been widowed due to the mining accident, she had lived to see both her children lost to the war. In an effort to survive she sold her share in the ten-acres, exchanging it for flour and fire-wood. Worse was to come in her endeavours to claim a pension. The fact that her son’s body had not been recovered, combined with the misfortune that Denis had also died, meant that it took her more than four years to prove her claim. The last reference I have located for her is in the 1880 Census for New Diggings, where she was recorded as a pauper. (6)

[image error]

A young Illinois soldier in the Civil War (Library of Congress)

The descriptions of Daniel Harrington and Denis O’Leary’s final actions at Chickamauga are preserved because a number of veterans of the 96th Illinois provided Julia Harrington with their recollections of those events so she could prove her son’s fate. Those final moments open for us a window, allowing us to glimpse these soldiers lives in a fuller, more comprehensive fashion. In so doing they become more than just the sum of their last actions at Chickamauga. Their lives are revealed as parts of a family and community, with shared experiences stretching back to Wisconsin’s Irish miners, to the Irish of New York, and ultimately all the way to West Cork, where the decisions were first made that set in train their presence on the bloody fields of Chickamauga.

[image error]

Chattanooga National Cemetery, where many of those who died at Chickamauga are buried (Robert Rynerson)

* None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

(1) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Partridge 1887: 215, Register of Deaths of Volunteers; (2) Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections; 1850 Federal Census, Butterfield 1881: 567-8; (3) 1850 Federal Census, Butterfield 1881: 566; (4) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Leonard Family History, 1860 Federal Census; (5) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections, 1860 Federal Census, Partridge 1887: 787, 789, Leonard Family Tree; (6) Daniel Harrington Widow’s Pension File, Wisconsin AG 1886: 51, Register of Deaths of Volunteers;

References & Further Reading

Widow’s Certificate 126005 of Julia Harrington, Dependent Mother of Daniel Harrington, Company E, 96th Illinois Volunteers.

US Register of Deaths of Volunteers, 1861-1865.

US Federal Census 1850, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1850, Apple River, Jo Daviess, Illinois.

US Federal Census 1860, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1860, White Oak Springs, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

US Federal Census 1880, New Diggings, Lafayette, Wisconsin.

Mary O’Leary Hamilton Recollections as told to her family [sister of Denis O’Leary], scanned at Leonard Family tree, Ancestry.com.

Butterfield, Cosul Willshire 1881. History of La Fayette County, Wisconsin.

Patridge, Charles A. 1887. History of the Ninety-Sixth Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry.

Wisconsin Adjutant General 1886. Roster of Wisconsin Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1861-1865.

Civil War Battlefield Monuments.

Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.

Chickamauga Civil War Trust Page.

Filed under: Battle of Chickamauga, Cork, Illinois, Wisconsin Tagged: 96th Illinois Infantry, Battle of Chickamauga, Cork Emigrants, Irish American Civil War, New Diggings Lead, Step Migration, West Cork Miners, Wisconsin Miners

Document Focus: Life & Death at Antietam in Telegraphs

Cornelius Callahan was an early enlistee in the Union cause. He was barely 18-years-old when he volunteered in Philadelphia. A founder by trade, he was described as having a light complexion, blue eyes and light hair. Knowing that Cornelius’s parents Timothy and Johanna (née Nagle) were married in Ireland during the late 1830s allows us the rare opportunity to precisely identify where Cornelius hailed from. Recourse to the Irish Catholic Parish Registers, recently made available online, reveal the young man’s baptism on 6th August 1843 in the village of Grenagh, Co. Cork (the site recently explored another family from Grenagh– see here). Cornelius marched off to the Civil War as a private in Company G of the 2nd Delaware Infantry.

The village of Grenagh, Co. Cork, where Cornelius Callahan of the 2nd Delaware Infantry was born. 

[image error]

The baptism of Cornelius recorded in Grenagh, Co. Cork (Click to enlarge– his is the final name in the section) (National Library of Ireland)

At Antietam, on 17th September 1862, the 2nd Delaware were part of Brooke’s 3rd Brigade of Richardson’s Division, Second Corps. The 2nd Brigade of that division was Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish Brigade. Cornelius and his comrades had been in reserve while the Irishmen launched their assault towards the Bloody Lane, and afterwards crossed much of the same ground as part of their brigade’s initial drive towards the Piper Farm. Cornelius may well have seen some of his wounded and maimed countrymen as he and the Delawareans advanced towards the foe. At some point during that advance, Cornelius was struck by a shell, and himself severely wounded.

The site of General Hospital No. 3 in Frederick, Maryland, where Cornelius Callahan was treated for his Antietam injuries. 

We know little of what happened to Cornelius following his injury, but ultimately he ended up in General Hospital No. 3 in Frederick, Maryland, located in that town’s Presbyterian Church. At the time his parents were living at 1318 Carlton Street in Philadelphia. They appear to have heard about the wounding of their son relatively quickly, but did not know of his whereabouts, or if he was alive or dead. Then, on 1st October 1862, they received a telegraph from Frederick sent by “Jerry” who was clearly a family friend. It was brief in its message, but the few short words must have filled the Irish emigrant family with hope:

Corneal is alive. I am with him. Jerry.

The modern day Carlton Street in Philadelphia, much changed from when the Callahans of Grenagh made it their home. 

It is impossible to imagine what was going through the minds of Johanna and Timothy Callahan at the time, but they must have been comforted that Jerry stayed with their son through the following days. But the bombshell telegraph followed from him three days later, on 4th October:

Cornel[ius] is dead. I am taking him on. Jerry.

The 19-year-old Grenagh man was buried in St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in Frederick; his burial in a Catholic cemetery may have been the result of Jerry’s intercession. The two telegraphs from The American Telegraph Company did not spend long in the Callahan’s possession. Joanna submitted them both as part of her pension application to prove the fate of her son, in the process preserving them for us to see. The Callahan story is a yet another example of the double-trauma this site often revisits– a family who left Ireland in hope of a better life, only to suffer catastrophic loss during the American Civil War.

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the first telegraph sent to the Callahan family in Philadelphia, after “Jerry” had located their wounded son (NARA/Fold3)

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The second telegraph sent to the Callahans. Three days after the first, it informs them that Cornelius is dead (NARA/Fold3)

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The headstone of Cornelius Callahan from Grenagh in Frederick (Jen Snoots/Find A Grave)

* None of my work on pensions would be possible without the exceptional effort currently taking place in the National Archives to digitize this material and make it available online via Fold3. A team from NARA supported by volunteers are consistently adding to this treasure trove of historical information. To learn more about their work you can watch a video by clicking here.

References & Further Reading

Widow’s Certificate 2068 of Joanna Callahan, Dependent Mother of Cornelius Callahan, 2nd Delaware Infantry.

Catholic Parish Register for Grenagh, Cloyne, Cork. National Library of Ireland.

Antietam National Battlefield.

Civil War Trust Battle of Antietam Page.

Cornelius Callahan Find A Grave Memorial.

Filed under: Battle of Antietam, Cork, Delaware, Document Focus, Pennsylvania Tagged: 2nd Delaware Infantry, Cork Emigrants, Delaware at Antietam, Grenagh Emigrants, Irish American Civil War, Irish at Antietam, Irish in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Irish