Damian Shiels's Blog, page 41

‘God Has Called Your Husband to the Other Shore': The Letters that turned Wives into Widows

Few historic documents intrude on the intimate emotional experiences of past people quite like the letters that brought them news of a loved ones death. To read them is to at once imagine that first occasion when they were read. Though death may have occurred days, weeks or even months before, it was the act of reading these letters that turned wives into widows, that created bereaved parents and bereaved children. That in itself makes them incredibly powerful documents, even after the passage of 150 years. How did these families react as they read each word, or (for those who were illiterate) as each word was read to them? Many of the letters below were likely read again and again, as the bereaved sought comprehension. Others may have been quickly put away, as the bereaved sought to forget.

I am currently engaged in a long-term project looking at the letters of Irish and Irish-American soldiers who served in New York units during the American Civil War. One of the ancillary pieces of information that I am gathering along the way are those letters that informed families of their deaths. I now have many, and I intend to share them on the site in the months ahead. Below are nine very different examples, together with some background information on each Irish soldier and his family. Each was submitted to provide evidence in support of a pension claim. While reading these extraordinary documents, it is also worth remembering the heavy burden of responsibility often borne by the letter writer; a burden that some handled with more compassion and care than others.

A woman in mourning clothes holding an image of a soldier (Library of Congress)

Private Patrick O’Donnell, Company B, 2nd New York Cavalry

Irish-born couple Patrick O’Donnell and Catharine Cassarly married on 19th February 1852 in St. Vincent De Paul’s Church, Scranton, Pennsylvania. They had three children; Lawrence, born on 28th November 1852, Margaret born on the 6th September 1857 and Andrew, born on 1st January 1860. 29-year-old Patrick died in Sheridan Field Hospital in Winchester, Virginia on 22nd October 1864, from a wound to the right shoulder received in action on the 8th of that month. Catharine was 35-years-old when she applied for her widow’s pension.

Camp 2d NY Cav

Nov. 8th 1864

Mrs. O’Donell

I take the sad task of informing you of the Death of your husband one of my Co. and in so doing I will relate the manner of his death On the 8th of October while supporting our Rear Guard the Enemy Charged us and your husband with the rest of our Co Charged them in turn in that Charge your husband received a Bullet in his right Sholder but was taken off the field and put into a house till the nex day when he was taken to the Hospital. Since then we have received notice of his death and I but speak the feelings of his whole Company when I say they deeply feel the loss of so brave and Kind a Soldier ever redy to lend a helping hand to those who were in need prompt in all his dutyes he was esteemed by his officers and Each and Everyone tenders you their heartfull Sympathy in this your bereavement. Should you wish us to assist you in receiving his pay we will do all in our power for you with the Companye’s best wishes for you and yours. I will close by saying may he who [illegible] over all give you strength to bear the loss of one whom we had all learned to love

Sergt. E.F. Doolittle

Co. B 2d NY Cav

3d Div Cav Corps

Washington D.C.

Private Michael A. Fagan, Company C, 4th New York Cavalry

Bridget Campbell married James Fagan in December 1823 in Whitehall, Co. Westmeath. One of their children, Michael, was born around 1843. James himself passed away in April 1847. Their 20-year-old son Private Michael Fagan was killed in action on the 26th January 1863 at Grove Church, Virginia while on a scouting mission. His now 57-year-old mother Bridget, living in New York, applied for a pension based on his service.

Head Quarters 11th Army Corps

Stafford C.H.se Feby 1st 1863

Mrs Bridget Fagan

Madam

In communicating to you the death of your son Pte Michael Fagan of the 4th N.Y. Cavalry I willingly hear testimony to his general excellent conduct and soldierlike bearing which I am sure will in some measure alleviate the pain you must naturally suffer on the loss of a son. He died as a soldier should in the performance of his duty. Liked by all his comrades and esteemed by his officers as a fearless and brave soldier, ever ready at a moments notice, in most dangerous places he was ever found foremost, and in his loss the Country looses a brave soldier and the cause for which we all fight an able defender.

I am, Madam,

Your obedient Servant

Ferrier Nazer

Lt. Col. 4th N.Y. Cavalry

Private Patrick McGuire, Company A, 6th New York Cavalry

Bridget McGreedy married Patrick McGuire in ‘Killurcan’, Co. Roscommon in 1831. Their son, 21-year-old Private Patrick McGuire, died in Judiciary Square Hospital, Washington D.C. on 19th October 1863 from wounds he had received at the Battle of Bristoe Station, Virginia five days earlier. His 60-year-old mother Bridget was living in Newark, New Jersey when she applied for a pension. The first news she received of her son’s death was an unexpected reply to a letter the family had sent to Patrick.

Judiciary Sq. Hospital

Washington D.C. October 23/63

Sir

I have taken a liberty with your letter directed to Patrick McGuire this morning that is sometimes nesisary in order that I may give information to the friends of those who they are directed to having no other way of delivering any information of the whereabouts of the soldiers friends

I am sorry to inform you that the beloved Son & Brother is no more, he died of Gun Shot wound on the 19th instant he bore his sufferings with great patients but they proved more than he could bear up under and like many others of our comrads he had to yield- from a Soldier.

J. L. Allen

Ward Master

of Judiciary Sq.re Hospital

A second letter from the hospital chaplain sent a few days later provided further details of Patrick’s fate:

Marcus L Ward E  Judiciary Square Hospital

Newark N.J. 28 Oct 1863

Dear Sir

Patrick McGuire was in the hospital about a week he had every care and attention from Surgeon, Nurses & attendants by day and by night. I saw him every day and only a few hours before his death. There is a priest on duty at the hospital but I think he did not call during Patricks illness. He told me in answer to my question that he was a Catholic. He was wounded in the back of the neck and paralysed his limbs. His mind was calm and clear. He was without the least pain as the spine was struck I wrote a letter for him to his mother just before he died His speech was not affected.

Respectfully

John C. Smith, Chaplain

Marcus L Ward Esq

Private Barney McCabe, Company I, 10th New York Cavalry

Irish-born Barney McCabe and New York-born Rosalinda Satterlee were married on the 26th January 1859 in the Methodist Chapel at Broadalbin, New York. They had three children; William born on 20th October 1859, Charles Edwin born on 29th January 1861, and Emily Jane born on 14th May 1863. 43-year-old Barney died on 14th July 1863 at Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia due to what was recorded as ‘concussion’, having seemingly been set upon in an altercation. Rosalinda was living in Mayfield, New York when she applied for her pension.

[To Mrs Rosalinda McCabe, Mayfield, Fulton Co., NY]

Satterlee U.S. Army Genl Hospital

West Philadelphia July 27th 1863

Dear Madam

I now take my pen in hand to write a few liens to you and I hope that this will find you and your Family in good health but it is with a sad and heavey hart that I have to inform you that your husband has been ded two weeks it is just two weeks to day that he got a pass to go down town and send you sum money and he was brough back a little after eleven O clock at night in a ambulance verey badly hurt and he died next morning he was not sencebell after he was hurt I cannot say how he got hurt nor I do not know where the Docter has sent you aney word about it but I know this that they buried him without a inquest that is without noteyfieng the Coroner or aneything now the best thing for you to do is for some Friend to come on here and atend to the case for I am satisfide that there is sume thing wrong about it for I am shure that he was Murdered that is what I think from what I can find out for I made it my bisness to go and find out what I could about it now if you think that it is worth while to come or send anybody I shall be verey happey to give all the informtion I can or if you write I will do all I can for you I shall send what letters he left in my care I have a Degratoipe in my care but I will not send it untill I here from you so I must now conclude by remaining your true Friend

George H Yeoman

Private Thomas McManus, Company E, 11th New York Cavalry

Mary McManus married her husband Cornelius in Ireland in 1836. Their 19-year-old son Thomas McManus died on 2nd August 1864 at Orange Grove, Louisiana, of Chronic Diarrhea. Cornelius was unable to work himself due to disability, which made both parents reliant on their son for support. Mary was 68-years-old (Cornelius was 67) and living in Onondaga, New York when she applied for her pension. She enclosed the letter written to her husband about Thomas’s death in the pension application as it was ‘the only letter she now has relating to his death’.

Orange Grove

Agust 4th 1864

Dear Sir

I take my pen in hand to adress these few lines to you feeling it my duty as A companion to thomas Mc Manus to inform you of his death. I have not been acquainted with him before we met in this reigment but as we have always been togeather it seems to me as if he were my brother therefore finding your adress on the receipt which he got from the express Co for the last money he sent to you I now take the oppirtunity of writing these few lines. It has been very unhealthy here lately but thomas has always been fit for duty since he has been in the reigment infact the climate here appeared to agree with him better than it did farther north but he was taken rather of a sudden infact he was almost gone before we thought about his being very sick and as our head doctor was sick and the other was at new Orleans we could not do much for him he did not suffer mutch he is buried on this plantation he was buried better than would expected all the company that is in detachment turned out mounted and attended to the buirial according to military custom he was the first one that has died out of our company although they are dieing very fast out of the reigiment at preasent we were calculating to get up a supcription in the company to send his body home but the weather is so very warm and we are in rather an inconveniant place so that it was imposible to get the body to New Orleans soon enough to embalmed. In order to draw his back pay and bounty you want to direct as follows

Cpt Joseph C Hyat Co E Scotts 900 11 NY Cavelry Depart of the Gulph New Orleans L A

please ancer this so I may know that you received information also inform his friends if you know where they are. No more at preasant for a friend

Michael Sullivan

Co E Scotts 900 11 NY Cav department of the gulph

New Orleans L A

Private Michael McGee, Company L, 11th New York Cavalry.

Catharine Prior and Michael McGee married on 1st February 1847 in Oughteragh, Co. Leitrim. They had one child, Mary-Ann, who was born in December 1849. Michael was 34-years-old when he died of sunstroke on 21st June 1864 in hospital at Hermitage Plantation, Ascension Parish, Louisiana. Catharine was 37-years-old and living at 252 Mott Street in Lower Manhattan when she applied for her pension.

Hd. Qrs Scott’s 900

Hermitage Plantation La

July 1st 1864

Mrs Michl Mc Gee

Madam

I have to inform you by this note of your husbands Death he died on this plantation June 22d 1864 of excessive heat. On his clothes was found the sum of Ten Dollars which will be sent on as soon as his effects can be got together and everything made satisfactorily.

He has been decently buried on this plantation- as he was much liked by all the boys

I am

Yours Respectfully

M. Finitt

Capt. Comdg Co. “L”

Private William D. Harrigan, Company M, 24th New York Cavalry

21-year-old Private William Harrigan died on 12th July at Emory Hospital in Washington D.C. His right leg had been amputated following a gunshot wound he had received in action at Petersburg, Virginia on 16th June 1864. A pension application was made by his mother, Ellen, two years later. Her husband, who was epileptic, had died on 3rd June 1866. This prompted the 55-year-old Irishwoman to apply for the pension based on her son’s service, from her home in Oswego, New York. The communications they had received regarding William’s death are examples of the brevity of some of this type of correspondence.

UNITED STATES BRANCH TELEGRAPH COMPANY

BY TELEGRAPH               DATED Washington July 30 1864

TO: Carrie E Harrigan

William Harrigan died at this Hospital

N M Mantey

Surgeon in Charge

This brutally short telegram nonetheless offered some slight hope, as the name to whom the telegram was addressed was incorrect. Perhaps it had been meant for someone else? A second more detailed message was received weeks later in response to a query by the Harrigans, and explained the incorrect name used:

Emory Hospital

Wash D.C. Sept 5 1862

Q. Gable Esq.

A very heavy press of business has delayed this reply to yours of the 25th ulto.

W.D. Harrigan Co M 24th N.Y. Cav died at this Hospital.

The error in name doubtless occurred through the negligence of Telegraph Operator.

A letter addressed to Brig Genl L Thomas A.G. U.S.A. Wash D.C. will obtain for you all the information you may desire as to date & cause of death.

Respectfully

Yr Obt Servt

Trisby? Jhause?

Chief Clerk

Private John Connor, Company H, 7th New York Heavy Artillery

Irish-born couple John Connor and Bridget Bestan were married in St. Joseph’s Church, Troy on 20th July 1858. John’s first wife (Mary McMahon) had died and he already had a daughter, Margaret, who had been born on 19th July 1854. Another daughter Catharine was born on 21st October 1860. 37-year-old John died at the Methodist Church Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia around the 25th July 1864. His leg had been amputated following his wounding in front of Petersburg, Virginia on 16th June 1864. 40-year-old Bridget applied for her pension from her then home of Port Schuyler, West Troy, New York. It is clear that she had received all her information regarding her husband’s death from the two letters below, as when she applied for her pension she stated that her husband had died ‘some day between the 15th day of July…to the 25 day of August 1864.’

[U.S. CHRISTIAN COMMISSION, BRANCH OFFICE, COR. OF FAIRFAX & PRINCE STS. ALEXANDRIA, VA.]

ALEXANDRIA, VA., July 13th 1864

Mrs Bridget Connors

Your Husband is in one of the Hospitals of this City, He says he has written you once Since he Came here but have not heard from you. His right leg is amputated & he is doing well; he has good care and will get on finely here; he wants you to write to him here

Direct to him in

“Methodist Church Hospital Alexandria Va.”

Most Respectfully

W.H. Coe

Delegate Christian Comm

The second letter, written on 25th August, informed Bridget of John’s fate:

[U.S. CHRISTIAN COMMISSION, BRANCH OFFICE, COR. OF FAIRFAX & PRINCE STS. ALEXANDRIA, VA.]

ALEXANDRIA, VA., Aug 25 1864

Mrs Bridget Conners

West Troy N.Y.

This is a world of trial and disappointments But there is a world of help & enjoyment. God has called your husband to the other Shore. He died some time since and I am sorry to say that we are not permitted to learn the precise date of the death of soldiers. The cemitery in which the soldiers are buried is evrything that could be desired. A good coffin lined with [illegible] accompanied to the grave by a chaplain and religious [illegible] at the grave. A board is set up at the head, painted white, and lettered with black paint so that it is easy to recognise the grave of Each Soldier. A band of iron around the top of the head board. May God sustain you in this sore bereavement your husband died in a noble cause

Your Respectfully

O.L. Thompson?

Superintendant of Christian Commission at Alexandria Va.

Private Edward Mahoney, Company C, 16th New York Heavy Artillery

Edward Mahoney and his wife Catharine had been married in the parish of ‘Ballinakilligan’, Ireland in March 1840. Their son Maurice, born around 1844, was the only one of their children to survive to adulthood. 44-year-old Edward died of Chronic Diarrhea at the hospital in Fort Monroe, Virginia on 26th September 1864. That year Catharine applied for the pension from her home in Rome, Oneida County, New York. By the time she did so she had no living children remaining- the couple’s only surviving son, 19-year-old Maurice, had died of wounds received at the Battle of the Wilderness on 5th May 1864, while serving in the 146th New York Infantry. Receipt of the letter below meant that the Irishwoman had lost all her family to the American Civil War.

U.S. CHRISTIAN COMMISSION

2d Divis. U.S. Gen. Hospital

Fort Monroe Va.

Sep 27th 1864

Mrs. Catharine Mahoney

Rome N.Y.

Dear Madam

I regret to have to inform you of the recent death in this hospital of your husband Edward Mahoney of Co. C 16th N.Y.H. Art.

He was brought here Sep 23d sick with Chronic Diarrhoea. He said he had been unwell for 8 months. Had been in 10th A.C. Hospital about 2 week. A letter was written to his priest for him Sep 24th. He often spoke of his friends but left no special message for them. It will gratify you to know that all possible attention was given him during his illness here.

He was buried in the Hampton Hospital burying ground with the usual military & religious ceremonies, and his grave is marked by a white head board with his name Co. Regt. and date of death plainly marked upon it.

He had some effects which you can obtain by applying by letter to Dr. Mc Clellan Surg. In Charge of this hospital. To obtain back pay, apply to the 2d Auditor U.S. Treasury Washington D.C.

I trust my dear Madam that this event so distressing to you and which have left such a void in your family circle will be borne with Christian resignation remembering that he dies nobly who dies in the path of duty and that the graves of a nation’s defenders are among her most priceless treasures.

Let me also hope that you may be guided to that unfailing source of consolation which through our blessed Savior is always attainable to those who are bereaved & afflicted.

I am Madam

Very Truly Yours

Chas. A. Raymond

Chaplain 2d Divis. U.S. Gen. Hsp.

Fort Monroe Va.

*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

Patrick O’Donnell Widow’s Pension File WC81538

Patrick McGuire Dependent Mother’s Pension File WC15809

Barney McCabe Widow’s Pension File WC117939

Thomas McManus Dependent Mother’s Pension File WC101300

Michael McGee Widow’s Pension File WC76618

William D. Harrigan Dependent Mother’s Pension File WC117060

John Connor Widow’s Pension File WC41520

Edward Mahoney Widow’s Pension File WC43222

Filed under: Leitrim, New York, Roscommon, Westmeath Tagged: Forgotten Irish, Irish American Civil War, Irish Diaspora, Irish emigration, Letters to the Home Front, New York Cavalry, New York Heavy Artillery, New York Irish

‘Patrick Cleburne & The Battle of Franklin': The 2014 Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event Keynote Address

On Friday 14th November last it was my great privilege to deliver the Keynote Address at the 2014 Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event in The Factory, Franklin. The title of the paper was ‘Patrick Cleburne & The Battle of Franklin’ and it dealt with the life, death and legacy of the Cork native, together with other Irishmen and their families who were impacted by that devastating engagement. As 30th November 2014 marks the 150th anniversary of that bloody struggle, I have decided to reproduce the talk here in full, together with the slide presentation that accompanied it.

Patrick Cleburne & The Battle of Franklin

When we look at history we have an almost overwhelming temptation to simplify it. We try to place order on the past, often looking at it as a series of defining moments, each one causing an alteration in history’s course, each making one future possible and another less likely. We can sometimes look at people’s lives- even our own lives- in a similar way. Of course history, as with life, is seldom as straightforward as this. The reality tends to be more opaque, more complex, more convoluted. Despite this, it can be a fascinating exercise to consider what might have been the key moments in one persons life, particularly the life of a historical figure– moments which set them on the path to their ultimate destiny.

I have spent a considerable time studying Irish emigrants impacted by the American Civil War. Many thousands of them breathed their last on American battlefields. This year, 150 years on, I have been fortunate enough to stand on some of the fields where many of these Irishmen fought. Notorious places like the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania and the Dead Angle at Kennesaw. On each occasion that I’ve travelled from Ireland to these battlegrounds, I find my thoughts turning to those Irish who fought there, and particularly to those who died there. What were their personal stories? What became of their loved ones? What were their life experiences, which culminated in a premature death on an American battlefield? We are here today to discuss one of those men, and to wonder; What were the defining moments in Patrick Cleburne’s life? What were the events that led him from a childhood in rural Co. Cork to the city of Franklin where we are meeting here today?

All of the c. 200,000 Irish-born men who fought in the American Civil War, be it in Confederate gray or Union blue, shared one common experience- which for each was a defining moment in their lives. That experience was emigration from the country of their birth. In looking at what led Patrick Cleburne to Franklin, we must first ask, what led him to emigrate?

The vast majority of Irish emigrants to 1840s and 1850s America came from poor backgrounds and were of the Catholic faith. Such was not the case with Patrick Ronayne Cleburne.

Bride Park Cottage

The future Major-General was born on 16th March 1828, just a little over 6,000 km from here, in the upstairs room of this house- Bride Park Cottage in Killumney, a rural home not far to the west of Cork City. His father Joseph was a medical doctor, originally from Co. Tipperary, and his mother was Mary Anne Ronayne, from a well to do landowning family near what is now Cobh in Co. Cork. Patrick was the third of four children born to the couple and was baptized in the nearby Protestant Church of St. Mary’s.

St. Mary’s Church

The Cleburne’s lived the relatively comfortable life of a middle-class professional family in 19th century Ireland. In addition to his medical practice at Bride Park, Joseph was also the contract surgeon for the nearby British Barracks and Military Gunpowder Mill at Ballincollig.

We often forget that Patrick Cleburne grew to adulthood in Ireland and spent the majority of his 36 years of life there. His experiences in the country of his birth formed his character, and it is impossible to understand his achievements in America without first understanding his disappointments in Ireland. The first of what we might term the ‘defining moments’ in Patrick Cleburne’s life came just 18 months into it, when his mother Mary Anne died. His father remarried quickly, wedding Isabella Stuart in 1830. This was the woman who Patrick would refer to as ‘Mamma’ for the rest of his life and who would follow him to America. But for now that was all in the future.

Grange House

After Joseph Cleburne’s remarriage things looked bright for the family, and four more siblings joined the growing brood. Dr. Cleburne was clearly an ambitious and upwardly mobile man, and in 1836 he decided to try his hand as a landowner and farmer. He moved his family to the nearby local manor house at Grange, which he rented along with 206 acres. Initially things went well, and there seemed a real chance that the Cleburne’s were set on the road to prosperity. What occurred next was one of the major factors in ultimately determining the Cleburne family’s emigration.

The Grave of Dr. Cleburne

On 27th November 1843 Dr. Joseph Cleburne died- he was buried in St. Mary’s Churchyard, where he still rests. He had continued to combine the practice of medicine with farming, and the loss of that revenue now placed the Cleburnes under economic strain. Patrick’s older brother returned from college to try and manage the estate, and soon 16-year-old Patrick was en-route to the town of Mallow in north Cork.

The Spa House

It had been decided that he would follow in his father’s footsteps by becoming a medical doctor, and with that in mind he started as an apprentice to Mallow surgeon Dr. Thomas Justice.

Apothecaries’ Hall Ledger Entries

The ledger entry behind me records events relating to what I believe were the key formative experience in Patrick Cleburne’s early life. These are from the Apothecaries’ Hall in Dublin, where in 1845 Patrick first applied to sit the exams he needed in order to begin medical studies. He was rejected, but told to try again the following year. He did try; in early 1846 he sat the exam, no doubt hoping- perhaps expecting- to set out on a path that would lead to security and comfort in the years ahead. But Cleburne failed the exam, and that failure altered the course of his life. If the 17-year-old Patrick Cleburne had entered the Apothecaries’ Hall as he had hoped in 1846, it is most unlikely that his subsequent life would have led him here to Franklin.

As it was, the young man was mortified by his failure and was unwilling to return home to Cork. Too ashamed to face his family, Patrick instead made the rash decision of enlisting as a Private in the 41st Regiment of Foot, a decision he ultimately regretted. More than a year passed in the army without anyone hearing from him, until finally an officer and family friend recognized him in the ranks, and informed his loved ones of his whereabouts.

Spike Island

By now the year was 1847, and the Great Irish Famine was at its height. Private Patrick Cleburne witnessed many dreadful sights as he moved around the country with his regiment, helping to keep the peace in his native land. During those years, hunger and poverty forced many Irish families onto the emigrant boat. Although unaware of it at the time, Patrick would see some of them again, many wearing Union and Confederate uniforms on the other side of the Atlantic more than a decade later. The catastrophic Famine killed hundreds of thousands of the country’s poor, but it also had a telling impact on already struggling landowners like the Cleburnes. Ever increasing rents and poor returns for produce had forced Patrick’s ‘Mamma’ to consider emigrating the family to America.

The Port of Queenstown (Cobh)

Patrick, eager to escape a life which had thus far offered him only disappointment, volunteered to lead the way. He succeeded in buying his discharge from the army for £20 in September 1849 and thereafter wasted little time. By November he was en-route to New Orleans, where the 21-year-old landed along with three of his siblings on Christmas Day.

It is little exaggeration to say that for Patrick Cleburne, America proved the land of opportunity. His education, religion and finances placed him a better position to exploit it than many of his poorer Catholic Irish counterparts, but nonetheless much hard work lay ahead. America gave Cleburne a chance to reset his life. Had he remained in Ireland his future may have forever been defined by his failed Apothecaries Hall exam- but in the United States, a more flexible society offered the chance to undo past failings. He took that opportunity with both hands. After a brief period in Cincinnati, he arrived in the frontier town of Helena, Arkansas, in early 1850.

Cleburne on the 1850 Census

Over the course of the next decade he grew from a drugstore prescriptionist into a major community leader. By the end of 1851 he had graduated into drugstore owner, and began his social rise with membership of the Masonic Lodge in 1852. By 1854 he had decided to study law with a view to seeking admission to the bar, and by 1855 he had become heavily involved in local politics. He was particularly active in efforts to prevent the American Party- an anti-immigrant party often referred to as the ‘Know Nothings’- from gaining a foothold in Helena. During this period he became firm friends with fiery Democrat politician Thomas C. Hindman, also later a Confederate General.

Thomas C. Hindman

The two ran a paper together called the States Rights Democrat, which illustrates how closely Cleburne’s views were aligning with those of his friends and neighbours. His association with Hindman also nearly got Cleburne killed in May 1856, when a politically motivated shoot-out in Helena, aimed at Hindman, left one man dead (shot by the Irishman) and Cleburne clinging to life with a bullet in his chest. He recovered, and as Hindman went on to Congress, Cleburne re-focused his energy on the law and other business ventures. In 1860 his military experience and social position saw him elected Captain of the recently formed Yell Rifles, and with Arkansas secession from the Union on 6th May 1861, the stage was set for the last three and a half years of Patrick Cleburne’s life- years which would immortalize him.

The Irish who fought for North and South during the American Civil War did so for myriad reasons. Some enlisted on ideological grounds, such as preserving the Union or on the basis of States rights. Many did so for economic reasons, to take advantage of consistent pay and potential bounties. Some were persuaded that by fighting for North or South they could support Ireland, or strike at Britain. Others felt service may help them gain acceptance in America. A large number, which included Cleburne, fought for the preservation of their society and that of their friends. Arkansas had provided Cleburne with something he had never had in Ireland- a community of which he felt a part, a place filled with friends, somewhere he could call home. When Patrick Cleburne went to war, he went to war for Arkansas, and he was more than willing to die for Arkansas.

By the time Patrick Cleburne surveyed the scene that awaited him and his men at Franklin on 30th November 1864, he was a Major-General, commanding what was perhaps the most famed division in the Western Theater. He had risen from the Captain of the Yell Rifles to the Colonelcy of the 1st (later 15th) Arkansas, commanded a brigade at Shiloh, and ultimately led a division by the time of Stones River.

Ringgold Gap

Famed for his reliability, coolness under pressure and fighting qualities, Cleburne and his men had become the ‘go-to’ division of the Army of Tennessee, as demonstrated by their actions at Ringgold Gap, Georgia on 27th November 1863, when they had saved the army following the debacle of Missionary Ridge; an action for which Cleburne earned the thanks of Confederate Congress. But it was now a year on from Ringgold, a year that had seen the army lose more men and resources as a result of the attritional Atlanta Campaign, and a year that had seen the prospects of ultimate Confederate success dwindle to a flicker. Franklin presented Cleburne and his men with perhaps their greatest challenge. When he topped Winstead Hill ahead of his division that November afternoon, Cleburne dismounted, and resting his field glasses on a nearby tree stump, he surveyed the Union positions. He took in the impressive enemy works that had been thrown up by the waiting Yankees. After a time he replaced his glasses and said aloud, to no-one in particular, ‘They are very formidable.’

The events at Franklin 150 years ago are inextricably linked with those that occurred off to the south on the previous day.

Battle of Spring Hill (Civil War Trust)

On the 29th November General John Bell Hood, commander of the Army of Tennessee, created a seemingly golden opportunity to trap a significant portion of General John Schofield’s Union force. Having left Stephen D. Lee to occupy Federal attention in Columbia, Hood sent Cheatham’s and Stewart’s Corps across the Duck River, from where they converged on Spring Hill in Schofield’s rear, and threatened the Federal line of retreat towards Nashville. The very real possibility of destroying or mauling a sizable Yankee force had presented itself; all it appeared necessary for the Confederates to do was to take Spring Hill and cut the Franklin-Columbia Turnpike. Cheatham’s Corps, of which Cleburne’s Division formed a part, played a prominent role in the fight for Spring Hill. In what remains one of the most inexplicable failures of the war, when the fighting petered out that evening, the vital Franklin-Columbia Turnpike remained untaken- despite the fact that thousands of Rebels went into camp only yards from it. Through the night, Union troops that should have been trapped south of Spring Hill marched north, past the sleeping Confederates and on towards Franklin. In later years Union soldiers would remember passing within plain view of the Rebels, one recalling ‘thousands of fires burning brightly, and we could see the soldiers standing or moving around.’ Nobody was more aware of what had slipped away than John Bell Hood. In his words: ‘Thus was lost a great opportunity of striking the enemy for which we had labored so long- the greatest this campaign had offered, and one of the greatest of the war’

The Confederates awoke on the morning of 30th November to find their enemy gone. Just who was to blame for this failure is a topic that continues to generate debate, but there is little doubt that the previous days events were on the minds of many Confederate Generals as they pursued the Federals towards Franklin.

In the 150 years since the Battle of Franklin, many have speculated as to Patrick Cleburne’s state of mind that day. His fellow division commander General John C. Brown recalled that on the 30th November march northwards, Cleburne asked to see him. Riding into the fields alongside the marching columns to talk, Brown described Cleburne as being ‘angry’ and ‘deeply hurt.’ The Irishman had apparently been told that General Hood blamed him for the failure at Spring Hill the previous day. Cleburne said he could not afford to rest under such an imputation, and that he intended to have the matter fully investigated. Brown remembered asking Cleburne who he thought responsible for the failure with Cleburne placing ultimate culpability at the feet of the Commander-in-Chief.

A counterpoint to this view of Cleburne’s mindset has been put forward, primarily based on a letter found in Hood’s recently discovered personal papers. Written by former Army of Tennessee Corps Commander Stephen D. Lee, it recounts a conversation he had with General A.P. Stewart, also a former Corps Commander. Stewart had reportedly heard that on the 30th November Cleburne felt personal remorse for the failure at Spring Hill, due to his decision not to launch a night attack on the 29th. Stewart believed that ‘Cleburne regretted it immediately afterwards, and said no such weight should be on his mind for similar cause again and in that feeling lost his life at Franklin soon afterward.’

View towards Franklin from Winstead Hill

Brown’s and Lee’s accounts have to be treated with a degree of caution, as both were written after the war, in the context of an acrimonious dispute as to who was responsible for what had occurred at Spring Hill. Suffice is to say that whatever Cleburne actually felt, he must undoubtedly have been disappointed and angry at the chance missed. As he surveyed those fortified Union positions from Winstead Hill on 30th November, that disappointment must have been magnified.

As Cleburne waited for the troops to arrive at Franklin, he whiled away the time in a game of impromptu checkers with one of his staff. Drawing the outline of the board in the sand, the General gathered different coloured leaves to use for the gaming pieces. It was not long before he was ordered to Hood’s headquarters at the Harrison House, where along with a number of others in the high command, he expressed reservations about the proposed attack, telling Hood it would be a ‘terrible and useless waste of life.’ However, Hood determined the assault should go ahead. The commander instructed Cleburne to form his division to the right of the Columbia Turnpike and charge the works. The Irishman replied ‘General, I will take the works or fall in the effort’, before riding off towards his men.

The Carter Cotton Gin

The position assigned to Cleburne’s division on the right or east side of the Columbia Turnpike saw them aimed at a portion of the Federal works dominated by a Cotton Gin owned by the Carter family. The General requested that his Division be allowed to advance in column of brigades to reduce their exposure across the open ground, before deploying into line of battle for the final assault. Cleburne held a final meeting with his brigade commanders atop Breezy Hill to outline what was expected of them. One of them, Daniel C. Govan, who had known Cleburne in Helena, recalled this meeting many years later: ‘General Cleburne seemed to be more despondent than I ever saw him. I was the last one to receive any instructions from him, and as I saluted and bade him good-bye I remarked, “Well General, there will not be many of us that will get back to Arkansas,” and he replied “Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men.’

Cleburne left the meeting and rode forward to some of his advanced sharpshooters on a rise called the Privet Knob. Taking one of their scopes, he again surveyed the Union works. He took a long look across the field before remarking ‘They have three lines of works.’ As his eye swept back across the Federal position, he added ‘And they are all completed.’ He was soon thundering back down the pike to his forming division.

The Battle of Franklin (Civil War Trust)

At around 4pm, with bands playing and flags fluttering, almost 20,000 men of the Confederate Army of Tennessee swung forward into the attack at Franklin. They made for an awesome sight. Among them was the talismanic figure of Patrick Cleburne, wearing a new uniform jacket, white linen shirt and kepi. He was mounted on a borrowed horse, as his regular animal, ‘Red Pepper’ had been wounded at Spring Hill. Riding forward into action, it seems that, as promised, he was determined to lead by example and personally take his men over the Federal works.

Although the prospects of success for the advancing Rebels should have been slight, a grievous error committed by Union General George D. Wagner handed them an opportunity. Wagner had left two of his brigades exposed a half mile beyond the main Federal line. They were far too small a force to stem the Confederate assault, and when the Army of Tennessee hit them their position crumbled. As Wagner’s men turned and ran for Franklin, Cleburne’s soldiers sought to chase after them and follow them into the main works. Captain Sam Foster of Cleburne’s division described how the Union men would:

“…Fire a few shots and break to a run, and as soon as they break to run our men break after them. They have nearly ½ mile to run to get back to their next line- so here we go right after them and yelling like fury and shooting at them at the same time. Kill some of them before they reach their works, and those that are in the second line of works are not able to shoot us because of their own men are in front of us- and between us and them.”

Although Cleburne and his men were initially shielded by Wagner’s fleeing troops, eventually the Federal main line simply had to open fire. For those caught in it- be they Union or Confederate- the result was the same. Patrick Cleburne had crossed Wagner’s advance position and was heading for the main line when he was catapulted from his horse, which was killed under him. With the fire intensifying, one of Cleburne’s couriers leapt from his own mount and offered it to the General. As Cleburne put his foot in the stirrup, a cannon ball fired from near the Cotton Gin ploughed into the animal, eviscerating it. The courier also went down, his thigh shattered by a bullet. Cleburne decided to press on. General Govan last caught sight of him plunging forward on foot, waving his cap in encouragement to the men, before he disappeared into the smoke of battle. It was the last time he ever saw him. Many of Cleburne’s men reached the main line, where they became intermingled with those from other units as the deadly struggle for possession of the works reached a crescendo. But Patrick Cleburne was no longer with them.

When the fighting finally ceased in the darkness, rumours began to circulate in the Army of Tennessee that Cleburne had not survived. The Federal withdrawal during the night left the battlefield in Confederate hands, and the next morning the full scale of the previous days horrors was revealed. John McQuade was out early looking for the General, and describes what he found, not too far from the Carter Cotton Gin:

“He was about 40 or 50 yards from the works. He lay flat upon his back as if asleep, his military cap partly over his eyes. He had on a new gray uniform, the coat of the sack or blouse pattern. It was unbuttoned and open; the lower part of his vest was unbuttoned and open. He wore a white linen shirt, which was stained with blood on the front part of the left side, or just left of the abdomen. This was the only sign of a wound I saw on him, and I believe it is the only one he had received. I have always been inclined to think that feeling his end was near, he had thus laid himself down to die, or that his body had been carried there during the night. He was in his sock feet, his boots having been stolen. His watch, sword belt and other valuables all gone, his body having been robbed during the night.”

Carnton House

Cleburne’s body was placed in an ambulance alongside that of General John Adams, who had also fallen. The two were taken to Carnton House, where they were gently placed on the back porch. There they were joined by the bodies of four more officers, including two more Generals. The Battle of Franklin was over. It was an engagement that had effectively destroyed the Army of Tennessee, and, after just 36 years, ended Patrick Ronayne Cleburne’s life.

Across the 150 years since the Battle of Franklin, people have speculated as to the reasons behind Patrick Cleburne’s actions that day. Why did he choose to place himself so far forward when he could have directed operations from a safer distance? Was it anger at a perceived slight towards his conduct at Spring Hill, and a determination to show John Bell Hood his worth? Or was it an effort to redeem himself due to remorse he felt for personal failings? It is probable we will never know. But perhaps such speculations are of secondary importance. It is worth considering that Patrick Cleburne had consistently placed himself in dangerous positions on the battlefield. His devotion to the cause of Arkansas and the Confederacy was absolute, but it was a cause which he had accepted had been at serious risk since at least the winter of 1863. In October 1864, Cleburne had remarked that ‘If this cause that is so dear to my heart is doomed to fail, I pray heaven may let me fall with it, while my face is toward the enemy and my arm battling for that which I know to be right.’ As his Adjutant Irving Buck later stated, by November 1864, ‘any one above the degree of idiocy must have known that chances for final success of the Confederacy were desperate.’ Patrick Cleburne was no idiot, and at Spring Hill he had just witnessed perhaps the Army of Tennessee’s last best hope evaporate. Once the orders were given to attack at Franklin, he decided to roll the dice one more time, perhaps hoping that courage and devotion might be enough to win the day. Given these circumstances, and Cleburne’s character, perhaps what would have been truly remarkable is if Patrick Cleburne had survived.

Patrick Cleburne was far from the only man with links to Ireland on the field at Franklin that day. Indeed one of the men who lay beside him on the back porch of Carnton House -Brigadier-General John Adams- was himself the son of an emigrant from Strabane, Co. Tyrone. Irish and Irish-Americans were to be found spread throughout both armies, and like Cleburne, for many, the 30th November 1864 would be their last day. But before the death-dealing had begun, some of the Confederate Irishmen had even found time for humour.

Denny Callaghan

The breathtaking sight of the Confederate forces forming up for the attack that afternoon led one Rebel to recall Nelson’s words before Trafalgar: ‘England expects every man to do his duty.’ Sergeant Denny Callahan of the strongly Irish 1st Missouri quipped back: ‘it’s damned little duty England would get out of this Irish crowd.’ Denny and his comrades were part of Cockrell’s Missouri Brigade, French’s Division, which initially advanced to the right of Cleburne. By days end they would have the dubious honour of having sustained the highest casualties of any brigade in the army. One of those casualties was Denny Callahan, who was cut down in the act of planting the regimental colours on the Federal works and taken prisoner.

Patrick Caniffe

Another was his countryman Patrick Canniffe, who was leading the 3rd/5th Missouri into the maelstrom on horseback. As he neared the works he took a bullet to the right shoulder, knocking him from his mount. Before he could get up, a second projectile ripped through the top of his head, exiting through his chin. His body was found the next morning lying near his horse. Today Patrick Canniffe is one of those who rests in the McGavock Cemetery.

McGavock Confederate Cemetery

He shares that cemetery with a number of other Irish and Irish-Americans, men like Thomas Lindsey Murrell of the 6th Tennessee, who had attacked the Union works on the other side of the Colombia turnpike, part of Carter’s Brigade, Brown’s Division. Thomas was the Tennessee born son of Irish emigrant James Murrell from Limavady, Co. Derry. In some respects men like Patrick Canniffe and Thomas Murrell were the lucky ones- for many fallen Confederate Irishmen- like Martin Fleming of the 10th Tennessee ‘Irish’ Regiment, who advanced on the Confederate left, there would be no known grave.

One of the regiment’s that charged in with Cleburne’s division that day felt a particular affinity to the General, as many of its number shared his country of birth.

5th Confederate Infantry

The Fifth Confederate Infantry consisted largely of Memphis Irishmen, having been formed by the amalgamation of the 2nd (Knox-Walker’s) Tennessee and the 21st Tennessee. Their particular claim to fame was that it was Corporal Robert Coleman of the regiment who was credited with shooting General James McPherson outside Atlanta on 22nd July 1864- the same day their colour, now to be found in the Tennessee State Museum, was captured. One of their number recalled how the men of the regiment hero-worshipped Cleburne, a devotion that amounted ‘almost to idolatry.’ Unsurprisingly they were eager to claim his final moments- recording that at Franklin, Cleburne ‘sought out the regiment, charged in with it, and died with it.’ Another who died with it was Dick Cahill, who’s body was found on the morning of 1st December ten feet inside the Union works, near the Cotton Gin, punctured by four bayonet wounds.

Just as it was a bad day for Irish Confederates, Franklin also severely impacted many Irish who fought for Union. The records that survive for those in Federal service often allow us to paint a picture of the impact of battle on those left behind. Take for example some of the men of the 72nd Illinois, part of Strickland’s Brigade, Ruger’s Division, who faced James Murrell and other Confederates of Brown’s division to the west of the Columbia Turnpike. The 72nd initially manned the main line of works near the Carter House, before being forced back to the retrenched line.

John Flannery

One of their number was Irish-born John Flannery of Company C. Like so many he others, he was simply never heard from again after Franklin. His messmate William De Haven would later recall how he saw his friend in the works just a few minutes before they withdrew in the face of the Confederate attack, but it proved to be the last time he would ever see him. Flannery was never reported as a prisoner, and De Haven had no doubt that ‘he was killed or disposed of in some way by the enemy.’ John Flannery’s supposed death at Franklin must have been hard to bear for his mother Ellen back in Beardstown, Illinois. Her loss is brought into sharp focus when we consider that Ellen’s husband had died just before the war, and she had been reliant on John and his other brother Michael to support her and her four younger children. Michael, a member of the 28th Illinois, had been killed the previous year in Jackson, Mississippi. Now Franklin had robbed her of not only a second son, but also her economic security.

Some other 72nd Illinois soldiers who endured the violent trauma of the fighting at Franklin had also almost certainly borne witness to another great trauma in their lives- that of Famine.

Michael Nugent

Many of the Irishmen who fought in the American Civil War had emigrated during the years of the Great Famine in Ireland, which occurred between 1845 and 1852. We know that Michael Nugent of Company H witnessed it, as he was living in Dublin in 1848, the year he married Isabella Murphy in St. Nicholas Parish in the inner city. He emigrated to Chicago, presumably in the hope of a better life. Little could he have imagined then that life would end near the Carter House in November 1864.

John Curry served in Company K of the 72nd Illinois, and like many other Irish emigrants in the 1840s had landed in North America via Canada. It was in Canada in 1848 that he married Ellen Driscoll, and it was also there that their first child was born. They eventually moved to Illinois, before John enlisted in the 72nd and was ultimately killed in action at Franklin. By 1864, Ellen, now widowed, had five minor children to support- unsurprisingly it was not long before she sought the financial security of another marriage.

We often forget that battles like Franklin were responsible for men’s deaths long after the guns stopped firing. Many unfortunates lingered on for weeks, months and even years with the wounds they had sustained. For others it was their capture that signed their death warrant. One of these men was Michael O’Brien of the 183rd Ohio Infantry, an Irishman who had enlisted from his new American home of Lebanon, Ohio. Franklin was his first fight. Michael was a member of Company G, who were deployed as skirmishers in front of the main works. Taken prisoner along with six others, he would later contract diarrhea, eventually dying during the night beside a friend in Tupelo, Mississippi, in January 1865. He left behind a widow and four children.

James Coughlan

As with the Confederate side, there were also many American born sons of Irish emigrants fighting for the Union at Franklin. One of the most notable was Lieutenant James Coughlan, an officer in the 24th Kentucky and a favoured aide-de-camp of General Jacob Cox. He was killed while encouraging the troops to repulse the Rebels, not far from the Cotton Gin. James’s Irish-born parents back in Paris, Kentucky, must have been devastated by the news of the 21-year-olds death. His father John had been disabled for many years, and he and his wife Joanna had relied on James for everything. James’s sister later remembered that he had made sure his parents always had ‘tea, coffee, sugar, flour and meat, clothing, fuel and other necessaries of life.’ Now they had lost both his companionship and his support.

How the families of those men killed at Franklin reacted to news of their loved ones death is often lost to history. One reaction that is recorded is that of Susan Tarleton, of Mobile, Alabama- Patrick Cleburne’s fiancée. She was reputedly walking in her garden when she overheard a newspaper boy cry out the news of the Battle, and report Cleburne’s death. Overcome with grief, she wore mourning clothes for a year. Cleburne’s body was initially briefly interred in Rose Hill Cemetery, Columbia on 2nd December before being moved to Ashwood Cemetery- a burial ground that Cleburne had passed a few days earlier, remarking that it was ‘almost worth dying for, to be buried in such a beautiful spot.’

Cleburne Grave in Helena, Arkansas

The Irish General was moved for the last time in 1870, when his body was brought back to Helena, where it still rests in Maple Hill Cemetery.

Jefferson Davis called Patrick Cleburne the ‘Stonewall of the West,’ while Robert E. Lee said that he was a ‘meteor shining from a clouded sky.’ As with many similar historical figures, his premature death in battle, fighting for a cause he fervently believed in, helped to cement his image in the popular imagination. Some of those who knew him, like his former business partner Charles Nash and former adjutant Irving Buck, wrote books about him.

Placename Legacy

Veterans of his division in Texas would name a town in his honour, where now almost 30,000 people live. In 1866 a county in Alabama was named for him, as was one in Arkansas in 1883. The Confederate cemetery in Jonesboro, Georgia, also bears his name. His level of popularity waned somewhat in the middle of the 20th century, though Ed Bearss made him the focus of his masters studies in 1955, and in 1973 Howell and Elizabeth Purdue published ‘Pat Cleburne: Confederate General’, the first major published study of him in almost 70 years.

Today, Patrick Cleburne is just as famous for a proposal he made on 2nd January 1864 as he is for his fighting prowess, a situation that is perhaps reflective of changing attitudes to the conflict.

Unveiling of Cleburne Slave Proposal Plaque

That this proposal was made at all is known only because of a chance 1880s discovery of the only surviving copy, as at the time it was ordered suppressed. In it Cleburne suggested arming slaves to fight for the Confederacy in return for their freedom. He posited that ‘As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter- give up the negro slaves rather than be a slave himself.’ Given the outraged reaction to the proposal by some Generals like William B. Bate, William H.T. Walker and Patton Anderson, this was not necessarily the case. Cleburne made his proposal based purely on the practicalities of the North’s numerical advantages, rather than any deep-seated desire to see emancipation. Perhaps more than anything else, the proposal is a reminder that Cleburne had spent the first 21 years of his life in Ireland, and by 1864 he still had a ways to go before he fully understood the South.

It has been debated whether or not Cleburne’s proposal prevented him from achieving higher command in the Army of Tennessee, but if it did have a negative impact on him in his own lifetime, that is certainly not the case in ours. Last February saw the Museum of the Confederacy’s ‘Person of the Year 1864’ symposium, which was decided by audience vote following talks on each of the nominated figures by noted scholars. Unsurprisingly Sherman came out on top, but he was followed by Cleburne, who garnered more votes than Lincoln, Lee or Grant. It is inconceivable that the Irishman would have finished in this position were it not for his proposal to arm slaves. There is no denying that in recent times Cleburne has often found himself centre stage.

Cleburne Books

He has been the subject of a number of recent biographies, has had a statue erected in his honour at Ringgold Gap, and of course has been recognized in the continuing efforts to reclaim the Franklin battlefield.

But what of Patrick Cleburne’s memory in Ireland? Shortly after the General’s death, while he lay in a coffin awaiting interment, a woman called Naomi Hays placed a poem she had written for him on his casket. She described how ‘Erin’s land sends forth a wail’ on hearing news of the Corkman’s death. Unfortunately, the reality is that, far from sending forth a wail, Patrick Cleburne remains relatively little known in Ireland. A plaque was placed on the house of his birth in 1994 by visiting Americans, while in more recent years a housing development in nearby Ballincollig was named ‘Cleburne Mews.’ Some artefacts relating to the General also featured in a major National Museum of Ireland military exhibition. But beyond this, Cleburne, along with the other c. 200,000 Irishmen who fought in the American Civil War, remain largely forgotten in Ireland. This is despite the fact that, along with World War One, the American Civil War represents Ireland’s largest conflict in history when it comes to the numbers of men who served. Ireland has no national memorial to those of her emigrants who died in the American Civil War. In Ireland there has been no major exploration of the role of Irish people in the conflict, and during the course of the sesquicentennial not a single conference was held to discuss them.

My country’s failure to remember her Famine-era emigrants is hopefully something that is set to change. During an address in New Orleans last week, the Irish Minister for Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht specifically referenced the experiences of the Irish in the American Civil War, for the first time officially highlighting those people that I have come to refer to as the Forgotten Irish. Thankfully, they are most certainly not Forgotten Americans. They continue to be appropriately remembered by those in the nation that they had come to be a part of all those years ago. As an Irish person, I would like to extend my gratitude to you for that, and for the privilege of speaking to you about one of their number here today.

Acknowledgements

Filed under: Battle of Franklin, Cork, Dublin, Tennessee Tagged: Affair at Spring Hill, Battle of Frankin 150, Civil War Sesquicentennial, Irish American Civil War, Irish in America, Keynote Address Franklin, Patrick Cleburne, Save the Franklin Battlefield

‘Patrick Cleburne & The Battle of Franklin': The Full Keynote Address from the 2014 Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event

On Friday 14th November last it was my great privilege to deliver the Keynote Address at the 2014 Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event in The Factory, Franklin. The title of the paper was ‘Patrick Cleburne & The Battle of Franklin’ and it dealt with the life, death and legacy of the Cork native, together with other Irishmen and their families who were impacted by that devastating engagement. As 30th November 2014 marks the 150th anniversary of that bloody struggle, I have decided to reproduce the talk here in full, together with the slide presentation that accompanied it.

Patrick Cleburne & The Battle of Franklin

When we look at history we have an almost overwhelming temptation to simplify it. We try to place order on the past, often looking at it as a series of defining moments, each one causing an alteration in history’s course, each making one future possible and another less likely. We can sometimes look at people’s lives- even our own lives- in a similar way. Of course history, as with life, is seldom as straightforward as this. The reality tends to be more opaque, more complex, more convoluted. Despite this, it can be a fascinating exercise to consider what might have been the key moments in one persons life, particularly the life of a historical figure– moments which set them on the path to their ultimate destiny.

I have spent a considerable time studying Irish emigrants impacted by the American Civil War. Many thousands of them breathed their last on American battlefields. This year, 150 years on, I have been fortunate enough to stand on some of the fields where many of these Irishmen fought. Notorious places like the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania and the Dead Angle at Kennesaw. On each occasion that I’ve travelled from Ireland to these battlegrounds, I find my thoughts turning to those Irish who fought there, and particularly to those who died there. What were their personal stories? What became of their loved ones? What were their life experiences, which culminated in a premature death on an American battlefield? We are here today to discuss one of those men, and to wonder; What were the defining moments in Patrick Cleburne’s life? What were the events that led him from a childhood in rural Co. Cork to the city of Franklin where we are meeting here today?

All of the c. 200,000 Irish-born men who fought in the American Civil War, be it in Confederate gray or Union blue, shared one common experience- which for each was a defining moment in their lives. That experience was emigration from the country of their birth. In looking at what led Patrick Cleburne to Franklin, we must first ask, what led him to emigrate?

The vast majority of Irish emigrants to 1840s and 1850s America came from poor backgrounds and were of the Catholic faith. Such was not the case with Patrick Ronayne Cleburne.

Bride Park Cottage

The future Major-General was born on 16th March 1828, just a little over 6,000 km from here, in the upstairs room of this house- Bride Park Cottage in Killumney, a rural home not far to the west of Cork City. His father Joseph was a medical doctor, originally from Co. Tipperary, and his mother was Mary Anne Ronayne, from a well to do landowning family near what is now Cobh in Co. Cork. Patrick was the third of four children born to the couple and was baptized in the nearby Protestant Church of St. Mary’s.

St. Mary’s Church

The Cleburne’s lived the relatively comfortable life of a middle-class professional family in 19th century Ireland. In addition to his medical practice at Bride Park, Joseph was also the contract surgeon for the nearby British Barracks and Military Gunpowder Mill at Ballincollig.

We often forget that Patrick Cleburne grew to adulthood in Ireland and spent the majority of his 36 years of life there. His experiences in the country of his birth formed his character, and it is impossible to understand his achievements in America without first understanding his disappointments in Ireland. The first of what we might term the ‘defining moments’ in Patrick Cleburne’s life came just 18 months into it, when his mother Mary Anne died. His father remarried quickly, wedding Isabella Stuart in 1830. This was the woman who Patrick would refer to as ‘Mamma’ for the rest of his life and who would follow him to America. But for now that was all in the future.

Grange House

After Joseph Cleburne’s remarriage things looked bright for the family, and four more siblings joined the growing brood. Dr. Cleburne was clearly an ambitious and upwardly mobile man, and in 1836 he decided to try his hand as a landowner and farmer. He moved his family to the nearby local manor house at Grange, which he rented along with 206 acres. Initially things went well, and there seemed a real chance that the Cleburne’s were set on the road to prosperity. What occurred next was one of the major factors in ultimately determining the Cleburne family’s emigration.

The Grave of Dr. Cleburne

On 27th November 1843 Dr. Joseph Cleburne died- he was buried in St. Mary’s Churchyard, where he still rests. He had continued to combine the practice of medicine with farming, and the loss of that revenue now placed the Cleburnes under economic strain. Patrick’s older brother returned from college to try and manage the estate, and soon 16-year-old Patrick was en-route to the town of Mallow in north Cork.

The Spa House

It had been decided that he would follow in his father’s footsteps by becoming a medical doctor, and with that in mind he started as an apprentice to Mallow surgeon Dr. Thomas Justice.

Apothecaries’ Hall Ledger Entries

The ledger entry behind me records events relating to what I believe were the key formative experience in Patrick Cleburne’s early life. These are from the Apothecaries’ Hall in Dublin, where in 1845 Patrick first applied to sit the exams he needed in order to begin medical studies. He was rejected, but told to try again the following year. He did try; in early 1846 he sat the exam, no doubt hoping- perhaps expecting- to set out on a path that would lead to security and comfort in the years ahead. But Cleburne failed the exam, and that failure altered the course of his life. If the 17-year-old Patrick Cleburne had entered the Apothecaries’ Hall as he had hoped in 1846, it is most unlikely that his subsequent life would have led him here to Franklin.

As it was, the young man was mortified by his failure and was unwilling to return home to Cork. Too ashamed to face his family, Patrick instead made the rash decision of enlisting as a Private in the 41st Regiment of Foot, a decision he ultimately regretted. More than a year passed in the army without anyone hearing from him, until finally an officer and family friend recognized him in the ranks, and informed his loved ones of his whereabouts.

Spike Island

By now the year was 1847, and the Great Irish Famine was at its height. Private Patrick Cleburne witnessed many dreadful sights as he moved around the country with his regiment, helping to keep the peace in his native land. During those years, hunger and poverty forced many Irish families onto the emigrant boat. Although unaware of it at the time, Patrick would see some of them again, many wearing Union and Confederate uniforms on the other side of the Atlantic more than a decade later. The catastrophic Famine killed hundreds of thousands of the country’s poor, but it also had a telling impact on already struggling landowners like the Cleburnes. Ever increasing rents and poor returns for produce had forced Patrick’s ‘Mamma’ to consider emigrating the family to America.

The Port of Queenstown (Cobh)

Patrick, eager to escape a life which had thus far offered him only disappointment, volunteered to lead the way. He succeeded in buying his discharge from the army for £20 in September 1849 and thereafter wasted little time. By November he was en-route to New Orleans, where the 21-year-old landed along with three of his siblings on Christmas Day.

It is little exaggeration to say that for Patrick Cleburne, America proved the land of opportunity. His education, religion and finances placed him a better position to exploit it than many of his poorer Catholic Irish counterparts, but nonetheless much hard work lay ahead. America gave Cleburne a chance to reset his life. Had he remained in Ireland his future may have forever been defined by his failed Apothecaries Hall exam- but in the United States, a more flexible society offered the chance to undo past failings. He took that opportunity with both hands. After a brief period in Cincinnati, he arrived in the frontier town of Helena, Arkansas, in early 1850.

Cleburne on the 1850 Census

Over the course of the next decade he grew from a drugstore prescriptionist into a major community leader. By the end of 1851 he had graduated into drugstore owner, and began his social rise with membership of the Masonic Lodge in 1852. By 1854 he had decided to study law with a view to seeking admission to the bar, and by 1855 he had become heavily involved in local politics. He was particularly active in efforts to prevent the American Party- an anti-immigrant party often referred to as the ‘Know Nothings’- from gaining a foothold in Helena. During this period he became firm friends with fiery Democrat politician Thomas C. Hindman, also later a Confederate General.

Thomas C. Hindman

The two ran a paper together called the States Rights Democrat, which illustrates how closely Cleburne’s views were aligning with those of his friends and neighbours. His association with Hindman also nearly got Cleburne killed in May 1856, when a politically motivated shoot-out in Helena, aimed at Hindman, left one man dead (shot by the Irishman) and Cleburne clinging to life with a bullet in his chest. He recovered, and as Hindman went on to Congress, Cleburne re-focused his energy on the law and other business ventures. In 1860 his military experience and social position saw him elected Captain of the recently formed Yell Rifles, and with Arkansas secession from the Union on 6th May 1861, the stage was set for the last three and a half years of Patrick Cleburne’s life- years which would immortalize him.

The Irish who fought for North and South during the American Civil War did so for myriad reasons. Some enlisted on ideological grounds, such as preserving the Union or on the basis of States rights. Many did so for economic reasons, to take advantage of consistent pay and potential bounties. Some were persuaded that by fighting for North or South they could support Ireland, or strike at Britain. Others felt service may help them gain acceptance in America. A large number, which included Cleburne, fought for the preservation of their society and that of their friends. Arkansas had provided Cleburne with something he had never had in Ireland- a community of which he felt a part, a place filled with friends, somewhere he could call home. When Patrick Cleburne went to war, he went to war for Arkansas, and he was more than willing to die for Arkansas.

By the time Patrick Cleburne surveyed the scene that awaited him and his men at Franklin on 30th November 1864, he was a Major-General, commanding what was perhaps the most famed division in the Western Theater. He had risen from the Captain of the Yell Rifles to the Colonelcy of the 1st (later 15th) Arkansas, commanded a brigade at Shiloh, and ultimately led a division by the time of Stones River.

Ringgold Gap

Famed for his reliability, coolness under pressure and fighting qualities, Cleburne and his men had become the ‘go-to’ division of the Army of Tennessee, as demonstrated by their actions at Ringgold Gap, Georgia on 27th November 1863, when they had saved the army following the debacle of Missionary Ridge; an action for which Cleburne earned the thanks of Confederate Congress. But it was now a year on from Ringgold, a year that had seen the army lose more men and resources as a result of the attritional Atlanta Campaign, and a year that had seen the prospects of ultimate Confederate success dwindle to a flicker. Franklin presented Cleburne and his men with perhaps their greatest challenge. When he topped Winstead Hill ahead of his division that November afternoon, Cleburne dismounted, and resting his field glasses on a nearby tree stump, he surveyed the Union positions. He took in the impressive enemy works that had been thrown up by the waiting Yankees. After a time he replaced his glasses and said aloud, to no-one in particular, ‘They are very formidable.’

The events at Franklin 150 years ago are inextricably linked with those that occurred off to the south on the previous day.

Battle of Spring Hill (Civil War Trust)

On the 29th November General John Bell Hood, commander of the Army of Tennessee, created a seemingly golden opportunity to trap a significant portion of General John Schofield’s Union force. Having left Stephen D. Lee to occupy Federal attention in Columbia, Hood sent Cheatham’s and Stewart’s Corps across the Duck River, from where they converged on Spring Hill in Schofield’s rear, and threatened the Federal line of retreat towards Nashville. The very real possibility of destroying or mauling a sizable Yankee force had presented itself; all it appeared necessary for the Confederates to do was to take Spring Hill and cut the Franklin-Columbia Turnpike. Cheatham’s Corps, of which Cleburne’s Division formed a part, played a prominent role in the fight for Spring Hill. In what remains one of the most inexplicable failures of the war, when the fighting petered out that evening, the vital Franklin-Columbia Turnpike remained untaken- despite the fact that thousands of Rebels went into camp only yards from it. Through the night, Union troops that should have been trapped south of Spring Hill marched north, past the sleeping Confederates and on towards Franklin. In later years Union soldiers would remember passing within plain view of the Rebels, one recalling ‘thousands of fires burning brightly, and we could see the soldiers standing or moving around.’ Nobody was more aware of what had slipped away than John Bell Hood. In his words: ‘Thus was lost a great opportunity of striking the enemy for which we had labored so long- the greatest this campaign had offered, and one of the greatest of the war’

The Confederates awoke on the morning of 30th November to find their enemy gone. Just who was to blame for this failure is a topic that continues to generate debate, but there is little doubt that the previous days events were on the minds of many Confederate Generals as they pursued the Federals towards Franklin.

In the 150 years since the Battle of Franklin, many have speculated as to Patrick Cleburne’s state of mind that day. His fellow division commander General John C. Brown recalled that on the 30th November march northwards, Cleburne asked to see him. Riding into the fields alongside the marching columns to talk, Brown described Cleburne as being ‘angry’ and ‘deeply hurt.’ The Irishman had apparently been told that General Hood blamed him for the failure at Spring Hill the previous day. Cleburne said he could not afford to rest under such an imputation, and that he intended to have the matter fully investigated. Brown remembered asking Cleburne who he thought responsible for the failure with Cleburne placing ultimate culpability at the feet of the Commander-in-Chief.

A counterpoint to this view of Cleburne’s mindset has been put forward, primarily based on a letter found in Hood’s recently discovered personal papers. Written by former Army of Tennessee Corps Commander Stephen D. Lee, it recounts a conversation he had with General A.P. Stewart, also a former Corps Commander. Stewart had reportedly heard that on the 30th November Cleburne felt personal remorse for the failure at Spring Hill, due to his decision not to launch a night attack on the 29th. Stewart believed that ‘Cleburne regretted it immediately afterwards, and said no such weight should be on his mind for similar cause again and in that feeling lost his life at Franklin soon afterward.’

View towards Franklin from Winstead Hill

Brown’s and Lee’s accounts have to be treated with a degree of caution, as both were written after the war, in the context of an acrimonious dispute as to who was responsible for what had occurred at Spring Hill. Suffice is to say that whatever Cleburne actually felt, he must undoubtedly have been disappointed and angry at the chance missed. As he surveyed those fortified Union positions from Winstead Hill on 30th November, that disappointment must have been magnified.

As Cleburne waited for the troops to arrive at Franklin, he whiled away the time in a game of impromptu checkers with one of his staff. Drawing the outline of the board in the sand, the General gathered different coloured leaves to use for the gaming pieces. It was not long before he was ordered to Hood’s headquarters at the Harrison House, where along with a number of others in the high command, he expressed reservations about the proposed attack, telling Hood it would be a ‘terrible and useless waste of life.’ However, Hood determined the assault should go ahead. The commander instructed Cleburne to form his division to the right of the Columbia Turnpike and charge the works. The Irishman replied ‘General, I will take the works or fall in the effort’, before riding off towards his men.

The Carter Cotton Gin

The position assigned to Cleburne’s division on the right or east side of the Columbia Turnpike saw them aimed at a portion of the Federal works dominated by a Cotton Gin owned by the Carter family. The General requested that his Division be allowed to advance in column of brigades to reduce their exposure across the open ground, before deploying into line of battle for the final assault. Cleburne held a final meeting with his brigade commanders atop Breezy Hill to outline what was expected of them. One of them, Daniel C. Govan, who had known Cleburne in Helena, recalled this meeting many years later: ‘General Cleburne seemed to be more despondent than I ever saw him. I was the last one to receive any instructions from him, and as I saluted and bade him good-bye I remarked, “Well General, there will not be many of us that will get back to Arkansas,” and he replied “Well, Govan, if we are to die, let us die like men.’

Cleburne left the meeting and rode forward to some of his advanced sharpshooters on a rise called the Privet Knob. Taking one of their scopes, he again surveyed the Union works. He took a long look across the field before remarking ‘They have three lines of works.’ As his eye swept back across the Federal position, he added ‘And they are all completed.’ He was soon thundering back down the pike to his forming division.

The Battle of Franklin (Civil War Trust)

At around 4pm, with bands playing and flags fluttering, almost 20,000 men of the Confederate Army of Tennessee swung forward into the attack at Franklin. They made for an awesome sight. Among them was the talismanic figure of Patrick Cleburne, wearing a new uniform jacket, white linen shirt and kepi. He was mounted on a borrowed horse, as his regular animal, ‘Red Pepper’ had been wounded at Spring Hill. Riding forward into action, it seems that, as promised, he was determined to lead by example and personally take his men over the Federal works.

Although the prospects of success for the advancing Rebels should have been slight, a grievous error committed by Union General George D. Wagner handed them an opportunity. Wagner had inexplicably left two of his brigades exposed a half mile beyond the main Federal line. They were far too small a force to stem the Confederate assault, and when the Army of Tennessee hit them their position crumbled. As Wagner’s men turned and ran for Franklin, Cleburne’s soldiers sought to chase after them and follow them into the main works. Captain Sam Foster of Cleburne’s division described how the Union men would:

“…Fire a few shots and break to a run, and as soon as they break to run our men break after them. They have nearly ½ mile to run to get back to their next line- so here we go right after them and yelling like fury and shooting at them at the same time. Kill some of them before they reach their works, and those that are in the second line of works are not able to shoot us because of their own men are in front of us- and between us and them.”

Although Cleburne and his men were initially shielded by Wagner’s fleeing troops, eventually the Federal main line simply had to open fire. For those caught in it- be they Union or Confederate- the result was the same. Patrick Cleburne had crossed Wagner’s advance position and was heading for the main line when he was catapulted from his horse, which was killed under him. With the fire intensifying, one of Cleburne’s couriers leapt from his own mount and offered it to the General. As Cleburne put his foot in the stirrup, a cannon ball fired from near the Cotton Gin ploughed into the animal, eviscerating it. The courier also went down, his thigh shattered by a bullet. Cleburne decided to press on. General Govan last caught sight of him plunging forward on foot, waving his cap in encouragement to the men, before he disappeared into the smoke of battle. It was the last time he ever saw him. Many of Cleburne’s men reached the main line, where they became intermingled with those from other units as the deadly struggle for possession of the works reached a crescendo. But Patrick Cleburne was no longer with them.

When the fighting finally ceased in the darkness, rumours began to circulate in the Army of Tennessee that Cleburne had not survived. The Federal withdrawal during the night left the battlefield in Confederate hands, and the next morning the full scale of the previous days horrors was revealed. John McQuade was out early looking for the General, and describes what he found, not too far from the Carter Cotton Gin:

“He was about 40 or 50 yards from the works. He lay flat upon his back as if asleep, his military cap partly over his eyes. He had on a new gray uniform, the coat of the sack or blouse pattern. It was unbuttoned and open; the lower part of his vest was unbuttoned and open. He wore a white linen shirt, which was stained with blood on the front part of the left side, or just left of the abdomen. This was the only sign of a wound I saw on him, and I believe it is the only one he had received. I have always been inclined to think that feeling his end was near, he had thus laid himself down to die, or that his body had been carried there during the night. He was in his sock feet, his boots having been stolen. His watch, sword belt and other valuables all gone, his body having been robbed during the night.”

Carnton House

Cleburne’s body was placed in an ambulance alongside that of General John Adams, who had also fallen. The two were taken to Carnton House, where they were gently placed on the back porch. There they were joined by the bodies of four more officers, including two more Generals. The Battle of Franklin was over. It was an engagement that had effectively destroyed the Army of Tennessee, and, after just 36 years, ended Patrick Ronayne Cleburne’s life.

Across the 150 years since the Battle of Franklin, people have speculated as to the reasons behind Patrick Cleburne’s actions that day. Why did he choose to place himself so far forward when he could have directed operations from a safer distance? Was it anger at a perceived slight towards his conduct at Spring Hill, and a determination to show John Bell Hood his worth? Or was it an effort to redeem himself due to remorse he felt for personal failings? It is probable we will never know. But perhaps such speculations are of secondary importance. It is worth considering that Patrick Cleburne had consistently placed himself in dangerous positions on the battlefield. His devotion to the cause of Arkansas and the Confederacy was absolute, but it was a cause which he had accepted had been at serious risk since at least the winter of 1863. In October 1864, Cleburne had remarked that ‘If this cause that is so dear to my heart is doomed to fail, I pray heaven may let me fall with it, while my face is toward the enemy and my arm battling for that which I know to be right.’ As his Adjutant Irving Buck later stated, by November 1864, ‘any one above the degree of idiocy must have known that chances for final success of the Confederacy were desperate.’ Patrick Cleburne was no idiot, and at Spring Hill he had just witnessed perhaps the Army of Tennessee’s last best hope evaporate. Once the orders were given to attack at Franklin, he decided to roll the dice one more time, perhaps hoping that courage and devotion might be enough to win the day. Given these circumstances, and Cleburne’s character, perhaps what would have been truly remarkable is if Patrick Cleburne had survived.

Patrick Cleburne was far from the only man with links to Ireland on the field at Franklin that day. Indeed one of the men who lay beside him on the back porch of Carnton House -Brigadier-General John Adams- was himself the son of an emigrant from Strabane, Co. Tyrone. Irish and Irish-Americans were to be found spread throughout both armies, and like Cleburne, for many, the 30th November 1864 would be their last day. But before the death-dealing had begun, some of the Confederate Irishmen had even found time for humour.

Denny Callaghan

The breathtaking sight of the Confederate forces forming up for the attack that afternoon led one Rebel to recall Nelson’s words before Trafalgar: ‘England expects every man to do his duty.’ Sergeant Denny Callahan of the strongly Irish 1st Missouri quipped back: ‘it’s damned little duty England would get out of this Irish crowd.’ Denny and his comrades were part of Cockrell’s Missouri Brigade, French’s Division, which initially advanced to the right of Cleburne. By days end they would have the dubious honour of having sustained the highest casualties of any brigade in the army. One of those casualties was Denny Callahan, who was cut down in the act of planting the regimental colours on the Federal works and taken prisoner.

Patrick Caniffe

Another was his countryman Patrick Canniffe, who was leading the 3rd/5th Missouri into the maelstrom on horseback. As he neared the works he took a bullet to the right shoulder, knocking him from his mount. Before he could get up, a second projectile ripped through the top of his head, exiting through his chin. His body was found the next morning lying near his horse. Today Patrick Canniffe is one of those who rests in the McGavock Cemetery.

McGavock Confederate Cemetery

He shares that cemetery with a number of other Irish and Irish-Americans, men like Thomas Lindsey Murrell of the 6th Tennessee, who had attacked the Union works on the other side of the Colombia turnpike, part of Carter’s Brigade, Brown’s Division. Thomas was the Tennessee born son of Irish emigrant James Murrell from Limavady, Co. Derry. In some respects men like Patrick Canniffe and Thomas Murrell were the lucky ones- for many fallen Confederate Irishmen- like Martin Fleming of the 10th Tennessee ‘Irish’ Regiment, who advanced on the Confederate left, there would be no known grave.

One of the regiment’s that charged in with Cleburne’s division that day felt a particular affinity to the General, as many of its number shared his country of birth.

5th Confederate Infantry

The Fifth Confederate Infantry consisted largely of Memphis Irishmen, having been formed by the amalgamation of the 2nd (Knox-Walker’s) Tennessee and the 21st Tennessee. Their particular claim to fame was that it was Corporal Robert Coleman of the regiment who was credited with shooting General James McPherson outside Atlanta on 22nd July 1864- the same day their colour, now to be found in the Tennessee State Museum, was captured. One of their number recalled how the men of the regiment hero-worshipped Cleburne, a devotion that amounted ‘almost to idolatry.’ Unsurprisingly they were eager to claim his final moments- recording that at Franklin, Cleburne ‘sought out the regiment, charged in with it, and died with it.’ Another who died with it was Dick Cahill, who’s body was found on the morning of 1st December ten feet inside the Union works, near the Cotton Gin, punctured by four bayonet wounds.

Just as it was a bad day for Irish Confederates, Franklin also severely impacted many Irish who fought for Union. The records that survive for those in Federal service often allow us to paint a picture of the impact of battle on those left behind. Take for example some of the men of the 72nd Illinois, part of Strickland’s Brigade, Ruger’s Division, who faced James Murrell and other Confederates of Brown’s division to the west of the Columbia Turnpike. The 72nd initially manned the main line of works near the Carter House, before being forced back to the retrenched line.

John Flannery

One of their number was Irish-born John Flannery of Company C. Like so many he others, he was simply never heard from again after Franklin. His messmate William De Haven would later recall how he saw his friend in the works just a few minutes before they withdrew in the face of the Confederate attack, but it proved to be the last time he would ever see him. Flannery was never reported as a prisoner, and De Haven had no doubt that ‘he was killed or disposed of in some way by the enemy.’ John Flannery’s supposed death at Franklin must have been hard to bear for his mother Ellen back in Beardstown, Illinois. Her loss is brought into sharp focus when we consider that Ellen’s husband had died just before the war, and she had been reliant on John and his other brother Michael to support her and her four younger children. Michael, a member of the 28th Illinois, had been killed the previous year in Jackson, Mississippi. Now Franklin had robbed her of not only a second son, but also her economic security.

Some other 72nd Illinois soldiers who endured the violent trauma of the fighting at Franklin had also almost certainly borne witness to another great trauma in their lives- that of Famine.

Michael Nugent

Many of the Irishmen who fought in the American Civil War had emigrated during the years of the Great Famine in Ireland, which occurred between 1845 and 1852. We know that Michael Nugent of Company H witnessed it, as he was living in Dublin in 1848, the year he married Isabella Murphy in St. Nicholas Parish in the inner city. He emigrated to Chicago, presumably in the hope of a better life. Little could he have imagined then that life would end near the Carter House in November 1864.

John Curry served in Company K of the 72nd Illinois, and like many other Irish emigrants in the 1840s had landed in North America via Canada. It was in Canada in 1848 that he married Ellen Driscoll, and it was also there that their first child was born. They eventually moved to Illinois, before John enlisted in the 72nd and was ultimately killed in action at Franklin. By 1864, Ellen, now widowed, had five minor children to support- unsurprisingly it was not long before she sought the financial security of another marriage.

We often forget that battles like Franklin were responsible for men’s deaths long after the guns stopped firing. Many unfortunates lingered on for weeks, months and even years with the wounds they had sustained. For others it was their capture that signed their death warrant. One of these men was Michael O’Brien of the 183rd Ohio Infantry, an Irishman who had enlisted from his new American home of Lebanon, Ohio. Franklin was his first fight. Michael was a member of Company G, who were deployed as skirmishers in front of the main works. Taken prisoner along with six others, he would later contract diarrhea, eventually dying during the night beside a friend in Tupelo, Mississippi, in January 1865. He left behind a widow and four children.

James Coughlan

As with the Confederate side, there were also many American born sons of Irish emigrants fighting for the Union at Franklin. One of the most notable was Lieutenant James Coughlan, an officer in the 24th Kentucky and a favoured aide-de-camp of General Jacob Cox. He was killed while encouraging the troops to repulse the Rebels, not far from the Cotton Gin. James’s Irish-born parents back in Paris, Kentucky, must have been devastated by the news of the 21-year-olds death. His father John had been disabled for many years, and he and his wife Joanna had relied on James for everything. James’s sister later remembered that he had made sure his parents always had ‘tea, coffee, sugar, flour and meat, clothing, fuel and other necessaries of life.’ Now they had lost both his companionship and his support.

How the families of those men killed at Franklin reacted to news of their loved ones death is often lost to history. One reaction that is recorded is that of Susan Tarleton, of Mobile, Alabama- Patrick Cleburne’s fiancée. She was reputedly walking in her garden when she overheard a newspaper boy cry out the news of the Battle, and report Cleburne’s death. Overcome with grief, she wore mourning clothes for a year. Cleburne’s body was initially briefly interred in Rose Hill Cemetery, Columbia on 2nd December before being moved to Ashwood Cemetery- a burial ground that Cleburne had passed a few days earlier, remarking that it was ‘almost worth dying for, to be buried in such a beautiful spot.’

Cleburne Grave in Helena, Arkansas

The Irish General was moved for the last time in 1870, when his body was brought back to Helena, where it still rests in Maple Hill Cemetery.

Jefferson Davis called Patrick Cleburne the ‘Stonewall of the West,’ while Robert E. Lee said that he was a ‘meteor shining from a clouded sky.’ As with many similar historical figures, his premature death in battle, fighting for a cause he fervently believed in, helped to cement his image in the popular imagination. Some of those who knew him, like his former business partner Charles Nash and former adjutant Irving Buck, wrote books about him.

Placename Legacy

Veterans of his division in Texas would name a town in his honour, where now almost 30,000 people live. In 1866 a county in Alabama was named for him, as was one in Arkansas in 1883. The Confederate cemetery in Jonesboro, Georgia, also bears his name. His level of popularity waned somewhat in the middle of the 20th century, though Ed Bearss made him the focus of his masters studies in 1955, and in 1973 Howell and Elizabeth Purdue published ‘Pat Cleburne: Confederate General’, the first major published study of him in almost 70 years.

Today, Patrick Cleburne is just as famous for a proposal he made on 2nd January 1864 as he is for his fighting prowess, a situation that is perhaps reflective of changing attitudes to the conflict.

Unveiling of Cleburne Slave Proposal Plaque

That this proposal was made at all is known only because of a chance 1880s discovery of the only surviving copy, as at the time it was ordered suppressed. In it Cleburne suggested arming slaves to fight for the Confederacy in return for their freedom. He posited that ‘As between the loss of independence and the loss of slavery, we assume that every patriot will freely give up the latter- give up the negro slaves rather than be a slave himself.’ Given the outraged reaction to the proposal by some Generals like William B. Bate, William H.T. Walker and Patton Anderson, this was not necessarily the case. Cleburne made his proposal based purely on the practicalities of the North’s numerical advantages, rather than any deep-seated desire to see emancipation. Perhaps more than anything else, the proposal is a reminder that Cleburne had spent the first 21 years of his life in Ireland, and by 1864 he still had a ways to go before he fully understood the South.

It has been debated whether or not Cleburne’s proposal prevented him from achieving higher command in the Army of Tennessee, but if it did have a negative impact on him in his own lifetime, that is certainly not the case in ours. Last February saw the Museum of the Confederacy’s ‘Person of the Year 1864’ symposium, which was decided by audience vote following talks on each of the nominated figures by noted scholars. Unsurprisingly Sherman came out on top, but he was followed by Cleburne, who garnered more votes than Lincoln, Lee or Grant. It is inconceivable that the Irishman would have finished in this position were it not for his proposal to arm slaves. There is no denying that in recent times Cleburne has often found himself centre stage.

Cleburne Books

He has been the subject of a number of recent biographies, has had a statue erected in his honour at Ringgold Gap, and of course has been recognized in the continuing efforts to reclaim the Franklin battlefield.

But what of Patrick Cleburne’s memory in Ireland? Shortly after the General’s death, while he lay in a coffin awaiting interment, a woman called Naomi Hays placed a poem she had written for him on his casket. She described how ‘Erin’s land sends forth a wail’ on hearing news of the Corkman’s death. Unfortunately, the reality is that, far from sending forth a wail, Patrick Cleburne remains relatively little known in Ireland. A plaque was placed on the house of his birth in 1994 by visiting Americans, while in more recent years a housing development in nearby Ballincollig was named ‘Cleburne Mews.’ Some artefacts relating to the General also featured in a major National Museum of Ireland military exhibition. But beyond this, Cleburne, along with the other c. 200,000 Irishmen who fought in the American Civil War, remain largely forgotten in Ireland. This is despite the fact that, along with World War One, the American Civil War represents Ireland’s largest conflict in history when it comes to the numbers of men who served. Ireland has no national memorial to those of her emigrants who died in the American Civil War. In Ireland there has been no major exploration of the role of Irish people in the conflict, and during the course of the sesquicentennial not a single conference was held to discuss them.

My country’s failure to remember her Famine-era emigrants is hopefully something that is set to change. During an address in New Orleans last week, the Irish Minister for Arts, Heritage & the Gaeltacht specifically referenced the experiences of the Irish in the American Civil War, for the first time officially highlighting those people that I have come to refer to as the Forgotten Irish. Thankfully, they are most certainly not Forgotten Americans. They continue to be appropriately remembered by those in the nation that they had come to be a part of all those years ago. As an Irish person, I would like to extend my gratitude to you for that, and for the privilege of speaking to you about one of their number here today.

Acknowledgements

Filed under: Battle of Franklin, Cork, Dublin, Tennessee Tagged: Affair at Spring Hill, Battle of Frankin 150, Civil War Sesquicentennial, Irish American Civil War, Irish in America, Keynote Address Franklin, Patrick Cleburne, Save the Franklin Battlefield

Aran Islanders Abroad: An Inisheer Family and the American Civil War

If you had met John Donohoe in early 1861, it would have meant you were a visitor to one of the remotest locations in Europe. Thats because you would have been on Inisheer (Innis Oírr), a Gaelic speaking island off Ireland’s west coast. At only 2 miles long and 1.5 miles wide, it is the smallest of the Aran Islands. That was where John Donhoe lived, eeking out a living with his brothers and parents on a small four acre farm. But, if you encountered him only a year later, you would have found him inhabiting a different world. By then he was in the midst of what must have seemed to him like hell on earth. By 1862 John Donohoe had become one of the c. 200,000 Irish emigrants fighting in the American Civil War. His fate would reverberate all the way back to Inisheer, where years later, you could still encounter what the U.S. administration referred to as ‘the widow Donohoe of the South Island of Arran.’ (1)

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The tiny island of Inisheer, where John Donohoe grew up and farmed.

Traces of the Donohoe family’s life on Inisheer survive in the documentary record. The Griffith’s Valuation for the island, recorded in the 1850s, lists John’s father, ‘Peter Donohoe’. He was renting 4 acres valued at £4 and buildings valued at 15 shillings from Miss Elizabeth F. Digby. Although Peter’s name was on the lease, he was burdened by ill heath. What was variously described as ‘consumption’, ‘asthma’, ‘heart disease’ and ‘dropsy’ kept him from manual labour, meaning that he and his wife Bridget were reliant on the work of their sons John, Thomas, Peter and Morgan to manage their farm and the crops, which were valued around £10 per year. John worked full-time on the farm from at least the age of 13, and grew up knowing little other than island life. (2)

Either through choice or necessity (likely a bit of both), the future of three of the Donohoe boys lay away from Inisheer. For John, Thomas and Peter that future was in America. John was supposedly between 18 and 19 years old when he left Inisheer forever in June 1861. It is impossible to imagine what it must have been like for the young islander when he arrived on the other side of the Atlantic a few weeks later, suddenly immersed in the sights and sounds of the metropolis of Boston. Whatever his impressions, he didn’t tarry long. On the 17th September 1861 the 5 foot 8 3/4 inch boy, with grey eyes, light hair and a sallow complexion, presented himself at an army recruiting station. He had managed to age considerably in the few months since he had left Inisheer- he was now recorded as 21. John Donohoe, the Aran Islander, had now become Private John Donohoe of Company H, 1st United States Artillery. (3)

The Landscape of Inisheer, where John Donohoe grew up (Thomas Winter, Flickr Creative Commons)

By 5th May 1862, John had been in the United States for a little over 10 months. That morning he and his comrades of Company H found themselves bouncing along a road with their guns and limbers, just outside the Virginia town of Williamsburg. They were part of a force of some 41,000 Federals who were about to engage 31,000 Confederates in what would become the first battle of the Peninsula Campaign. It was an engagement for which John was in the van. Having never seen serious action before, nervous energy must have coursed through his veins as he realised he would soon face battle. Perhaps he took a moment to think of his tiny island home, a setting that could not be further removed from the sea of military activity that surrounded him. It was early in the fight when his guns were ordered to the front, where they took up position to engage the enemy. Two of Company H’s pieces unlimbered right in the roadway, while four more moved into an adjacent field. Almost immediately they started to take fire from Confederate infantry and artillery, including guns firing from nearby Rebel Fort Magruder. Within seconds two officers and two privates went down in a hail of fire, terrifying the other men who abandoned the guns to seek cover. Only about 18 men of Company H could be persuaded to return to help fire their pieces; the remainder had to be manned by volunteers. As the rain poured down the artillerists worked the guns, exchanging salvoes with the Confederates only 700 yards away. For seven hours the sporadic struggle continued. In the end it was events on the left flank that sealed the gunners fate. There the Union infantry was forced back, and when they retreated they exposed the cannoneers to attack from this direction. As the buoyant Rebels poured forward they reached the artillery, capturing four of Battery H’s guns. The survivors had to endure fire from Confederate sharpshooters concealed in fallen timber for the remainder of the day. When daylight ended the fighting, the Battery had lost two men killed and eight wounded in what would become known as the Battle of Willliamsburg. One of those men who had given their life was John Donohoe of Inisheer. (4)

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Aran Islander John Donohoe lost his life in this area on 5th May 1862, most probably somewhere to the east of the area marked ‘Government Road.’

John was reportedly not the only member of the Donohoe family to serve in the army- his mother Bridget would later claim that Thomas also donned Union blue, only to contract a disease which led to his discharge, and ultimately his death. As the 1860s continued back on Inisheer, the family circumstances were not improving. The 1st U.S. Artillery sent the money John had been owed prior to his death to the Aran Islands, but it provided only a temporary respite. Peter Donohoe’s debilitating illness, which had incapacitated him for ten years, eventually claimed his life. After a final two month personal battle he died on 23rd May 1868. Bridget could now no longer rely on the assistance of either her husband or her sons. She had to give up the farm in May 1870, and became reliant on the charity of her fellow islanders. Now 60 years of age, she decided to approach the United States Government in search of a pension, based on her son’s service in the U.S. Artillery. (5)

Hooker’s Division engaging at Williamsburg, sketch by Alfred Waud (Library of Congress)

Bridget’s road to receiving a U.S. Government pension was not an easy one. It was exacerbated by the fact that the Physician who had treated her husband, Dr. James Johnston Stoney, had himself died on 25th June 1869, a result of an ‘overdraught of laudanum’. Without another medical man on Inisheer who had known her husband, she struggled to prove that Peter had been physically incapable. She eventually employed the services of  attorney James Shannon of Ballingaddy, Ennistymon, Co. Clare to assist her in gathering the evidence she needed. She secured death certificates for both her husband and Dr. Stoney, before seeking affidavits from her friends and neigbours on Inisheer to vouch for her story. These included Simon Maher, who had taken over her farm in 1870, Inisheer farmers Coleman Conneely, Pat Griffin, Martin Griffin and Martin O’Donnell, and Martin Hernon of the ‘North Island’. Bridget told the U.S. officials that she would ‘have to got to a workhouse to end her days unless a pension be granted to her’. Her pension was finally granted, dated to 15th March 1871. She gave her Post Office address as ‘South Island of Arran, County Galway Ireland‘, from where she claimed her monthly payment for the remainder of her life. (6)

Bridget Donhoe never knew where her son had died. She knew only that he had been ‘shot in the American War’, while serving in the Union Army. The story of the ‘Widow Donohoe of the South Island of Arran’ and her family demonstrate to us just how real the experience of the American Civil War was for tens of thousands of Irish people- even those in remote parts of Ireland, such as the Aran Islands. It is a memory that we have lost in Ireland, condemning men like John Donohoe of Inisheer to fill the ranks of what still remain the Forgotten Irish. (7)

A member of the 1st U.S. Artillery in 1859 (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. This piece would not have been possible without the assistance and support of my good friend Jackie Budell.

(1) John Donohoe Dependent Mother’s Pension File; (2) ; (3) John Donohoe Dependent Mother’s Pension File, U.S. Army Register of Enlistments; (4) OR: 450, 470-2; (5) John Donohoe Dependent Mother’s Pension File; (6) Ibid.; (7) Ibid.;

References

John Donohoe Dependent Mother Widow’s Pension File.

.

U.S. Army Register of Enlistments.

Official Records of The War of The Rebellion Series 1, Volume 11, Part 1. Report of Maj. Charles S. Wainright, Chief of Artillery.

Official Records of The War of The Rebellion Series 1, Volume 11, Part 1. Return of Casualties in the Union Forces at the Battle of Williamsburg.

Thomas Winter Flickr Image of Inisheer (Creative Commons)

Filed under: Battle of Williamsburg, Galway Tagged: Aran Island Emigration, Aran Islands Soldiers, Battle of Williamsburg, Civil War Widow's Pensions, Galway Emigration, Inisheer America, Irish American Civil War, Irish Speakers in America

Celebrating Thanksgiving Aboard Union Ironclads, James River, 1864

In November 1864 a number of Union Ironclads were to be found on the James River in Virginia, supporting Federal ground operations there. A large number of the men on board the vessels of the James River Flotilla were Irish; indeed they made up an estimated 20% of all Union sailors. How did they and their comrades celebrate Thanksgiving 150 years ago?

Officers on the deck of the U.S.S. Onondaga with their dogs. The identity of the Irish correspondent, ‘Garryowen’, has not been established (National Archives).

We are fortunate that one of them has left us an account. He was a sailor on the U.S.S. Onondaga, one of the Union monitors on the James. Corresponding under the pen-name ‘Garryowen’, he wrote frequently to the New York Irish-American newspaper, who regularly published his letters. His account tells how the ‘sturdy sons of Neptune’ began their day by dispatching some unfortunate Turkeys, before their thoughts turned to loved ones at home. Thanksgiving ended with the sailors engaged in an altogether more deadly contest, as they took fire from a Confederate shore battery. ‘Garryowen’ takes up the story:

A view of the U.S.S. Onondaga on the James River during the American Civil War (Library of Congress).

U.S. Iron-Clad “Onondaga”, Dutch Gap, James River, VA., Nov. 28, 1864.

…We had our Thanksgiving Festival, and indeed the patriotic parties who were instrumental in getting it up are deserving of more than an ordinary share of praise for the creditable manner in which the affair was managed, as we received an abundance of Turkeys, &c., which made the berth deck resemble a poultry market on a small scale. After all being served the work of dissecting commenced; the cooks “pulled off their coats and rolled up their sleeves,” transferred the gobblers to the upper deck, and went through the process of immersion in the James with the said gobblers. On Thanksgiving morning the “galley” was the centre of attraction- roasting, baking, boiling, stewing, and all the pharaphernlia of the culinary department brought into requisition and under full headway. At the usual time, eight bells announced dinner, when there was a simultaneous attack on the enemy. Talk about storming the enemy’s works, and taking them by assault, but the attack on the defenceless gobblers throws Sherman’s flanking movements in the shade; for, in less time than it takes to tell it, they had all disappeared before the terrible onslaught of the sturdy sons of Neptune; and thus was fought the great battle of Thanksgiving on the James.

‘Having discovered a new iron-clad…they determined to give her a welcome’. The U.S.S. Mahopac on operations on the James River (Library of Congress).

Having this temporarily enjoyed ourselves, had we no thoughts of those dear, fond and loving ones at home- did the question occur to us, what kind of a Thanksgiving had our wives and little ones? Oh, yes! It could not be otherwise, though we felt somewhat consoled and assured that the same bountiful and patriotic hands that provided for us, would not see them want for their Thanksgiving festival, as no luxuries, no comforts, no encouragement is so acceptable to the soldiers or sailors as the assurance that our families are not neglected. Let us only hear that they are looked after and cared for, and no dangers, no risks or privations will be too much for us to endure or encounter; with a willing cheerfulness will we strike the foes, and with our strong right arm to the rescue, our once happy, united and prosperous country will again take her place among the nations of the world, a terror to traitors at home and enemies abroad.

‘…Mortar shells from Howlett’s Battery…’. The Confederate Battery at Howlett House which fired on the U.S.S. Onondaga and other Federal vessels on Thanksgiving Day, 1864 (Library of Congress).

In the evening, while we were congratulating ourselves on the happy events of the day, we received a salute from our pugnacious friends- the “Rebs.” Having discovered a new iron-clad- the “Mahopac”- they determined to give her a welcome in the shape of mortar shells from “Howlett’s Battery,” in which exercise they indulged to a considerable extent. Their shots were aimed mighty accurate- one of the shells having hit the “Mud Digger,” at the canal, in the ribs and sent her to the bottom. At this juncture we were called to quarters, and commenced firing a few of our 15-inchers, scattering terror and dismay among them, which soon caused them to cease their vomiting. For about two hours a brisk cannonading was kept up by both parties, which resulted in immense quantities of metal being wasted, and “nobody hit.” About dusk it was “all quiet on the James” again and remains so yet.

GARRYOWEN.

‘…Having hit the “Mud Digger,” at the canal, in the ribs and sent her to the bottom.’ General Butler’s forces were engaged in an ultimately unsuccessful project which involved digging a canal to try and bypass some Confederate batteries on the James. This photo is the dredge boat that ‘Garryowen’ witnessed sinking on Thanksgiving Day, 1864 (Library of Congress).

References

New York Irish-American Weekly 17th December 1864. Our Iron-Clads in the James River.

Filed under: Navy, New York Tagged: American Civil War Thanksgiving, Forgotten Irish, History of Thanksgiving, Irish American Civil War, Irish Diaspora, Irish emigration, Irish in the Union Navy, James River Flotilla

Little Donegal in Pennsylvania: Chain Emigration and Ireland’s Great Untapped 19th Century Historical Resource

The thousands of American Civil War pension files relating to Irishmen represent one of the greatest available resources for uncovering the social history of the 19th century emigrant experience. It is a resource that is almost completely unrecognised in Ireland, a scholarly neglect that is symptomatic of the lack of awareness of the scale of Irish involvement in the American Civil War. I have come across few files that are more illustrative of this than the papers relating to Private Charles O’Donnell of the United States Marine Corps. His death during the American Civil War created a documentary record that allows us to explore not only his life, but also the connections between Donegal families from the parish of Donaghmore and Philadelphia’s textile industry.

Map of Donegal. Donaghmore where the Kelly, O’Donnell and Sharkey families hailed from is located in the east of the county, near the Co. Tyrone border (via Wikipedia created by Kanchelskis)

It is clear that Irish emigrants to 19th century America often joined clusters of families from their own Irish region or locality when they arrived in the United States. This is a theme that is described time and again in Civil War pension files, which are almost unique in how often they detail a family’s life on both sides of the Atlantic- before and after emigration. Where one family or group had blazed a trail in a particular American region, word filtered back to Ireland, and more people followed in their footsteps. This is a theme that continues in modern emigration patterns- Ireland’s best known example is the immigrant population from Anápolis, Brazil who now live in the town of Gort, Co. Galway, a relocation connected with the meat-packing industry. Charles O’Donnell’s service in the United States Marine Corps allows us to explore similar familial webs of interconnectivity amongst Irish emigrants to 19th century Philadelphia, based on the statements and evidence provided in support of the pension application.

Charles O’Donnell was born in the rural townland of Tievebrack, Donaghmore, Co. Donegal around 1844. He was described as 5 feet 7 1/2 inches in height, with dark eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion. His pension file allows us to determine the sequence of events which led to the 19-year-old’s enlistment in the United States Marine Corps in 1862. They were events that were set in train long before his birth; indeed they had started over five decades previously. Charles O’Donnell would likely not have been in Philadelphia were it not for the emigration of another Donegal native in 1806- when a different young man arrived in America. That man’s name was Dennis Kelly, who had been born in Donaghmore parish, Co. Donegal in 1779. (1)

Dennis Kelly lost his father in Donegal at a young age, leading him to seek employment in the linen trade, a major industry in his part of Ireland. Despite humble beginnings, he appears to have been a natural businessman; by the time he reached his late 20s he had saved enough money to take his wife and child to a new life in America. Arriving in Philadelphia on 18th June 1806, he soon had his family loaded on a Conestoga wagon and heading west towards the frontier. They were only a few miles into their journey when Dennis made what would prove a momentous decision. One of their travelling companions seems to have been somewhat foul-mouthed- indeed his profanity was so extreme that it outraged the Irishman, who promptly hauled his family off the wagon, returning to Philadelphia in disgust. Deciding to abandon the idea of settling on the frontier, he instead got work on a nearby milldam. By 1808 he was back in the linen industry, making his own ‘bagging’ cloth. He soon began to accumulate substantial wealth, buying up mills and entering into horse and cattle breeding. The community that grew up around one of his businesses- Clinton Mills on Darby Creek- would become known as Kellyville. By the 1860s, Dennis was a major contractor for the Union war effort, owned 800 acres in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware counties, and operated no less than six mills. His success would have a lasting impact on his home parish in Donegal. (2)

Upper Darby with the Philadelphia skyline in the background. Dennis Kelly ran Mills in this area in the 19th century (Photo by Lucius Kwok)

Dennis Kelly employed a large number of Irish emigrants in his linen and other industries, and was also keen to look after other family members from Co. Donegal. Most notable among these was his nephew Charles Kelly, born in Ardnagannagh townland, Donaghmore in 1808. Charles emigrated to Philadelphia and joined his uncle in 1821 and further cemented his relationship by marrying Dennis’s daughter. Charles became Dennis’s protégé and soon proved an adept businessman in his own right. By the American Civil War he was also a major textile manufacturer and supplier to the Union army, success which in turn created more opportunities for Donegal emigrants. (3)

What then does the story of Dennis and Charles Kelly have to do with Charles O’Donnell in 1862? The answer is that the O’Donnell family were only in Pennsylvania because of the Kellys- as were many other Irish from Donaghmore in Co. Donegal. In fact, the O’Donnells were related to the textile magnates, as were a number of other families who left the parish for Pennsylvania, families such as the Sharkeys. The 1826 Tithe Applotment Book for Donaghmore parish records the names of families such as the Kellys, O’Donnells and Sharkeys living side by side in Ireland. The pension file relating to Charles O’Donnell adds detail to this picture, revealing the close associations which continued even after emigration. (4)

Before exploring these connections it is first necessary to outline the fate of Private Charles O’Donnell, the young man whose service caused these detailed ties of emigration to be recorded. Charles enlisted in the United States Marines Corps in Philadelphia on 22nd July 1862. He had been a Marine for only a few weeks when he wrote the following letter to his mother:

agust the 7 1862

my dear mother i receved your leter on the [illegible] and was very glad to hear that you are al well as i am at preasen and i hop this will find you the same _ you want to now if i want of i dont want of i light [like] this plase wil i expect to get to philadelphia before i gow on sea_ i listed on the 22 of July and come to washington on the 23 of July i get plenty to eat i am listed for 4 years_ every one hase a bed to himself i get to Chursh on every Sonday i dident se [illegible] at Church yet_ give my love to my father and brothers and sisters_ in the next leter you send let me now wich stret that Kate lives in and i will gow to se her_ i dont want anything the cantean opens twicst [twice] a day and i kin get any thing i want_ i reseved a doler [dollar] in your letter you ned not send any thing more_no more at preasand from your effectiond son Charles O Donnell

right son and dond forget (5)

A United States Marine Corps Battalion in front of the Commandant’s House, Marine Barracks, Washington D.C. in 1864. Charles O’Donnell never got any further than these barracks during his brief military career in 1862 (Library of Congress)

Charles was stationed in the Marine Barracks in Washington D.C. while waiting to see where he would be posted. Two weeks after he wrote this letter, on 23rd August, he began to suffer with a pain in his head. For several days he ‘complained of little else’, before his symptoms suddenly worsened and it became clear he had Typhoid Fever. He was moved to the Marine Hospital while his mother rushed to get to his beside from Philadelphia. She arrived in time to spend the last 36 hours of his life with him- Charles passed away on 9th September 1862. (6)

Charles’s parents were John and Jane O’Donnell. The family had emigrated from Tievebrack, Donaghmore to Philadelphia in the late 1840s. It was a decision that may well have been driven by the Famine, but their destination was based firmly upon family ties- Jane’s maiden name was Kelly; her father Edward, who appears on the 1826 Tithes records, was Dennis Kelly’s brother. Both John and Jane had a number of relatives from Tievebrack waiting for them in Philadelphia, and they were soon fully incorporated into the expatriate Donegal community. The 1860 Census found the family in Precinct 3 of Philadelphia’s 24th Ward, where their reliance on the Kelly textile empire was apparent:

Name
Age
Profession
Born


D. O’Donnell
24
Manufacturer of Wool Goods
Ireland


John O’Donnell
60
Laborer
Ireland


Jane O’Donnell
50
-
Ireland


Edward O’Donnell
23
Spinner
Ireland


John O’Donnell
21
Weaver
Ireland


Margaret O’Donnell
18
Weaver
Ireland


Charles O’Donnell
16
Wool Carder
Ireland


James O’Donnell
13
-
Ireland


Catharine O’Donnell
10
-
Pennsylvania


Sarah O’Donnell
8
-
Pennsylvania


Alice O’Donnell
6
-
Pennsylvania


Dennis O’Donnell
3
-
Pennsylvania

Table 1. O’Donnell Family in the 1860 US Federal Census. (7)

In the census John and Jane O’Donnell and their family were living with a ‘D. O’Donnell’- this is almost certainly Dominick O’Donnell, probably another relative. Dominick and Edward O’Donnell were leasing a Cotton and Woollen Mill in the 24th Ward, the mill in which all the O’Donnell family worked- including the later U.S. Marine Charles, who in 1860 was a 16-year-old Wool Carder. The only member of the family not employed by the mill was the patriarch John, who was recorded as a laborer. However, in reality by 1860 John was unable to work. He had been struck by a violent sickness the previous year, which affected him in both mind and body. It so devastated him that he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane on 6th May 1859. Although he was released from that institution on the 10th August, he was never able to undertake physical labour again. It was this disability that ultimately led him to seek support based upon his son’s military service. (8)

Herdman’s Mills in Sion Mills, Co. Tyrone. Ulster is famous for its history of linen production, an industry Dennis Kelly prospered at in Pennsylvania (Photo by Kenneth Allen)

By the 1870s John O’Donnell, now living at 2026 Christian Street, was struggling to make ends meet. His wife Jane had died on 27th April 1874 and he had to turn to his son’s United States Marine Corps record in search of a pension. Extended family members living in Philadelphia- all of whom were also from Donaghmore parish- rallied around John to help him secure a pension. Along the way they revealed the extent of the ties between rural Donegal and some of Pennsylvania’s major textile production industries. One of them was John O’Donnell’s 1st cousin, Mary O’Donnell. Her father Neil had been John’s uncle. On 16th June 1879 Mary gave a statement in which she recorded that she was then 70 years of age and had emigrated to Philadelphia about thirty years before. She related how ‘the said John O’Donnell and the said Jane Kelly and myself were reared in the same townland Teevebrack [Tievebrack], I knew them well, I remember when the said John and the said Jane were married, they were living in the said townland at the time, their marriage was known to all their friends and neigbors. I know they lived and cohabited there as man and wife and several children were born to them.’ John’s daughters Maggie and Catharine also gave statements. Catharine told how she only had partial use of her limbs as a result of an accident in her youth, which impacted her ability to help support her father. They also described how John had not been able to earn above $15 per year since his 1859 illness. (9)

Another Donaghmore family in Philadelphia who sought to help John O’Donnell were the Sharkeys. One of that family- ‘R. Sharkey’- noted that he was also from the same townland of Tievebrack in Co. Donegal. He related the O’Donnell family’s close ties to the Kelly textile trade, and for good measure also highlighted the Kelly’s political connections, particularly with Philadelphia Congressmen. He described how the Sharkeys were also related to both the Kellys and the O’Donnells; Dennis Kelly’s mother and Sharkey’s grandmother had been sisters. More than that, he also laid out the sacrifices the Donegal Sharkeys had laid at the feet of Union- one brother had died in the 1870s as a result of a disease contracted in the Union army; a second had fought as a draft substitute, while a third had been serving on the USS Hatteras when she was sunk by the CSS Alabama off Texas in 1863- captured, he was afterwards deposited in Kingston, Jamaica. (10)

The USS Hatteras engaged with the CSS Alabama off Galveston, Texas in January 1863. One of the Donaghmore Sharkey’s was aboard the Hatteras and was captured as a result of this action (U.S. Navy)

The efforts of Philadelphia’s Donegal emigrants from Donaghmore helped to secure John O’Donnell a U.S. pension based on his unfortunate son Charles’s brief war service. He was awarded a payment of $8 per month backdated to the date of death of his wife on 27th April 1874. The level of documentation he had to provide in order to receive that pension opens a window into the stream of emigration from Tievebrack, Co. Donegal to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, emigration which was largely due to the achievements of one man- Dennis Kelly. Kelly’s success story opened the door for generations of his 19th century relatives and friends to gain work upon their arrival in America, and it also ultimately led to the service of a number of these Donegal men in the Union military during the American Civil War. (11)

The Charles O’Donnell pension file is but one example of tens of thousands that exist relating to Irish service in Northern armies which are held in the National Archives of Washington D.C.. There is surely no comparable body of documentation which offers such detailed social perspectives on the 19th century emigrant experience, often encompassing decades of a family’s experiences both in Ireland and America. Ireland’s failure to recognise the American Civil War as one of our largest conflicts has meant that this resource has lain largely unrecognised by Irish scholars. Hopefully this is something that Irish students of the 19th century will rectify in the future, along the way revealing more of these quite extraordinary emigrant stories.

Woollen Factories in Richmond, Virginia in 1865 (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) O’Donnell Navy Certificate, Clark 1972: 42; (2) Clark 1972: 42- 49, Clark 1982: 108, Winslow 1864: 158-163; (3) Ibid.; (4) 1826 Tithe Applotment Book; (5) O’Donnell Navy Certificate; (6) Ibid.; (7) O’Donnell Navy Certificate, 1860 Federal Census; (8) O’Donnell Navy Certificate; (9) Ibid.; (10) Ibid.; (11) Ibid.;

References

1860 United States Federal Census.

Charles O’Donnell Dependent Father Navy Certificate #2479.

Clark, Dennis 1972. ‘Kellyville: An Immigrant Enterprise’ in Pennsylvania History Vol. 39, No. 1, January 1972, 40-49.

Clark, Dennis 1982. The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience. 

Donegal Genealogical Resources. 1826 Tithe Applotment Book- Donaghmore Parish, Co. Donegal.

Winslow, Stephen N. 1864. Biographies of Successful Philadelphia Merchants.

Filed under: Donegal, Pennsylvania Tagged: Chain Emigration, Dennis Kelly Textile, Donegal Veterans, Irish American Civil War, Irish Emigration History, Irish of Philadelphia, Kellyville Pennsylvania, Linen Industry Pennsylvania, United States Marine Corps

Ireland Takes First Steps Towards Remembering Irish of the American Civil War

In the past, I have been highly critical on this site of the Irish Government’s failure to recognise the huge number of Irish who participated in the American Civil War, and the impact the conflict had on Irish-America. Along with various others I have spent recent years trying to raise awareness at home of the scale of Irish involvement, with the most recent manifestation being the #ForgottenIrish series on Twitter and Storify. In July I published a letter I sent to then Minister for Arts, Heritage & The Gaeltacht, Jimmy Deenihan T.D., requesting that the Irish Government consider using the opportunity of the International Irish Famine Commemoration in New Orleans to mention these people. Having been critical, it is now appropriate that I congratulate Mr. Deenihan’s successor as Minister for Arts, Heritage & The Gaeltacht, Heather Humphreys T.D., who in her New Orleans Address delivered at Tulane University, New Orleans, on Friday 7th November last made the following remarks:

American Civil War

I want to take the time as well this weekend to acknowledge, on behalf of the Irish Government, the enormous numbers of Irish emigrants who lost their lives in the American Civil War. It is estimated that between 170,000 and 200,000 Irish fought in that defining conflict of these independent United States. The vast majority of Irish combatants- probably more than 150,000- fought with the Union troops, with the Irish in the Confederate ranks possibly numbering 20,000. Many thousands of Irish lost their lives on both sides- in fact, the very first person to lose his life in the war was a Tipperary man, Daniel Hough. He was just 36 years old. Many other Irishmen would rise to the very highest ranks- individuals like Thomas Francis Meagher and Patrick Cleburne, whose reputations and legacies have echoed through the ages. But my thoughts this weekend are more with the tens of thousands of what have been termed the “forgotten Irish”, who lost their lives or loved ones on the battle fields of this great country and whose sacrifice history has too often overlooked. Men- and women too- who in many instances fled the Famine which tore Irish society apart, only to arrive into a war which was, incredibly, of comparable suffering and heartbreak.

Irish historians like Damien Shiels and David Gleeson deserve great credit for bringing these stories to Irish and American audiences. And often, it is only with the generosity of time lapsed- and so much water and bloodshed under the bridge- that a sacrifice of this scale can be properly appreciated and acknowledged. So it has proved with World War 1 in Ireland, which we are only now- in 2014, 100 years afterwards- coming to recognise fully the service of perhaps as many as 350,000 brave Irishmen. This year is also, of course, the 150th anniversary of 1864, the penultimate year of the American Civil War. I could not let the occasion pass this weekend without acknowledging the sacrifices and bravery of so many Irish who fought- and too many who lost their lives- in that great conflict.

The Minister has done these Irish emigrants a great service in remembering them in such a fashion, and I would like to thank her for it. Her full speech (which touches on a range of topics) can be read here. It was also gratifying to see that the Famine Symposium at Tulane included a lecture delivered by Dr. Terrence Fitzmorris on Irish involvement in the Civil War. The Minister’s speech is hopefully a first step in a process that will see the Irish Government acknowledge these men and women at home, just as they have sought to do with the Irish of World War One. Perhaps Ireland may yet see moves towards an appropriate remembrance of Irish involvement in the American Civil War prior to the end of the Sesquicentennial in 2015. As I head across the Atlantic to discuss Patrick Cleburne in Franklin, Tennessee, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his death, it is heartening to think that we may have turned a corner in remembering these Forgotten Irish. Time will tell.

Filed under: Memory Tagged: Arts Heritage & The Gaeltacht, Civil War Memory, Civil War Sesquicentennial, Heather Humphreys, International Famine Commemoration, Irish American Civil War, Irish emigration, Irish History

Address on Patrick Cleburne at Battle of Franklin 150th

I am extremely humbled and honoured to have been invited to participate in the 2014 Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Event, which remembers the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Franklin. I will be giving a keynote address on Friday 14th November discussing Irishman Major-General Patrick Cleburne, who lost his life at Franklin. As part of this I hope to touch on themes which look at both the overall Irish experience and memory of the conflict and at Patrick Cleburne specifically. My talk (which takes place in The Factory at Franklin) is just one element of a whole host of events surrounding the 150th anniversary of Franklin which are well worth checking out. I am particularly looking forward to hearing some of the leading historians of the Western Theater discuss the Last Campaign in Tennessee. An added bonus for me is getting an opportunity to discuss Irish conflict archaeology with some students of the Middle Tennessee State University Center for Historic Preservation while in Tennessee- it is rare I get a chance to combine both my passions on a single trip! You can find out more about the planned events at the Tennessee Civil War Sesquicentennial site here and hopefully I will see some of you there.

Battle of Franklin 150

 

Filed under: Battle of Franklin, Cork, Tennessee Tagged: Battle of Franklin, Irish American Civil War, Irish History, John Bell Hood, Keynote Address, Patrick Ronayne Cleburne, Tennessee Sesquicentennial, The Greatest Story of the Civil War

Sole Support: An Offaly Mother’s Efforts to Keep Her Son, 1861

In August 1861, Orderly Sergeant John Kennedy of the 10th Ohio Infantry wrote a letter home to his mother from western Virginia. Although now a soldier, the 22-year-old from Dunkerrin, Co. Offaly* had been in the army for barely three months. Just weeks before had been learning the tobacconist trade, which he plied in Cincinnati’s 13th Ward. Now, that August, John was keen to calm his mother’s fears- he was her sole family and support, and she was terrified as to what might become of them both in the months and years to come. (1)

John’s mother Catharine Talbot had married Robert Kennedy in Dunkerrin Catholic Church, Co. Offaly on 30th January 1837. John had been born around 1839, and spent his childhood year’s in Ireland. The catalyst for emigration had been the death of John’s father Robert, who passed away around 1850. Catharine decided that the best prospects for her and her son lay in the United States, where they ultimately settled in Cincinnati, Ohio. When they arrived, they entered a community that contained a number of people from Dunkerrin- years later another Cincinnati resident, Thomas Irwin, recalled how he had attended Robert Kennedy’s wake in the Co. Offaly village. (2)

John had initially joined the army for three-months, in May 1861, but like most of his comrades he converted his enlistment to a three-year term in the 10th Ohio on 3rd June. Catharine was not pleased. Ill health meant that John was her only means of support, and she depended on him for everything from her rent to groceries. No doubt she was also terrified of losing the only close family she had left. Catharine decided to take desperate measures, so before the regiment left its Cincinnati base- Camp Dennison, Ohio- for the front, Catharine persuaded a few influential citizens to help her get her son out of the army. They set off to see John’s Captain, Stephen McGroarty (from Mount Charles, Co. Donegal, later a Brevet-Brigadier-General). Catharine asked McGroarty to discharge her son, on the basis that he was her sole support. One can imagine the whole affair was somewhat embarrassing for John, who had only just been promoted to Sergeant for good behaviour. In front of his commander, John now had to face off against his mother. He told her that he was ‘anxious to go with the regiment’ and reassured Catharine that ‘he would send her his money, and that it would be all the same to her’ adding that ‘when he came back from the army, they would have a nice little farm.’ This was apparently a reference to 100 acres of land that the men had been promised for enlisting. Captain McGroarty also informed Catharine that there was now no turning back for John- he was enlisted, and was compelled to go with the regiment. (3)

Camp Dennison, where Catharine Kennedy made a desperate effort to keep her son at home in 1861 (Wikipedia)

This was the backdrop to John’s 11th August letter. By this date the regiment remains unpaid, but John reassures Catharine that the money is sure to come eventually. He is also keen to stress that he has not been in any real danger so far. The 10th Ohio had yet to be engaged in any major combat- in August 1861, such horrors still lay in the future.

Buckhannon Aug 11th 1861

Dear Mother

i take the plesure of writing you these few lines hoping the may find you in as good health as this leaves me at present thank God. We have just got back from a long march through the Country sometimes marching all night. We are getting along very well now we may stop here for some time. there was six of our men shot coming through Bulltown on the 9th of aug we were there the day before the[y] arived there you see the Regiment is devided in three parts four Companys with Col Lytle four with Col Karff [Korff] and two with Major Burk [Burke] we are with Col Lytle. we may be at the Battle of Manassas Gap but i dont think we will however i know that we will have plenty of fighting for i supose it will take us some time to drive them out of Virginia. Perhaps i may get a furla [furlough] soon and go home for a week or two but i dont know how soon i may get it mother. i dont know what is the reason the [they] dont pay of [off] but one thing i do know that it is as shure as daylight and if you can get along for a short time it will be all wright. John Keller is going home tomorrow and i sen [send] this by him to you so he can let you know how i am. we have just as good a time here as if we were at home only the danger of being on gaurd at night as for me i dont have to go on any gaurd duty i have a very good time here of cource i have charge of a Company and sometimes i have a little trouble but it is not mutch. i wrote a great many letters since i arived here and never got but two answered. Patrick Hennessy and Hamilton Keown are well and sends their respects to all the folks at home the [they] wish their freinds would write to them a little more than the [they] do. i will let you know that my pay is raised five dolars more in the month. tell Mrs Ryan that i was asking for her and Mrs Kilfoil also Mrs Comings and all the folks. when John Keller is coming back i wish you would send that white pants with him i want it those hot days.

No more at present

from your son

John Kennedy

Orderly Sergeant

Company E 10th Regt

O.V.M.** (4)

Less than a month after John wrote this letter, on 10th September 1861, the 10th Ohio experienced battle for the first time. They ‘saw the elephant’ at Carnifex Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).*** Against a fortified enemy, Captain Stephen McGroarty led his Company E forward to the attack. They were met with a withering fire- when it was finally over ten of the regiment lay dead, fifty wounded. Just how much John Kennedy ever knew of his first taste of action is unclear; McGroarty remembered seeing the young Offaly man fall, shot through the head. Back in Cincinnati, John’s mother’s worst fears became a reality. News of her son’s death reached her before any of the army money ever did. With her rent unpaid, and reliant on relief committees for support, all that was left to her was to seek her son’s bounty and back pay, and apply for a dependent mother’s pension. (5)

The Patteson House, Carnifex Ferry, near where John Kennedy and the 10th Ohio attacked (Brian M. Powell via Wikipedia)

(1) Pension File, 1860 Census; (2) Pension File; (3) Official Roster, Pension File; (4) Pension File; (5) Ibid.;

*Co. Offaly was known as King’s County in the 19th century

**Punctuation has been added to this letter for ease of modern reading- only limited puntuation appears in the original. Of the soldiers John mentions in his letter, John Keller and Patrick Hennessy survived to muster out on 17th June 1864. Hamilton Keown was transferred to Company A later in 1861, and was killed in action at the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky on 8th October 1862.

***You can read more about the 10th Ohio at the Battle of Carnifex Ferry here.

****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

1860 US Federal Census

John Kennedy Dependent Mother’s Pension File WC117744

Ohio General Assembly, 1886. Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio in the War of the Rebellion, 1861- 1866. Volume 2.

Reid, Whitelaw 1868. Ohio in the War: Her Statesmen, Her Generals, and Soldiers Volume 2.

10th Ohio Flag

Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park

Filed under: 10th Ohio, Battle of Carnifex Ferry, Offaly, Ohio Tagged: 10th Ohio Infantry, Battle of Carnifex Ferry, Irish American Civil War, Irish emigration, Irish in Cincinnati, Irish in Ohio, Offaly Veterans, Stephen McGroarty

Remembering the Reilly’s at Cedar Creek- And How Ireland Forgets

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Creek. That battle witnessed many terrible scenes, but there were surely few to match that experienced by Irish emigrant Charles Reilly, who went into the fight shoulder to shoulder with his young son. To remember their story I wrote a column which appeared today on TheJournal.ie site, Ireland’s largest online newspaper. I also took the opportunity to discuss Ireland’s decision not to remember any of these emigrants during the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the conflict- despite the almost unparalleled number of Irish impacted. If you are interested in reading the piece you can check it out here.

Filed under: Battle of Cedar Creek, Memory Tagged: Battle of Cedar Creek, Civil War Sesquicentennial, Civil War Widow's Pension Files, Irish American Civil War, Irish Emigrant History, Irish Memory, Irish Veterans, Journal.ie