“As If they Were Shooting Ducks:” An Irish Nova Scotian Gloucester Fisherman at War

Irish in the American Civil War

Many of the Canadians who fought in the American Civil War were of Irish ancestry, often members of families who had first made their homes in British North America before slowly moving down to the United States. In the early 1850s the Cunningham family made the move from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia to Gloucester, Massachusetts. By the outbreak of the American Civil the family had members born in Ireland, Nova Scotia and the United States. At least one of the C...