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The Greatest Brigade: How the Irish Brigade Cleared the Way to Victory in the American Civil War
The Irish Brigade played a key role in all the major battles including the Peninsula Campaign, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Appomattox and wasn’t decommissioned until WWI. It was full of larger than life characters and effectively led by a charismatic commander who was court marshaled for revolutionary activity in Ireland and was dismissed to enable him to serve in the war. Some numbers say that this unit lost more than 4,000 soldiers, one of the largest body counts of any brigade, if not the largest. This is a tale of a critical and incredible fighting force, packed with immigrants that helped win the war not only through bravery and war tactics but also by scaring the English out of the war with threats of violence at home. It’s a story every Civil War history buff should know and it is told with page-turning excitement that has made Craughwell a bestselling history author.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 6, 2016
During the American Civil War, several regiments of recently arrived Irish joined the Union army. The resulting brigade fought from Bull's Run to Appomattox Court House suffering tremendous losses. But men of Irish descent kept enlisting in the unit,keeping it alive and active. The author does an excellent job of describing the discrimination against immigrants and Catholics in the United States during the last half of the nineteenth century. The work has numerous maps and drawings and is a good unit history of a Civil War unit.
June 23, 2016
Author Thomas J. Craughwell’s latest book joins a small mountain of published works recounting the story and stories of the Irish Brigade which served in the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War. The content of these diaries, memoirs, histories, etc. makes it amply clear that their story is one that deserves and is still yet to be told in its fullest form (and would make an excellent film in my opinion if done with the right screenwriter!). Unfortunately, while beautifully illustrated with period photographs, illustrations, and maps as well as more modern images (and I’m particularly grateful for the image of the 55th Massachusetts Regiment’s recruiting poster), the book falls significantly short of being that definitive history of the Irish Brigade and I regret to report that the author’s research failed him on a number of key points.
The author accurately describes the 69th New York as the heart of the Irish Brigade, ably supported by the equally Irish 63rd and 88th New York Regiments, he mistakenly describes the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers as “not composed of Irishmen—in fact, they were all Yankee Protestants” who would describe themselves as “honorary Irishmen.” Here the author has confounded the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers, specifically recruited for the Irish Brigade as the 2nd Massachusetts Irish Regiment (the 9th was the 1st Irish), with the all-Yankee 29th Massachusetts Volunteers, apparently repeating a mistake made during the war by bureaucrats in Massachusetts and the War Department in Washington when they sent to all Yankee 29th Massachusetts to the Irish Brigade and the Irishmen of the 28th Massachusetts to serve with Burnside in the Carolinas (eventually becoming part of IX Corps). (And I am left to ponder the possible reaction of the 28th’s three Jewish members to being called “Yankee Protestants”!)
This mistake was not rectified until just before the Battle of Fredericksburg when the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers joined the Irish Brigade in camp at Falmouth, opposite the fated Virginia community. (The 29th Massachusetts Volunteers carried their well-earned “Honorary Irishmen” with them to replace the 28th back in the IX Corps.) However, the author’s discussion of this event suggests that the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers and the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteers only joined the Brigade after the battle.
Upon finally joining the Irish Brigade, General Meagher recognized the proper membership in the brigade by presenting the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers with the green Tiffany flag made up for the Brigade when it was first raised and which identified the 28th as the “4th Regt, Irish Brigade.” This flag would be carried by the 28th Massachusetts at the center of the Irish Brigade’s line in the attack on Marye’s Heights at General Meagher’s direction. This was in fact the only green flag carried by any regiment in the brigade at that time, because the brigade’s other green flags had all been sent up to New York to be repaired and were not returned until after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The 116th Pennsylvania participated in this same attack as the left wing of the Brigade. Frank O’Reilly’s book “The Fredericksburg Campaign” (listed in the bibliography by Mr. Craughwell) does an excellent job of recounting these facts. Likewise listed in the bibliography is “The Story of the 116th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion” written by their colonel, St. Clair Augustine Mulholland, which also speaks on these events.
The book does present an excellent discussion of the weapons carried by the New York regiments of the Irish Brigade – generally the smoothbore .69 caliber 1842 Springfield musket. Some sources claim that Meagher deliberately selected a weapon that would compel the Irishmen to get in close to their enemy where he believed they would best anyone, and being so close to the enemy would guarantee that the Irish Brigade would be easily recognized on the battlefield and credited for its actions. Again, however, the author’s research fails him in connection with the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers, who he reports was the only Irish Brigade regiment armed with a breech loading rifle. In fact, the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers carried throughout the war the British pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musket – a muzzle loading weapon with a rifled barrel capable of accurate fire out to at least 700 yards. This was the result of the actions by Massachusetts’ governor John Andrews who ordered the purchase of tens of thousands of the Enfields for his Massachusetts volunteer regiments. It was a decision that would also cast the 28th into the role of skirmishers, advance guards, flank guards, etc., i.e., into any role in which their longer ranged Enfields would give better service than the .69 Springfields carried by the New Yorkers until well into 1864.
All of that said, there is still plenty here to appeal to those interested in the stories of the Irish Brigade, and the collection of illustrations, maps, photographs old and new adds greatly to that appeal. I would suggest that you put this on your bookshelf next to Conyngham’s “The Irish Brigade” and Father Corby’s “Memoirs of Chaplain Life” (and for the 28th Massachusetts – Peter Welsh’s “Irish Green and Union Blue” and John Ryan’s “Campaigning with the Irish Brigade: Pvt. John Ryan, 28th Massachusetts). But it must be said that a modern definitive history of the Irish Brigade has yet to be written. What a pity.
The author accurately describes the 69th New York as the heart of the Irish Brigade, ably supported by the equally Irish 63rd and 88th New York Regiments, he mistakenly describes the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers as “not composed of Irishmen—in fact, they were all Yankee Protestants” who would describe themselves as “honorary Irishmen.” Here the author has confounded the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers, specifically recruited for the Irish Brigade as the 2nd Massachusetts Irish Regiment (the 9th was the 1st Irish), with the all-Yankee 29th Massachusetts Volunteers, apparently repeating a mistake made during the war by bureaucrats in Massachusetts and the War Department in Washington when they sent to all Yankee 29th Massachusetts to the Irish Brigade and the Irishmen of the 28th Massachusetts to serve with Burnside in the Carolinas (eventually becoming part of IX Corps). (And I am left to ponder the possible reaction of the 28th’s three Jewish members to being called “Yankee Protestants”!)
This mistake was not rectified until just before the Battle of Fredericksburg when the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers joined the Irish Brigade in camp at Falmouth, opposite the fated Virginia community. (The 29th Massachusetts Volunteers carried their well-earned “Honorary Irishmen” with them to replace the 28th back in the IX Corps.) However, the author’s discussion of this event suggests that the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers and the 116th Pennsylvania Volunteers only joined the Brigade after the battle.
Upon finally joining the Irish Brigade, General Meagher recognized the proper membership in the brigade by presenting the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers with the green Tiffany flag made up for the Brigade when it was first raised and which identified the 28th as the “4th Regt, Irish Brigade.” This flag would be carried by the 28th Massachusetts at the center of the Irish Brigade’s line in the attack on Marye’s Heights at General Meagher’s direction. This was in fact the only green flag carried by any regiment in the brigade at that time, because the brigade’s other green flags had all been sent up to New York to be repaired and were not returned until after the Battle of Fredericksburg. The 116th Pennsylvania participated in this same attack as the left wing of the Brigade. Frank O’Reilly’s book “The Fredericksburg Campaign” (listed in the bibliography by Mr. Craughwell) does an excellent job of recounting these facts. Likewise listed in the bibliography is “The Story of the 116th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion” written by their colonel, St. Clair Augustine Mulholland, which also speaks on these events.
The book does present an excellent discussion of the weapons carried by the New York regiments of the Irish Brigade – generally the smoothbore .69 caliber 1842 Springfield musket. Some sources claim that Meagher deliberately selected a weapon that would compel the Irishmen to get in close to their enemy where he believed they would best anyone, and being so close to the enemy would guarantee that the Irish Brigade would be easily recognized on the battlefield and credited for its actions. Again, however, the author’s research fails him in connection with the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers, who he reports was the only Irish Brigade regiment armed with a breech loading rifle. In fact, the 28th Massachusetts Volunteers carried throughout the war the British pattern 1853 Enfield rifled musket – a muzzle loading weapon with a rifled barrel capable of accurate fire out to at least 700 yards. This was the result of the actions by Massachusetts’ governor John Andrews who ordered the purchase of tens of thousands of the Enfields for his Massachusetts volunteer regiments. It was a decision that would also cast the 28th into the role of skirmishers, advance guards, flank guards, etc., i.e., into any role in which their longer ranged Enfields would give better service than the .69 Springfields carried by the New Yorkers until well into 1864.
All of that said, there is still plenty here to appeal to those interested in the stories of the Irish Brigade, and the collection of illustrations, maps, photographs old and new adds greatly to that appeal. I would suggest that you put this on your bookshelf next to Conyngham’s “The Irish Brigade” and Father Corby’s “Memoirs of Chaplain Life” (and for the 28th Massachusetts – Peter Welsh’s “Irish Green and Union Blue” and John Ryan’s “Campaigning with the Irish Brigade: Pvt. John Ryan, 28th Massachusetts). But it must be said that a modern definitive history of the Irish Brigade has yet to be written. What a pity.
January 25, 2018
A very detailed, well written, and informative book about the 69th regiment
during the civil war. Great pictures, maps, and illustrations. Worth reading if you are into history,
the Irish, the civil war, or never heard of the Irish brigade. Very enjoyable.
during the civil war. Great pictures, maps, and illustrations. Worth reading if you are into history,
the Irish, the civil war, or never heard of the Irish brigade. Very enjoyable.
February 28, 2025
A solid little overview of the Civil War told from the pov of one particular brigade. I feel like this book wasn't supposed to be funny, but it often was: so many bizarre things happened in the Civil War, and so much of it was told so dryly that I couldn't help but laugh.
January 31, 2019
Another one of those books that I stumbled across at the library and decided to pick up. Interesting history of the Irish Brigade in the Civil War. Could have used a better editor.
February 22, 2019
Interesting read about the Irish Brigade's involvement in some of the major battles of the CW! Quick and easy read that may prompt to delete deeper into the history of the war.
February 28, 2024
Irish Gallantry
A sometimes euphoric and sometimes heartbreaking history of the Irish Brigade in the American Civil War. Enough heroes to celebrate.
A sometimes euphoric and sometimes heartbreaking history of the Irish Brigade in the American Civil War. Enough heroes to celebrate.
November 6, 2024
A beautifully produced book although some of the maps are hard to read. Interesting story, well told. Recommended.
January 9, 2013
this was a great book
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews