The Professor and the Madman

by Simon Winchester

The Irish were not to remain long in sympathy with all of the Federal aims. They were fierce rivals with American blacks, competing at the base of the social ladder for such opportunities—work, especially—as were on offer. And once the slaves were formally emancipated by Lincoln in 1863, the natural advantage that the Irish believed they had in the color of their skins quite vanished—and with it much of their sympathy for the Union cause in the war they had chosen to fight. Besides, they had been doing their sums: “We did not cause this war,” one of their leaders said, “but vast numbers of our people have perished for it.” The consequence was that—especially in battles where it seemed as though the Irish troops were being used as cannon fodder—they began to leave the fields of battle. They began to run away, to desert. And large numbers of them certainly deserted from the terrible flames and bloodshed of the Battle of the Wilderness. It was desertion, and one of the particular punishments often inflicted on those convicted of it, that stands as the third and possibly the principal reason for William Minor’s subsequent fall.