The Forgotten Irish

Irish Emigrant Experiences in America

Damian Shiels

• Publisher: THP Ireland
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781845883331
• eBook ISBN: 9780750980876
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Irish History
• Index: History

On the eve of the American Civil War, 1.6 million Irish-born people were living in the United States. The majority had emigrated to the major industrialised cities of the North; New York alone was home to more than 200, 000 Irish, one in four of the total population. As a result, thousands of Irish emigrants fought for the Union between 1861 and 1865. The research for this book has its origins in the widows and dependent pension records of that conflict, which often included not only letters and private correspondence between family members, but unparalleled accounts of their lives in both Ireland and America. The treasure trove of material made available comes, however, at a cost. In every instance, the file only exists due to the death of a soldier or sailor. From that as its starting point, coloured by sadness, the author has crafted the stories of thirty-five Irish families whose lives were emblematic of the nature of the Irish nineteenth-century emigrant experience.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

HSP	Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
LAC	Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa
LFFC	Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection, Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, Indiana
NAI	National Archives of Ireland, Dublin
NARA	National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC
NARACP	National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland
NEHGS	New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston
NLI	National Library of Ireland, Dublin
NYPL	New York Public Library, New York
NYSA	New York State Archives, Albany
OR	The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
PCA	Philadelphia City Archives, Philadelphia
PHMC	Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg

PREFACE

1 Widow’s Certificate No. 51795, Approved Pension File for Catharine McCabe, widow of Michael McCabe, Company H, 170th New York Volunteer Infantry.

2 Ibid. The 1.28 million files form part of the Case Files of Approved Pension Applications of Widows and Other Dependents of the Army and Navy Who Served Mainly in the Civil War and the War with Spain at the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC. They are part of the Records of the Department of Veteran Affairs, Record Group 15. Each file is referred to by a unique Widow’s Certificate (WC) number and is referenced as such throughout. In addition to the widows’ files that are the subject of this book, the National Archives also house millions of other pension records relating to service between 1861 and 1917, the majority relating to the American Civil War. They include around 2,000,000 applications made by US army veterans, around 26,000 applications by US naval veterans and around 20,000 applications by US naval widows and other dependents (two of the latter are also featured in this book).

3 Gibson, Campbell and Lennon, Emily, ‘Tech Paper 29: Table 4. Region and Country or Area of Birth of the Foreign-Born Population, With Geographic Detail Shown in Decennial Census Publications of 1930 or Earlier: 1850 to 1930 and 1960 to 1990’ https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0029/tab04.html (Accessed 14 June 2014); Rosenwaike, Population History of New York City, p.42; Shiels, ‘How Many Irish Fought in the American Civil War?’ http://irishamericancivilwar.com/2015/01/18/how-many-irish-fought-in-the-american-civil-war/ (Accessed 18 January 2015) The figure of 150,000 Irishmen serving in the Union forces is the most frequently cited, e.g. see Susannah J. Ural, The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865, 2. However, these figures almost certainly require upward revision. The 150,000 figure owes its origin to the 1869 analysis of Benjamin Apthorp Gould in his Investigations in the Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers, in which he places the number of Irish volunteers in the service during the war at 144,221 (Apthorp Gould 1869, 27). However, Gould’s figure, aside from reflecting only federal service, also excludes Irish who served in branches such as the navy and regular army as well as those in the territories and California. A comprehensive new analysis of the figures for Irish service is therefore required. Though large numbers of Irish fought in the conflict, there were also many among the Irish-American population who had little interest in supporting the war effort. For example, the Irish were to the fore in incidents such as the New York Draft Riots. For a discussion of the motivations behind Irish service in the Union Army, see Susannah J. Ural, The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865 and William L. Burton, Melting Pot Soldiers: The Union Ethnic Regiments. For the most comprehensive study of the Irish in the Confederacy, including the statistical analysis behind the figure of 20,000 for Irish service in the South, see David T. Gleeson, The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America.

4 Vinovskis, Maris A., ‘Have Social Historians Lost the Civil War? Some Preliminary Demographic Speculations,’ pp.22, 26–7; McClintock, ‘Civi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• A Note on Conventions
• One: Wives and Parents
• Two: Community and Society
• Three: A Life in Letters
• Four: A Death in Letters
• Epilogue – The Forgotten Irish
• Bibliography
• Notes