Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 75. War’s End

This undated photographic negative is entitled “General T.F. Meagher USA” Photo: Library of Congress

Thomas Francis Meagher’s sacking from the army was the most embarrassing moment of his career. On March 10 he was back in New York and reported, as requested, by telegraph to the adjutant general. Yet by March 13 Meagher was his usual irrepressible self. Newspapers continued to paint him in a good light with his men, if not with his superiors. The Northern papers repeated the words of the North Carolina Times which said that when Meagher arrived in New Berne he didn’t take quarters which were offered to him in town but instead, “like a true soldier, chose the soldier’s fare, and proceeded to the field with his command, and there erected his little cabin, and lives among his soldiers”. The North Carolina paper said it “may be one secret of his unbounded popularity with his soldiers, for sharing their hardships. he is sure to secure the esteem and sympathy of his command.” On the day of his departure, Meagher’s men made a fond address saying “during the short time that you have been our commander, you have ever been found ready to share the hardships of your command; and, as a general, perform even more than the duties strictly devolving upon you.”

And although this was the second time that he had lost command, this time the war was nearing its end. But there was always his beloved Irish Brigade to return to. The Brigade had suffered enormous casualties in the 1864 Virginia campaign and what was left of the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania regiments were transferred out and the Brigade was “discontinued.” Surviving troops from the 63rd, 69th and 88th New York moved into a new Consolidated Brigade along with seven other New York regiments. Morale was poor in the new Brigade and they were assigned to tasks like building entrenchments, laying out roads and picket duty. Shortly after Meagher’s visit in September, the Irish Brigade got its name back and was given a new commander, Colonel Robert Nugent – three years after his name was first spoken as its possible leader. Nugent’s promotion re-animated the Brigade and the 28th Massachusetts was re-assigned to join its fellow Irish, though desertions were still high as they spent Christmas in the trenches at Petersburg.

Having returned to New York in March, Meagher was granted permission for a three-day visit to the remnants of his old Brigade. Though disgraced by his superiors, Meagher retained the affection of his old comrades. He celebrated St Patrick’s Day with the Brigade at its camp near Petersburg and there were the usual horse, foot and sack races. His old friend and now replacement leader Colonel Nugent was clerk of the course. Meagher presented a whip to the winner of the hurdle race. There was also a spacious reception room where Brigade officers dispensed “sandwiches and whiskey-punch to the invited guests.”

That early spring Lee was struggling to hold the line at Petersburg south of Richmond. Early disastrous Union failures in 1864 included the infamous Battle of the Crater, another of Ambrose Burnside’s fiascos where a plan to blow a gap in the defences ended up a massacre in a crater, which Grant called, “the saddest affair I have witnessed in this war.” Afterwards the battle settled into a nine-month long siege which had barely weeks to go while Meagher and his Brigade friends helped themselves to the whiskey punch that St Patrick’s Day.

Lee’s army was weakened by desertion, disease, and shortage of supplies and was outnumbered by 125,000 to 50,000. General Philip Sheridan was leading an additional 50,000 Union troops from his victorious Shenandoah Valley campaign while Sherman’s army including Meagher’s former Consolidated Brigade was marching up from the Carolinas. On March 25, the Rebels launched one last desperate attack. The Battle of Fort Stedman as it became known saw initial Rebel success but they were beaten back after four hours, further weakening their position. Lincoln, who was in the area to review the troops noted, “a little rumpus up the line this morning, ending about where it began.”

When Grant outflanked Rebel trenches in the week that followed, Lee advised Jefferson Davis on April 2 he would be forced to abandon Richmond and Petersburg. Davis immediately began preparations for the Confederate government to leave Richmond for Danville. Richmond’s last full day as a capital coincided with the burial of John Mitchel’s publisher Daniels who died of influenza. The last war-time edition of the Examiner had Daniel’s obituary and the Mitchels left Richmond on April 3 walking 14 miles to the railhead while the city burned to the ground. Lincoln came to Richmond to inspect the ruins and sat at Davis’s desk in the Confederate White House. On April 8 Grant headed off Lee’s retreat at Appomattox 92 miles west of Richmond and accepted his surrender a day later. Almost four years to the day from Fort Sumter, the American civil war was over.

Shortly after the surrender, Robert E. Lee was visited by Meagher’s friend Rev George Pepper, the former Co Down Methodist minister now a chaplain in the victorious union forces. Lee reflected on the Irish in battle with Pepper saying they fought not for money but “the reckless love of adventure.” Lee compared Meagher’s gallantry at Marye’s Heights to Cork-born Confederate general Patrick Cleburne, who had learned his military craft in the British Army. Cleburne had emigrated to America during the Famine and settled in Arkansas where he saw a parallel between the Irish quest for Repeal and the south’s constitutional battle to survive. In the war he was known as the “Stonewall of the West” for his fighting capabilities in Tennessee but was killed at the battle of Franklin. Lee told Pepper that Meagher, “though not Cleburne’s equal in military genius, rivalled him in bravery and in the affections of his soldiers”. Never were men so brave than at Fredericksburg, Lee said. It was recommendations like these that would help restore the reputation of Meagher and his Irish Brigade. This would help as the former brigadier general needed to stake out a new career and his friendship with Lincoln would also be useful. But there was one last sting in the tail of this dreadful war.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 74. Taken for Granted

The statue of a mounted Ulysses S. Grant near the Capitol building in Washington DC. Grant sacked Meagher from the army in 1865. Photo: Author’s collection

As 1865 came around it seemed the career of Thomas Francis Meagher had been revived. The Pilot called Meagher’s work in Etowah “his crowning achievement” and praised him as the Irish-born representative in the Armies of the Republic. “Every useful effort, every honorable achievement of his, directly reflects credit on the race,” the Boston paper said. But things were about to go badly wrong.

With the war over in Tennessee. Meagher and around 6500 convalescents, known as the Provisional Division of the Armies of the Tennessee and Cumberland were ordered to transfer to Savannah to link with Sherman who had cut a swathe to the Atlantic coast. To get there, they would have to travel by train from Chattanooga to Nashville, by boat up the Cumberland and Ohio Rivers to Pittsburgh where they would travel to a port to board boats for the south. This logistical challenge was made more difficult by frozen rivers while the railroads were not expecting the demand on their services. Within days Meagher was complaining to Steedman that the train of one of his commands had failed to stop when ordered at Tullahoma, Tennessee saying he would have the conductor arrested at Nashville.

Sadly the same could not be said for his men. Meagher had left New York for Baltimore to look for his advance party but The Pilot reported the Division was “treated barbarously” as it travelled east on the Ohio railroad. When they arrived in Cincinnati local newspaper editor Murat Halstead also complained to the War Department that the troops were “ill treated and suffering” but he put the blame on Meagher’s staff not the railroad saying the men were badly managed and “shamefully deserted by drunken officers.”

Meagher ignored a War Department request for the names of the supposed drunken officers, instead blaming the frozen Ohio river, scarce trains for delays and “inefficient railway officials.” He had gone ahead to Pittsburgh and Halleck told Grant to say they were on their way to New York where they needed transport. But the boats were needed to move General Schofield’s troops in Washington and with the war winding down, Halleck was also worried Meagher’s men would desert if they moved too close to home in New York. Grant wired back to order them to the port of Alexandria at Washington instead and then later that day told Halleck they should join Schofield’s troops heading to the front at Fort Fisher in North Carolina. Meagher missed the revised orders and had arrived in New York on January 23. Meagher was “seemingly in splendid health and buoyant spirits, ready for any amount of the most exacting field duty,” the Pilot wrote. “I have never seen him looking more robust.”

Meagher received Halleck’s revised order in New York on January 24 and responded immediately to say that his division would take another two days to reach Pittsburgh “owing to the ice and deficiency of water transport at Nashville.” He told Halleck he would arrange for the men to travel to Washington via Harrisburg and Baltimore and told the papers he was leaving New York “to join his advance force at Baltimore, en route for Sherman’s headquarters in the field.”

On January 24 Colonel Osborn Cross, Deputy Quartermaster in Pittsburgh, noted Meagher had left town but his troops had not yet arrived. Eventually Cross re-arranged the troops to Washington but here there was a new problem. Winter conditions had frozen up the Potomac river and on January 31, General Schofield told Grant that he ordered Meagher’s detachment, then 5500-strong, to board ships at Annapolis on Chesapeake Bay which was free of ice. “I propose to send all of General Meagher’s troops to New Berne,” Schofield said. Grant approved the plan. New Berne was in North Carolina 150 miles north of Fort Fisher and they would now be posted to General Innis Palmer’s division defending the town.

The following day Schofield told Meagher the new orders. “Your troops will disembark at Beaufort, and move thence by rail to New Berne,” he said. Schofield also told Annapolis the plan saying Meagher’s men would cede preference to another Brigade but otherwise were to be boarded “without unnecessary delay.” On February 2 Assistant Adjutant General at Annapolis, Major Robert Scott reported that one thousand of Meagher’s men had arrived and were “on board transports.” It was not clear if Meagher had arrived and on the following day an impatient Schofield ordered another general, Samuel Carter to report to Meagher at Annapolis and if Meagher wasn’t there, Carter was to “assume command of all the troops at that place belonging to his division” and take them to North Carolina. The same day Scott reported to Halleck that there was room for 7400 troops on transports though less than 2000 had arrived so far and added that Meagher was in Baltimore.

Halleck insisted that Scott should move each transport as soon as it was loaded though to take care to keep Meagher’s troops separate from Schofield’s as Meagher’s were going to North Carolina and Schofield’s were going to South Carolina. That same day. February 4, Scott responded that Meagher expected to arrive the day after and then leave with his troops on the following day. “No one here knows just how many men Meagher expects to take with him,” Scott said. Within three hours Halleck ordered Scott to order Meagher’s troops aboard as fast as they arrived. “They will not wait for him (Meagher) or orders from him,” Scott said. Scott quickly followed the order and also noted that he had disregarded Meagher’s request to commandeer a steamer and keep it empty for his headquarters for when he arrived.

When Grant asked Halleck for an update, he (Halleck) told the commanding general that 2000 of Meagher’s troops had been sent off and the rest would go as soon as they arrived. “They are in utter confusion, and he seems to be ignorant of what troops he has, or where they are,” Halleck wrote. “It is strange that General Thomas should have intrusted (sic) men to such an officer”. On February 5 Scott gave Halleck another update saying 800 of Meagher’s men were on their way, another 2000 boarded and at least another thousand on their way from Baltimore. “We don’t know how many more are at Baltimore,” Scott said. Halleck responded confirming no one should wait for Meagher, “and if such orders have been given, they will be countermanded.”

Grant put the knife in, when he responded to Halleck. “If Meagher has lost his men it will be well to send some officer from Washington to look after them and relieve Meagher,” Grant said. “It will afford a favourable pretext for doing what the service would have lost nothing by having done long ago — dismissing him.” It is not clear what Grant meant by “long ago” but it is likely that Grant would have been aware of Sherman’s dislike of him since the 1861 days and possibly his antics at the Death Feast after Fredericksburg. But sacking him was easier said than done. Meagher was a political appointment so Lincoln would need to approve his dismissal. In the meantime Meagher had boarded one of the transports and sailed south. On February 9 he reported to General Palmer he had arrived in Morehead City near Beaufort with 5000 men and was awaiting transport to New Berne.

It was one of his final dispatches. That same day Major Scott told Halleck he had boarded Meagher’s ship in Annapolis to deliver orders only to find the general drunk. “I saw him on board the steamer Ariel (and) I became convinced from his appearance, manner and conversation that he was too much under the influence of liquor to attend to duty,” Scott said. “I called upon him to explain what orders had been given to his troops…but he seemed incapable of understanding….I cannot be mistaken in my belief that Genl. Meagher was drunk.” On the army file, Grant wrote in a bold hand: “I would respectfully recommend that Brig. Genl. T.F. Meagher, for the condition of his command in coming from Tennessee to Annapolis, and for his condition in receipt of orders for their further movement be mustered out of the service.” Auction house Christies sold the signed Grant document for an estimate $6000 in 2002.

Meanwhile Palmer was unimpressed by his new arrivals in New Berne. He told Sherman the consignment of 5000 men was completely disorganised. “There are with this some fifty officers only, and after taking out the commanding officers of the brigades with the staff officers there is scarcely one officer to each 200 men, and the whole command is but a mob of men in uniform,” Palmer said. According to the press, Meagher used his time there to “distribute and forward to their corps organizations the odds and ends of regiments, and the recruits, of which his provisional division consisted.”

On February 20 Grant asked Halleck if Lincoln had dismissed Meagher yet. “If he has not, I think it will be well to relieve him (Meagher) from duty,” Grant said. Four hours later Halleck responded that Lincoln had not yet acted on Meagher and told him War Secretary Stanton “thinks you had better order General Schofield to relieve & send him home.” That was good enough for Grant. That same day Grant ordered General Schofield to relieve Meagher “to proceed to his place of residence and report by letter to the Adjutant-General for orders.” Schofield issued the order on February 24 which read, “By direction of the lieutenant-general commanding Armies of the United States, Brig. Gen. T. F. Meagher is relieved from duty in this department.” Meagher’s army career had come to an ignominious end.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 73. Tennessee

Detail from the Battle of Nashville, December 1864 where black Union troops help defeat the Confederates. Chromolithograph by Kurz & Allison. Library of Congress.

Thomas Francis Meagher arrived in Nashville on October 13 in the middle of the presidential election campaign. Though he was savaged two days later in the Irish American for the 1863 Guiney letter, he was still welcomed in Tennessee. In Nashville he was serenaded by local Irish leaders and his speeches were well attended. On October 15 Governor Andrew Johnson offered Meagher the use of the hall of the state House of Representatives to make a major speech. Johnson had a vested interest. Although sitting vice president Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine had served competently and was willing to run again, Lincoln sought out a southern war Democrat to run on a unity ticket for the 1864 election. Tennessee governor Johnson, who had consistently supported the Union, fitted the bill perfectly though it was a move that would have tragic consequences for America after the war.

The ticket was chosen at the June convention in Baltimore and ran for election as the National Union Party to attract War Democrats, border state voters, and Unconditional Unionist, and Unionist Party members who might otherwise have not voted for Republicans. In his speech Meagher was quick to reward Johnson for his help and threw his support behind the ticket. “I pronounce this night for their election,” he said to loud and continued cheering. Were Lincoln and Johnson to be defeated, Meagher said, it would “grievously imperil, if it does not fatally prostrate the National cause.”

In the same speech he extolled the virtues of his former commander and Democrat candidate for the presidency George McClellan. Meagher praised his “gracefulness, manliness and dignity” and said that no one would discharge the duty of president better. Meagher also defended McClellan against the charge of his cowardice in conducting the war in 1862. “If Gen McClellan was not under fire at Fair Oaks and Malvern Hill, neither was the Irish Brigade”, Meagher said to tremendous cheers. Nevertheless he made his own evolving political views clearer. “The election of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, as the proved representatives of the loyal millions, becomes imperative.”

Meagher’s Guiney letter then appeared in a Lincoln campaign document called A Vigorous Prosecution Of The War The Only Guarantee For An Honorable Peace. “To have been a Democrat in the days of Andrew Jackson was to have been an American citizen in the boldest and proudest interpretation of the word,” Meagher had written. “Nowadays to be a Democrat is to be a partisan of a selfish and conscienceless faction.” The document also included letters from Grant and Sherman and an “appeal to intelligent Irishmen upon the duty they owe to the country in the present canvass” by N.W. Coffin Esq.

Meanwhile Meagher kept the pressure up on an appointment. On November 5, General J. D. Webster sent a telegram to Sherman: “Brigadier-General Meagher desires me to inquire if there are any orders for him, and to say that he is unwilling to remain unemployed at a time when the service of every soldier seems needed”. A reluctant Sherman responded the same day to Webster to tell Meagher to find a department commander to make an application for him. “There is surely work for all but the trouble is to get men placed,” Sherman wrote. “Unless he can do this I have no orders for him. He might see General Thomas or General Schofield.”

On November 11, Sherman finally assigned Meagher to General George Thomas’s Department of the Cumberland for orders. Four days later Thomas informed Major General James Steedman: “Brigadier General T. F. Meagher has been ordered to report to you for duty with convalescents and furloughed men; assign him to the command of the convalescents of the Fifteenth and Seventeenth Corps.” Convalescent troops were soldiers who had been separated from their original units either because they had been away on furlough, were recovering from wounds or had strayed away when the going got tough. These were a different calibre of men than Meagher was used to with the Irish Brigade. Keneally said they were men who had seen too much to take the army with gravity.

Nevertheless Meagher was desperate for a command after 18 months without one. He took his new job seriously and was now leading far more men than he led in the Irish Brigade. Meagher had 12,000 infantry at his disposal, three cavalry regiments and several batteries of field artillery. He also organised a civic guard of 2000 men in Chattanooga which included 500 veteran soldiers. Being a division, he could be called “acting major general” and he held hopes the promotion might become permanent. He got on well with Steedman, known as a “first rate character” and who like Meagher had been a publisher and lawyer before the war. While Steedman went off to help General Thomas fight Rebel forces under John Hood at Nashville, Meagher was put in command of Etowah, the military district headquartered at Chattanooga covering East Tennessee – country familiar to the Mitchels. The convalescents guarded the Chattanooga & Knoxville, and Chattanooga & Atlanta railroads. Here the main problem was rebel guerrillas which Meagher dealt with “the full severity of martial law”.

Confederate general John Bell Hood’s 38,000-strong Army of Tennessee was a shadow of its former strength but remained on the loose. Initially Sherman gave chase but as Hood moved west, Sherman withdrew to start his move to the coast on November 2. Hood’s plan was to invade Nashville and take back the city they lost in 1862. Grant sent General George Thomas, the “Rock of Chickamauga” to organise the defence of the city. At Franklin 20 miles south of Nashville on November 30 Hood suffered 7000 casualties in a failed frontal attack. Union forces withdrew to Nashville and Hood’s army arrived south of the city on December 2. While Thomas and Steedman were preparing to meet Hood, Meagher helped Steedman by organising supplies of ammunition and rations. Rather than repeating his fruitless frontal attack at Franklin, he waited for Thomas to attack him. But Thomas had carefully planned his defence and counter-attacked Hood through an exposed flank. After a two-day battle, Hood’s confederate army suffered a calamitous defeat at Nashville.

Most of Steedman’s 3000-strong Provisional Division were black including the First Colored Brigade who were involved in the attack. Black enlistment had been one of the most radical provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation with some border Unionists and Democrats calling it a plan to “exterminate” the whites of the South. Nevertheless Lincoln threw his support behind the idea, dispatching a letter to Johnson in Tennessee urging him to enlist black troops. “The colored population is the great available and yet unavailed of force for restoring the Union,” Lincoln told Johnson. By war’s end more than 180,000 black troops had served in the Union army, about 10 percent of all the soldiers who fought for the Union.

After the Battle of Nashville Steedman returned to Chattanooga to resume control of Etowah and praised Meagher’s efficiency in managing the military district while communications were interrupted and Hood was at large, “all these responsibilities devolved upon you have given me much satisfaction.” In response Meagher called it “a trying period” but thanks to the support of his officers it was “an animating and joyful labor, rather than one beset with annoyances and worryings, waste of brain and bitterness of heart, that it was my fortune to accomplish.”It was Meagher’s last fine moment in the army. His military career was about to tumble out of control.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 72. Grave of the Union

Detail of “Grave of the Union Or Major Jack Downing’s Dream” a cartoon by “Zeke” depicting Abraham Lincoln with supporters and cabinet members depicted as undertakers at the burial of caskets labelled Constitution, Union, and Free Speech. Meagher is included third from the left, his head superimposed on a jackass. Photo: Library of Congress

As opposition to the war grew, so did the number of cartoons mercilessly skewering Old Abe and his apparently hapless government. Bromley and Co published several including “Grave of the Union Or Major Jack Downing’s Dream.” Major Jack Downing was the 1830s fictional creation of humorist Seba Smith beloved of many anti-presidential cartoonists who usually signed their work with pen names like “Neffu” or in this case, “Zeke”. In Downing’s dream, Lincoln and his cabinet members and supporters – including Thomas Francis Meagher – are a band of undertakers about to inter American constitutional rights. Lincoln looks on as Horace Greeley and Charles Sumner lower a casket labelled “Constitution,” with other coffins reading “Free Speech & Free Press,” “Habeas Corpus,” and “Union.” War Secretary Edwin Stanton is driving a coach and says “my jackasses pulled a load but they pulled it through bravely”. Stanton’s four “jackasses” are John Cochrane, Benjamin Butler, Meagher and Daniel Dickinson, all War Democrats and all political generals bar Dickinson, who was New York Attorney General. Meagher’s caption reads “when you meet a Copperhead, squelch him.”

In 1863 Meagher had expressed strong opposition to the Peace Democrat Copperheads despite the draft riots, calling them a “selfish and conscienceless faction” in his private letter to Guiney. However it was Meagher who was feeling squelched as 1864 began. Having lost Corcoran at Christmas, there was more sad news to greet the new year when New York Archbishop John “Dagger” Hughes died aged 66. The New York Times learned of his death with “unfeigned regret” while the Pilot eulogised that in his death “Catholicity has lost one of its very ablest advocates; the Republic one of its most eminent and devoted patriots; (and) Ireland an illustrious son.” It could have added that Meagher had lost another one of his key allies and confidantes.

In early January Meagher addressed a meeting of 250 members of the Irish Brigade in New York. Meagher told them to put their politics aside and be faithful to the Union and to the president. For now, he said, there was no Democratic or Republican party, “there are but two parties in this country; one the Federal Armies under Abraham Lincoln; and the other the Rebel Armies under Jeff Davis” and until Davis’s army was routed, they should “stand by your party”. The speech confirmed closer ties between Meagher and the Lincoln administration. However as the year developed and the war stalled it looked as if Lincoln would join the long list of one-term presidents since Andrew Jackson last won a second term in 1832.

While waiting for a command Meagher went on the lecture circuit and although many audiences would have preferred to hear about his adventures in Ireland and Tasmania than his ruminations on the war, he was undergoing a transformation. In a lecture in April in Burlington, Vermont, Meagher declared slavery was the cause of the war and had to be “utterly destroyed unless we wish to fight over again the dreadful battles that have made mourning through the land”. No man, he said, “was more contemptible than a peace man” which even the South spurned with contempt.

Down in the South things weren’t going well despite the stalemate on the front with shortages in the shops. The Northern army increasingly cut off Confederate food producing areas and drought, speculation and hoarding exacerbated the crisis. Even Meagher’s pro-slavery friend John Mitchel was starting to doubt Jefferson Davis’s administration Mitchel and he moved to the anti-administration Richmond Examiner run by John Daniel which was critical of Davis’s conduct of the war. Nevertheless Mitchel’s remarkable wife was keeping the faith. Unknown to him, Jenny and their two surviving daughters were heading back to the Confederacy from Europe. They travelled to Cornwall where they hitched a lift from a blockade-running steamer the Vesta. Off North Carolina they were chased and fired on by a flotilla of eight warships. The Vesta escaped up Cape Fear river channel and ran aground.

After spending the night on the beach the women were carried “half dead” on a wagon to the town of Smith where they caught a ride to Wilmington. There Jenny telegraphed Mitchel before they caught a train 200 miles to Richmond. “No more destitute refugees ever came to Richmond, even in those days of refugeeing, than my wife and two little girls,” he wrote. Despite Mitchel’s criticism, Davis still admired him and especially welcomed his wife back to the city as a rare novelty of a gentlewoman breaking back into Richmond this late in the war. However on July 20, 1864 there was terrible news from North Carolina. John and Jenny’s oldest son, Major John Mitchel was “mortally wounded by the fragment of a shell” while commanding officer of Fort Sumter. Mitchel contacted friends in the administration to arrange for his remaining son James to be removed from the front line to a staff job.

Deaths were commonplace as the new Union commander Grant waged total war against the Rebels. Despite horrendous casualties, the eastern front remained stalemated in front of Petersburg in trench-like warfare after terrible bloody battles at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor, all near the site of Meagher’s last stand at Chancellorsville and all involving the much diminished Irish Brigade in his absence. Meagher’s replacement as leader of the Brigade, Colonel Patrick Kelly, was killed in a pointless charge at Petersburg on June 16. Meagher praised Kelly for his devotion to duty in a way he possibly wished he might have matched. “Abandoning all political associations he pledged his life to the honor of the flag under which his emigrant race have found recognition,” Meagher eulogised.

There was another sad death two days after Kelly’s when William Smith O’Brien died in Wales on June 18, 1864, aged 61. Smith O’Brien had suffered a heart attack while travelling home to Ireland after visiting nationalists in Poland and Hungary. His death prompted a huge outpouring of nationalist mourning and 20,000 people greeted the coffin as it arrived back in Dublin. He was buried at Rathronan churchyard near Cahermoyle with even the Times calling him “one of the most truthful, honourable and kind-hearted of men.” Fellow state prisoner John Martin was grief-struck. “I looked around the land, asking myself almost in despair whence and from what quarter was there likely to rise another O’Brien.” Meagher put aside their recent public row to grieve the loss of his companion of rebellion, prison and exile, saying how greatly he esteemed, loved, and reverenced him. “His difference with me in relation to the war now shaking this vast Republic to its foundations never for a moment relaxed those ties of confidence and affection, those ties of undeserved regard and admiration which bound me to him,” Meagher wrote.

The death of friends and the lack of a command were taking a toll in other ways. In August Meagher was told to go to Grant’s headquarters at City Point (now Hopewell) Virginia for further orders. On the way he befriended Colonel Theodore Gates whose 20th New York Irish regiment had suffered huge casualties at Gettysburg. The two men found a lot in common over a “quart of whiskey” and Meagher became a regular visitor to Gates’s camp at City Point for ten days. However Meagher was drunk so often Gates finally threw him out.

Meagher was in a more wholesome mood in September when he contacted Irish Brigade chaplain Corby to arrange for a Mass on the third anniversary of the brigade’s founding. According to Corby, Meagher was master of ceremonies, managing the music and military duties and he gave his usual brilliant speech. It was his last duty with the Brigade. Meagher received orders to travel to Nashville to get an assignment from his old nemesis Major General William T. Sherman. Grant had ordered Sherman to “get into the interior of the enemy’s country as far as you can, inflicting all the damage you can against their war resources”. Grant left it up to Sherman to define what war resources meant and how best to damage them. With no-one of the calibre of Lee against him, Sherman pressed on and took the city of Atlanta on September 3. The news electrified the north and buoyed Lincoln’s flagging re-election campaign.

Sherman’s next goal was to head across Georgia to Savannah, far from supply lines but living off the land. Meagher was still waiting to join the action. Sherman hadn’t forgotten the “envenomed martinet” comment and now he was a lot more powerful than he was in 1861. Sherman delayed giving Meagher orders, unfairly deriding the Irishman as a “Mozart Hall” Democrat, for former New York mayor Fernando Wood’s pro-southern faction. Meanwhile Meagher’s 1863 private letter to the Republican Patrick Guiney somehow found its way to the papers a year later. The New York Times gleefully printed Meagher’s disdain for Irish opinion under the headline “The Irish Vote – Views of Gen. Meagher”. The Irish American also picked it up calling it an unwarranted attack on his fellow Irish. “Between him and the people who loved him and trusted him once he has opened up a Gulf which he can never bridge over”. The Pilot was more forgiving once it found out it was published in error after 12 months, “by indiscreet friends; without the General’s permission, and that its publication at all was a breach of confidence.” For once, Meagher was glad to be away from the action as his East Coast critics went on the attack

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 71. The Dublin letters

This portrait of Thomas Francis Meagher, ‘Meagher of the Sword’ (1823-1867) by artist George Francis Mulvany (1809-1869) hangs in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin. Presented: Friends of the National Collections of Ireland, 1954

In September 1863 Thomas Francis Meagher wrote two remarkable letters for publication in Dublin newspapers. The first was to the Citizen, published by James Roche, who had helped Meagher found the Irish News, and who moved back to Ireland after the paper folded in 1860. The second was the Irishman, published by Meagher’s schoolboy friend Patrick Smyth. After helping Mitchel escape Van Diemen’s Land, and marrying a Vandemonian, Smyth had returned returned to Dublin in 1856 where he studied for the bar, but like Meagher, ended up a newspaperman, In the first letter Meagher acknowledged that Roche had sent him his paper regularly but he had been too busy to respond since the war started as “camp life being anything but conducive to the maintenance of friendly relations.” Now without a command, Meagher had more time to respond and in the letters Meagher came out as an abolitionist of slavery while defending the Irish.

As the war broke out in 1861, Meagher had strongly defended Southerners but after two years of fighting against them on “many a fiercely fire-swept field” he was singing a different tune. Now they were not “revolutionists” but “Slave Lords” whose inspiration and purpose in rebellion was “not independence, but domination.” In that same first letter Meagher said that in the South “the slavery of the black man constituted the basis of wealth, of social consequence, and political power.” He then recalled Smith O’Brien asking him in 1859 how he could be an apologist for slavery and he responded, “I was not in favour of slavery, but was devoted to the Union, and that, as the Union involved the slavery he condemned, I had to accept the latter to befriend and serve the former.” The Irish in America, he said, had to accept this “anomaly” in the Constitution, “or else stand aloof as aliens, availing themselves, it is true, of the liberal advantages it bounteously offered.” But when when the South broke “the compact” they became “traitors and insurrectionists” and while the removal of slavery was the cause of the war, it became “a military necessity”

Meagher’s letter to Smyth turned its attention to the impact of the war on the Irish. He said there was already a strong anti-Irish sentiment in America and now public sympathy in Ireland for the Rebels would “not be forgotten by the jealous exclusionists of this country when the war is over.” And while this was an “error of generous natures inflamed with the love of liberty,” it was nonetheless a wild error, “since it confounds the conspiracy and outbreak of a lawless ambition and lust of power, with the struggles for equal laws, fair play, the God-given rights of conscience, national life and position, (and) an unfettered manhood.”

Meagher noted how the American Constitution buttressed slavery and remembered that the same ship that brought him to New York in 1852 had a year earlier brought back the runaway slave Thomas Sims from Boston to Savannah under the Fugitive Slave Act and for the sake of maintaining national unity, “the North became nothing less than the obsequious vassal of the South”. This all changed with the election of Lincoln and the “transfer of power was too much for them to bear.” While Meagher had nothing against the Irish who fought for Lee, “I turn with pride and exultation to those of our race who stood true to the Government of the United States, “he wrote. “In the honoured graves in which many of them sleep to-day, they are not on trial for their loyalty and heroism.”

Meagher’s view was rebutted by his old friend William Smith O’Brien. In a response to the Irishman in October Smith O’Brien estimated 200,000 Irish had already died in the war. These brave men, Smith O’Brien said, “are now regarded as mere mercenaries, who for the sake of a handful of dollars, enlist themselves in a strife, the sole object of which is to determine whether one-third of the citizens of the States shall be governed according to their own free choice, or shall be coerced by force to submit to a connection and to a government which they repudiate and abhor.” Smith O’Brien also noted the contradiction in Meagher’s attack on Vallandigham, “our comrade, who was once the champion of human liberty, has enlisted himself as the defender of every sort of tyrannical usurpation.” Fellow former Vandemonian state prisoner John Martin also wrote in support of Smith O’Brien’s position which he said were the sentiments of the great majority of Irish people.

Whatever Meagher’s opinion of Irish involvement in the war, his opinions on slavery seemed to align more with the Radical Republicans than his own Democrats. Meagher’s views reached a wider American audience when the pro-Union Loyal Publication Society in New York picked up the two Meagher letters and re-published them as Letters on our national struggle. Meagher’s old commander and now would-be Democrat candidate for the presidency George McClellan would not have been impressed as he was publicly prepared to abandon emancipation to end the war. His home life was difficult with his father-in-law Peter Townsend openly supporting the Democrats while his brother-in-law Samuel Barlow was acting as an unofficial campaign manager for McClellan’s campaign. And Meagher’s views were anathema in the South where as late as November 12, 1864, the Charleston Mercury could editorialise how the black population were an inferior and barbarous race “at his best estate as the slave of the enlightened white man of this country.”

Despite critics on both sides of the Atlantic, Meagher pressed on and told a packed Boston hall in late October of the friendship between Ireland and America. He noted how in the 18th century the Irish parliament supported the revolutionists across the Atlantic and when the conditions were reversed America supported “gallant” Ireland. “In the bitterness of his heart be pitied, if he did not despise and spurn, the Irishman who lost sight of this, and losing sight of it, failed at this hour in his duty to America,” Meagher warned the many countrymen in his audience. Meagher himself was desperate to get back in the army. He sought out help from young Roscommon-born Captain James O’Beirne who had won the medal of honour for heroism at Fair Oaks, and who had wanted Meagher to be godfather to one of his children. Meagher told O’Beirne he had requested his role back as a brigadier general but had heard nothing back from the government. “Military life is my true life,” he wrote. “I would very much like to have command of a Veteran Division.”

Meagher wrote another letter in October to a rare Republican army acquaintance Colonel Patrick Guiney. In it he confessed to “an utter disregard, if not a thorough contempt” of what the American Irish thought of him. “They have suffered themselves to be bamboozled into being obstinate herds in the political field.” While his real grievance was with the Democrats not the Irish, the letter would have bad consequences for him over a year later when it was accidentally made public. In the meantime Meagher visited his old comrades in the Irish Brigade where Brigade poet laureate and fellow Waterford man Lawrence Reynolds wrote a poem. “Welcome, welcome back again, Chieftain famed for sword and pen, Welcome, hero of the sword”.

There was tragedy involving another old comrade before Christmas when Meagher visited Michael Corcoran at Fairfax, Virginia for an evening of conviviality. When it ended Corcoran decided to accompany Meagher back to the railway station. There they shook hands and said goodbye, Meagher asking Corcoran to spend Christmas with Libby and him. On the journey back Corcoran’s horse cast a shoe and his officers suggested he ride Meagher’s big grey horse to camp. Corcoran knew Meagher’s horse was unruly. “He is a fast horse when put to it, for he won a race on St. Patrick’s Day at Falmouth; and so let us have a bit of a race and test him,” Corcoran said. He galloped away on his new mount. A short time later, he fell on an icy road and his men found him senseless at the bottom of a gully. Corcoran suffered a fractured skull and never regained consciousness. He died on December 22, 1863 aged 36.

Meagher felt partially guilty for his death as his stricken features revealed when he returned to camp and accompanied the body to Washington. In an oration in Corcoran’s honour, Meagher painted him as an Irish and American patriot. To great cheers, he recalled the time he refused to parade before the Prince of Wales three years earlier “lawfully as a citizen, courageously as a soldier and indignantly as an Irishman” before displaying loyalty to America at the head of the 69th at First Bull Run. “None were truer to the land of his birth, none loved her more sincerely or had a more earnest desire to serve her, or did more to train and fit himself to take an eminent part in the achievement of her independence,” Meagher said.

Meagher’s army resignation was finally rescinded in November 1863 and the Pilot reported the news Meagher might be recruiting a new brigade with a promotion to major-general. After Corcoran died he now seemed an obvious replacement to inherit the Corcoran Legion which was all Fenian. Meagher was a half-hearted member of the Fenians and refused to attend their convention on the excuse he was “on call to the war department”. Nevertheless at an Irish Brigade dinner following Corcoran’s death, the Fenian O’Mahony warmly toasted Meagher “as one of his most intimate friends in private life, as well as one most closely connected with him through our common association in the cause of Ireland, during the past ten years”. Meagher did not get the call to lead the Corcoran Legion but the Fenian element probably had little to do with it. Hancock wanted him back but wrote “the war Department seems to regard the Irish general as a communicable disease.”

Lincoln’s problems, meanwhile, were with his commanding generals. Meade had won Gettysburg but in November had failed to take on Lee’s army at Mine Run. So as 1864 approached the president decided it was time for yet another commander in the east. Out west Ulysses Grant had established himself as a hero taking Vicksburg on the Mississippi and then the city of Chattanooga in Tennessee severing the trans-Mississippi west. Grant would now have control over both theatres and was appointed Lieutenant General to command the entire army. This was good news for the Union as they finally appointed a competent leader but it was not good news for Meagher as Grant had no time for enthusiastic amateurs in the army no matter what their political connections.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 70. Draft riots

New York city hall, built in 1812, was protected by troops and artillery during the 1863 draft riots (In this photo, the flags of New York and the United States were at half mast in honour of the anniversary of 9/11). Photo: Author’s collection.

A riot is the language of the unheard – Martin Luther King

The day of Meagher’s Kearny Cross presentation coincided with Lee’s second invasion of the North and in his speech that day, Meagher made it clear he was no Peace Democrat, or Copperhead, as they were called. “I trust that from this hour there shall be no supplications for peace, since those supplications have flung open the gates, and invited the enemy to cross the Potomac,” Meagher said forcefully. “This is not a moment to mince words… I for one cannot but regard any one who utters ‘peace’ from this moment out as a confirmed and branded traitor.” At a banquet in his honour a couple of days later, Meagher spoke again for the war effort saying to great applause that it was “only the bankrupt money brokers who sued for peace to repair their shattered fortunes.”

Minus a command, Meagher turned once more to Irish matters and the Fenians. Though Meagher had rejected James Stephens’ overtures in 1858, the Fenian Cavanagh believed he wanted to join the organisation since St Patrick’s Day 1861 when he witnessed them march through New York under the green flag, though that may have been just Meagher verbal exuberance rather than a commitment. Two years later Meagher was now ready and he wrote to O’Mahony wanting to discuss another possible outbreak of war between America and England over the American seizure of the English blockade runner Circassian. When they met on July 11, O’Mahony formally admitted Meagher to the Brotherhood. When Stephens found out that Meagher had joined the organisation he was delighted and asked O’Mahony to urge Meagher to help recruitment in Waterford which he called “the most backward spot in Munster.”

However Meagher couldn’t help regretting his letter of resignation from the army. Meagher wrote to Lincoln offering his services once more and the president eagerly accepted Meagher’s offer to raise 3000 troops. But Meagher had misjudged the extent of the growing Irish hatred of the war. While Meagher believed Irish hopes were best served with the restoration of the Union, most Irish supported the Peace Democrats who wanted an immediate negotiated peace. Many Irish detested the Emancipation Proclamation thinking that black people would take their jobs, and Lincoln made matters worse with his first Conscription Act on March 3. The draft applied to all white men aged between 20 and 45. Wealthy draftees could buy their way out of service for $300 or else by paying substitutes to take their places.

The same day he joined the Fenians, Meagher called a meeting to raise a new Brigade. His timing was abysmal. It was the day the first draftees were drawn out of a lottery in Irish-dominated Lower New York. While the day passed without incident the problem started after the militant volunteer firefighters of the notoriously violent Black Joke Engine Company (which in 1843 had fortified their engine house with a howitzer to defend it from rival firefighting units) found out they had been drafted and decided to attack the draft office when it opened that Monday morning. News of the plan quickly spread across neighbouring wards and a huge crowd gathered outside the office on Monday. When the Black Joke crew arrived, they charged in, smashed the place up, spread turpentine on the floor and set the place ablaze. When they attacked police and provost marshals, the crowd started looting and pulling down telegraph poles. Neighbouring houses burned and when a police superintendent arrived, he was savagely beaten and left for dead.

People flooded into the East Side streets in what quickly became a full-blown riot. British Guards officer Arthur Fremantle was heading home to England after three months touring the Confederacy when he came upon the rioters near Fifth Avenue. Fremantle saw buildings on fire and the crowd prevented the fire brigade, presumably not the Black Joke, from attending. Soldiers were jeered while a black man took refuge among them amid cries of “kill all niggers”. Fremantle asked what the black man had done to deserve it. “Oh sir, they hate them here; they are the innocent cause of all these troubles,” the by-stander told him.

As the riot spread, troops and artillery rushed in to protect City Hall. But they did nothing when rioters attacked the Coloured Orphan Asylum at Fifth Avenue amid shouts of “burn the niggers’ nest.” They also attacked firemen attending the subsequent blaze. After Irish colonel Henry O’Brien led 150 men from the 11th New York to clear the crowd with two six-pounder guns and they killed a child, his house was burned down and when he arrived home the mob beat him to death and dragged him through the streets. Outside pro-war Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune office, the crowd shouted “down with the old white coat who thinks a naygar is as good as an Irishman.” Irish longshoremen, who lost their jobs to former slaves when they went on strike, burned grain elevators to the ground, though reports that they killed blacks were false.

The 69th’s Robert Nugent had unwisely had agreed to the War Department’s request to conduct the New York ballot, and rioters attempted to burn down his house, entering a room that contained portraits of Nugent, Meagher and Corcoran, where they supposedly “slashed the pictures of Nugent and Meagher” but left the picture of Fenian Corcoran untouched. However historian of the riot Adrian Cook thinks the rumour Nugent’s house was attacked was false. The unwell Archbishop Dagger Hughes made a half-hearted call for restraint but told a public meeting “I cannot see a rioter’s face among you.” Republican newspapers condemned a speech from New York Democrat governor Horatio Seymour at City Hall where he reportedly called rioters “my friends” and promised to end the draft. The bloodshed did not end until War Secretary Stanton sent five regiments from Gettysburg to restore order. Around 150 people died and countless buildings were destroyed.

Meagher was missing in action, hiding in New York while the riots took place around him, fearful that not just his portrait was in danger. When O’Mahony later asked him if could have stopped the violence, Meagher replied, “Not at all. The people those days were in a mood of mind to tear me limb from limb if they caught hold of me.” As On July 13 he wrote to Stanton asking that his letter of resignation be withdrawn. Meagher’s Methodist admirer from Belfast, George Pepper, invited him to come to Ohio to speak on behalf of the Union Democrats in an election for governor against the Peace Democrats, though just before he was due to head west, Meagher found had a clashing appointment in Washington.

On September 23 he wrote a letter to “the union committee of Ohio” apologising for his absence and in it he urged Ohio voters not to elect Copperhead leader Clement Vallandigham as governor. General Ambrose Burnside had recovered from his Fredericksburg fiasco to command the Military District of Ohio where he had issued General Order Number 38, which warned that the “habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy” would not be tolerated in the area. Vallandigham had fallen foul of the order after expressing opposition for the war and was convicted by an Army court martial and forcibly exiled to the Confederacy. He then moved to Canada but won the Democratic nomination for governor in absentia from Ohians outraged at Lincoln’s removal of his habeas corpus and free speech rights. Meagher threw his support behind Pepper’s man, pro-Union War Democrat John Brough. By electing Brough, Meagher said, “Ohio stands true to the splendid soldiers who from the rocks of Gettysburg, hurled back an invasion” whereas a Vallandigham victory would mean Ohio “turns her back on these brave men.” Almost in passing, the letter contains Meagher’s first public thoughts about the riots and he found a way to blame the Peace Democrats instead of the Irish when he noted “the Peace meetings and riots of New York” and other places were where “Copperheads abound” and their “venom, as well as the slime, the fangs, as well as the slippery skin, of the reptiles, warn the community of danger.” Nevertheless Meagher was putting his own reputation in danger as he unmoored himself from the common Irish position on the war.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 69. Resignation

Two of Thomas Francis Meagher’s war medals in the collection of Waterford Treasures Museum, Bishop Palace. Left is the Kearny Cross and right is the Fort Sumter medal. Both were awarded in 1863 Photo: Author’s collection

Erin’s sons are daring, of their blood unsparing / In the cause of Right / Corcoran, the gallant, and brave Tom Meagher, the valiant / Are first in every fight – “Erin’s Truth” William H. C. Hosmer 1863

Abraham Lincoln visited the Union army back at camp at Falmouth on May 7, 1863 but unlike at Harpers Ferry the previous year, there is no record of him meeting Thomas Francis Meagher. Instead the disgruntled brigadier general sat down a day later to write a letter to the army’s assistant adjutant general, General John Hancock. “General: I beg most respectfully to tender you, through to the proper authorities,” Meagher began, “my resignation as brigadier general commanding was once known as the Irish Brigade, That brigade no longer exists.” The Union failure at Chancellorsville was fresh in Meagher’s mind though in his letter he blamed earlier battles. Between July and December 1862 the Irish Brigade had lost 1200 men, from its first outing at Fair Oaks, then the Sevens Days Battles and onto the bloodbath of Antietam. However it was the Fredericksburg disaster which was the last straw. “The assault on the enemy’s works on 13th December last reduced it to something less than a minimum regiment of infantry,” Meagher wrote.

Meagher blamed War Secretary Stanton for ignoring his memorial for the Brigade to take time off to recover its strength. “It never even was acknowledged,” he said, bitterly. The Brigade had not recovered and the situation put Meagher in a depression that “almost unfitted” him to remain in command. With “a mere handful” left in his command, they did their duty at Chancellorsville and while it would have been a great honour to remain in charge of such men, “to do so any longer would be to perpetuate a public perception, in which the hard won honors of good soldiers, and in them the military reputation of a brave old race would inevitably be involved and compromised.” Almost as an afterthought, he wrote that though resigning, his services still belonged to the Union, “in any capacity that can prove useful.” The Pilot said the Brigade had done its duty but “Gen, Meagher declines to risk the lives of the remaining few”.

Presumably unimpressed with the personal insult, Stanton accepted his resignation within a week. In a brief official note dated May 14 the War Department replied, “your resignation has been accepted by the President of the United States to take effect this day.” The Irish American called it an “unmerited and outrageous injustice” while Meagher’s men were distraught. A letter signed by 59 officers praised Meagher as the originator of the Brigade, “always inspiring your command with that courage and devotedness which has made the Brigade historical.” The 116th Pennsylvania officers passed a resolution saying Meagher’s resignation deprived them of “one who was always solicitous for our comfort and welfare” and whom they “all would have followed to death if necessary.” Meagher was always foremost in the battle, the 116th officers said, and was one of the Union’s “most patriotic generals (and) one of its most daring soldiers”.

Meagher farewelled the Brigade on May 19. He told the men that given the depleted numbers of the Brigade he would be “perpetuating a great deception” if he was to retain the commanding rank of Brigadier General. He said the graves of their dead was a guarantee he would always be a friend of the brigade and proceeded to shake the hands of all 400 present. Meagher handed over command to the 88th’s Galway-born Colonel Patrick Kelly and urged the Brigade to stay together. He returned to be with Libby in New York, though rather than face his father-in-law, Meagher recuperated at the spacious home of his friend, Irish businessman Daniel Devlin, which overlooked the Hudson River in Manhattanville. Devlin was a Donegal man, who like Meagher’s grandfather had emigrated in his youth to become a tailor in North America and had become prosperous with his brand of Devlin jeans. Presumably there were still political military matters to discuss. Devlin was a prominent Democrat who had also headed the executive committee charged with recruitment and financing for the Irish Brigade.

Meagher was given the hospitality of New York on June 16 despite it coming from Republican mayor George Opdyke, who defeated Democrat Fernando Wood in 1861. Opdyke told Meagher he had given the nation three potent instruments: “the eloquence of your voice, the force of your pen, and the power of your sword.” Meagher was presented with the Kearny Cross named for Irish American Major General Philip Kearny, who had criticised McClellan at Harrisons Landing but was then killed in the Battle of Chantilly a few months later. His officers awarded the cross to fellow Union officers who had performed acts of extreme bravery and heroism in the face of the enemy. Meagher’s one bears the inscription – “To General Meagher, Kearny’s friend and comrade.” In his acceptance speech Meagher defended his decision to resign due to the losses in the Brigade. “As I had no command, it was but decent of me to relinquish the emolument of a sinecure,” he said. Nevertheless he fiercely defended the war effort: “let the army, swelled to a million by the people, proceed, beat back the enemy, crush the insurrection, restore the Constitution and reinstate the Union.” It was one of two medals Meagher was awarded in 1863, which many years later Libby Meagher presented to the Corporation of Waterford, the other being the Fort Sumter medal (also called the Gillmore Medal for its creator, General Quilcy Gillmore), a medal of honour to reward valour in Union actions in operations before Charleston.

Down in Richmond, John Mitchel said Meagher could not recruit in numbers because “the Irish of the Federal States are entirely sick of the war.” While that was true, Mitchel had his own problems. First he heard son James was seriously wounded at Marye’s Heights then there was unexpected news from Paris that his daughter Henrietta, who had become a nun after converting to Catholicism, had died in her Paris convent. While Mitchel grieved, Lee had decided to follow up his Chancellorsville success with another assault on the North. There were many in the North who wanted to sue for peace and Lee thought an attack on Union territory could be decisive. It would also relieve the pressure on Richmond and might move troops away from the besieged Mississippi port of Vicksburg where another important battle was looming.

This time Lee’s men headed into Pennsylvania where they would face yet another Union leader, George G. Meade. replacing the hapless Hooker. In the way of American generals, Meade had another colourful nickname, “Old Snapping Turtle” for his supposed quick temper but Lee was worried, considering him a superior opponent to Hooker. Meade covered Lee’s advance to the east in case Lee tried to move towards Baltimore or Washington. The depleted Irish Brigade, sans Meagher, began a long march north on June 14. At the start of July the two great armies met near the small town of Gettysburg. With 165,000 troops involved, it became the largest ever battle fought on the American continent. The battle raged for three days in the greatest carnage of the war. Before battle Chaplain Corby stood on a boulder and conducted Mass before giving general absolution to the 500 Irish Brigade soldiers, an “awe-inspiring” act, according to Mulholland, a Pennsylvanian now defending his homeland. The Brigade performed bravely, attacking in the wheat field on the second day of the battle to save Dan Sickles’ exposed Third Corps. The Brigade helped stabilise the position, though Sickles lost a leg, while the Irish Brigade lost another two-fifths of its strength with 27 killed, 109 wounded and 62 missing.

They weren’t the only Irish to die in that savage battle. On July 3, Confederate Major General George Pickett’s crack division charged across an open field and was mown down by withering artillery and rifle fire. Young Willy Mitchel was among the dead. John Mitchel conveyed the news to Willy’s brother John. “Our poor Willy, in that terrible slaughter of Pickett’s Division, was shot through the body, and at once killed.” Pickett’s charge was Lee’s greatest blunder and seven weeks later Mitchel’s paper was still publishing Gettysburg casualty lists. Seventy thousand Confederate fought at Gettysburg but only 48,000 returned with Lee to Virginia. Like McClellan after Antietam, the Old Snapping Turtle seemed to be escorting them out of the North. Lincoln, frustrated once more by one of his commanders, said Meade resembled an old woman trying to shoo her geese across the creek. But Lincoln was too harsh. With the simultaneous fall of Vicksburg in the West, Gettysburg was a major turning point in the war. Meagher was watching impotently from the wings as a general without a command. The papers even rumoured that he might be about to leave for France to visit his father and his now nine-year-old son, whom he had never seen. The rumours were false, but the downtime did give him opportunity to turn to matters Irish on both sides of the Atlantic.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 68. Chancellorsville

Cannon at the Chancellorsville intersection, site of Thomas Francis Meagher’s final battle with the Irish Brigade in early May 1863. Photo: Author’s collection

My will fulfilled shall be / For, in daylight or in dark, / My thunderbolt has eyes to see / His way home to the mark. Boston Hymn (1863) Ralph Waldo Emerson

Though Fredericksburg was a disaster for the Union, its outcome was indecisive and the Confederates could not follow up its success. The most important outcome, it seemed, was the demise of another Union general, Ambrose Burnside. Lincoln now pinned his hopes on Joe Hooker to lead the 134,000-strong Army of the Potomac. But with desertions becoming a serious issue, the president also needed more soldiers and in March Congress passed a national conscription act to come into effect later in the year. The removal of the hapless Burnside boosted morale in the field and with equipment and supplies abundant, there was reason to be optimistic as the weather improved.

Meagher took more sick leave after his big St Patrick’s Day event telling Hancock he had a severe attack of rheumatism and he needed to “procure hot or vapor baths” in Baltimore or Philadelphia. There was also time to attend a New York fundraiser on April 11 as Ireland teetered on the edge of another potato famine, before he returned to Falmouth on April 26. Still frustrated with his lack of success in getting leave and promotions for himself and his Brigade, Meagher was toying with the idea of resignation. However there were also rumours abounding of a new campaign and within a day of arriving back, the army was on the move.

Hooker revealed his plan to outflank Fredericksburg. He would cross the Rappahannock River beyond Lee’s left flank and descend on a former country inn at a crossroads known as Chancellorsville, 14 miles west of Fredericksburg. He would also send his cavalry on a raid to attack Confederate communications and force Lee out of Fredericksburg. The infantry would follow, trapping Lee’s army between them and the cavalry, while there would be another attempt on Fredericksburg itself. It was an audacious manoeuvre but once again Lee and Jackson, despite being heavily outnumbered, would be up to the test.

Lee moved four fifths of his men out of Fredericksburg to face the new threat. This allowed the union forces to finally storm the town causing the rebels to abandon Marye’s Heights. Mitchel’s son James was wounded, struck in the chest by a shell splinter. On April 27 the Irish Brigade were on the move 30 miles up the Rappahannock River. After camping the night in a forest, they crossed over the river on pontoon bridges north-east of Chancellorsville crossroads at United States Ford. It took until April 30 for Hancock to get all his men across the Ford. They then passed through a forest known as the Wilderness and camped a half mile away from Chancellorsville, leaving behind the 88th who remained to guard the Ford. The northern forces were ecstatic they had outsmarted Lee. But Union timidity struck again. Hooker’s balloonists told him Lee was moving towards Chancellorsville. At this first sign of southern aggression, Hooker drew his men back into the woods. The effect among his troops was devastating. The early optimism vanished. On May 1 some regiments set up a defensive position at Scott’s Mill while others marched to help General George Sykes who was fighting a rebel force near Chancellorsville. After Sykes withdrew a day later, Hancock’s Division formed a new line with General French’s troops from US Ford to the Chancellorsville house.

While his men cut down trees and turned them into defensive abatis, Meagher spent May 1 anxiously waiting for news from the nearby front while Mulholland could hear the crash of weapons firing in the distance. Lee’s instincts were to attack and he divided his army again, sending one part to deal with the advancing army from Fredericksburg while he sent Jackson’s 26,000-strong army on a secret encircling march which put him west of Hooker’s most vulnerable front through a supposedly impenetrable Wilderness. 

The unsuspecting Federal troops of Oliver Howard’s 11th Corps on the west side of the front were cooking supper on May 2 when Jackson’s men emerged from the forest and overran them. The startled Irish first knew of their arrival as the birds and animals took flight from the forest, a terrified deer jumping over their abatis. Mulholland then heard “a tremendous storm of musketry”. The men of the 11th were in panicked retreat and the Irish Brigade helped restore order by clearing the line and gathering them into squads. “Meagher quickly changed the direction of the left regiment of the brigade so as to cover the main road, the better to check the disorderly flight,” Mulholland said. Once they restored order, the rest of the evening passed without the Brigade firing a single shot.

At 5am on Sunday, May 3, the battle resumed with artillery fire and three hours later the Brigade was ordered forward to support the 5th Maine at the Chancellor House. The Chancellor family’s house functioned as an inn for travellers on the busy Orange Turnpike but now the only travellers were soldiers. Mulholland saw a stream of wounded move back, “men with torn faces, split heads, smashed arms.” The Pilot quoted an unnamed member of the Brigade who said Meagher had almost miraculous luck as he led the Brigade through the woods. “For though men were falling on every side, he boldly rode on, all the time cheering the men by word and example. Here a shell burst behind him, where he had but just left, killing four of our men.” At the opening of the woods, the 5th Maine were suffering badly and about to withdraw, but they needed help from the Irish Brigade to remove artillery from the field as their horses had been killed. First they poured “destructive fire on the enemy who were advancing to seize the guns.” Then for the next two and a half hours the 116th Pennsylvania pulled the guns out of stiff yellow clay, while subject to “a galling fire,” as the Pilot witness wrote. “Some of our men fell but others seized the ropes and dragged the guns with them,” the unnamed Brigade soldier wrote.

The Chancellor House took fire and soldiers had to rescue the family which had taken refuge in the cellar. Meagher’s men had to defend the position while the main army retreated. That evening, Meagher “in full uniform” walked up and down the brigade line and they held the road out of Chancellorsville for two days. The 88th was the last regiment to retreat to the Rappahannock River. The Brigade had lost another 92 men. The dead included the 63rd New York Captain John Lynch, who was first struck in the arm by a bullet while leaning against a tree and then refusing to leave the field, was blown to smithereens by a shell. His body was never recovered, “the scabbard of his sword, bent like a hook, was all that was left.”

After the battle Hancock praised his brigade commanders including Meagher who “performed their duties faithfully and well.” But Chancellorsville was yet another defeat for the Union. Hooker departed the battle injured by a cannonball, his reputation in ruins, like all the leaders before him. The New York World raged that the gallant army of the Potomac had been marched to fruitless slaughter, “by an imbecile department and led by an incompetent general”. British colonel J. E. Gough’s review of federal operations at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville concluded the Confederates were more ably commanded. “Lee, at any rate, was fighting to win; the risks he took were stupendous, but he took them deliberately,” Gough wrote. “Let us hope England will produce a soldier who can do the like.”

Despite the greatest victory of his career, Lee was in mourning. During the Chancellorsville assault, Stonewall Jackson had ridden out past the front line in a reconnaissance party. On the way back North Carolina troops mistook the party for the enemy. Jackson was shot in the arm and his horse bolted. He finally got his mount under control and stumbled back to the lines where he was placed on a stretcher. Even then, stretcher bearers tumbled under artillery fire adding to Jackson’s injuries. His wounds were serious and doctors decided to amputate his left arm. “He has lost his right arm, but I have lost my right arm,” Lee said. Matters worsened when Jackson developed pneumonia and he died on May 10. 

Chancellorsville would also be Meagher’s final battle with the Brigade. After he returned to camp at Falmouth, he took pen to paper and wrote a letter which he’d hoped would be a final wake-up call to the government to relieve the Irish from their endless slaughter. This was risky. If Meagher threatening to resign was a bluff, the danger was that the government might call it.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 67. Winter

Detail from Burnside’s Mud March of January 1863. Photo of exhibit in Fredericksburg Battlefield Museum from author’s collection.

There’s not a comrade here to-night / But knows that lov’d ones far away / On bended knees this night will pray: /
“God bring our darling from the fight.” December 25, Christmas Night of ’62 by W. Gordon McCabe

After the disaster of Fredericksburg, the shattered Irish Brigade faced up to its second winter in the field. They rested on the far side of the Rappahannock in winter quarters at Falmouth where the remnants of the Brigade were “the most dejected set of Irishmen you ever saw or heard of.” Nevertheless, Christmas Day was celebrated in good spirit with “many boxes of good things from home…shared by the recipients with comrades less fortunate.” Mulholland of the Pennsylvania 116th said some were homesick but “enough were sufficiently light of heart to drive dull care away.” They erected a large Christmas tree in the centre of the camp, and “peals of laughter and much merriment greeted the unique decorations, tin cups, hardtack, pieces of pork and other odd articles being hung on the branches”. At night the camp fire blazed, with all care “banished for the hour” as the canteen was passed around. For once, Meagher missed out on the canteen, sent home to New York to recuperate with Libby.

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation became law on January 1, as did his approval of black troops to fight for the Union. Yet Jefferson Davis said 1863 began auspiciously for the Confederates saying, “it finds us victorious at every point.” Meagher’s old friend John Mitchel was also outwardly optimistic for the new year, though his wife Jenny and his daughters were still in Europe. He wrote in the Richmond Enquirer that Fredericksburg had been a disaster for the union while the key port of Vicksburg on the Mississippi was still in Rebel hands. Mitchel kept darker thoughts to private letters. “Prices in Richmond are so severe, from four and a half dollars per pound of coffee to $75 to $100 per month for rent, that it’s impossible for Jenny to come over,” he wrote. Mitchel joined the Ambulance Committee which gave him a sense he was helping his three sons, James, staff captain at Fredericksburg, John at Charleston and Willy posted with his regiment in North Carolina.

Burnside still hoped to take Fredericksburg but his new enemy was mud. After a cold rain on January 14, mules could hardly move through the soft ooze, let alone an entire demoralised army. Yet on January 20, Burnside gave the order to advance in a flanking movement and heavy rain that night waterlogged many tents, making the mood unhappier still. By the following day, it was a “complete sea of mud” with wagons sinking up to their axles. A ravine where artillery pieces and wagons became entangled became known as “Profanity Gulch.” After the Rebels discovered their plans, Burnside bowed to the inevitable and cancelled the “mud march” on January 22. It was one of his last acts as army leader and he went to Washington to resign his commission. On January 26, Lincoln replaced Burnside as leader of the Army of the Potomac with Joseph Hooker, another of the Antietam generals, known to be a superb combat leader with great courage in battle. His nickname was auspicious – “Fighting” Joe Hooker – though one origin story is that came from a mistake in a newspaper when a typographical error changed an entry “Fighting — Joe Hooker Attacks Rebels” to remove the dash, and Hooker himself hated it.

Meagher missed the Mud March but was fighting in a different way as recuperating from his injury. With time on his hands, he began a campaign to get his depleted Brigade back to New York for rebuilding. While other native-born units enjoyed leave, the Irish Brigade had all requests denied, a situation the Irish American called “favoritism” and “unjust discrimination”. Meagher believed if his men had a triumphal parade in New York they would get all the encouragement and rest they needed while it might also inspire other Irishmen to join their ranks. At a Requiem Mass on January 16, he said the Irish had done their duty to their adopted land “when they had not said a word to bring on that crisis.”

Meagher also found time to present colours to another Irish regiment, the 37th New York “Irish Rifles” which Meagher had wanted to be part of his Brigade. The 37th’s Captain James O’Beirne, who would later become an important friend to Meagher, called Meagher a fitting representation of the “fearless and intrepid Irish nerve so oft displayed on many a field, and which never quaked though battle carnage ran at its highest tide” and in response Meagher said the American flag would soon “wave again over the national demain” and when that happened “no man will dare assert that the soldiers of the Irish Brigade and those of the 37th have not done their duty to their adopted land.” Meagher’s name was also toasted for Irish reasons at a grand ball for the Fenian Brotherhood in New York, though he was not yet a member and he was a notable absentee from the event. In the Brigade itself, the Brotherhood depended on the other Waterford man, Dr Lawrence Reynolds. The Potomac Circle of the Fenian Brotherhood met each Sunday in the Brigade’s hospital tent where “chief circle” Reynolds would lead the meeting in stories, ballads and poems of his own.

After Meagher’s leave expired on January 21, he wrote to general-in-chief Henry Halleck saying he was still incapacitated due to his injury. On February 12 he obtained an audience with Lincoln to seek furlough and promotions for his men, particularly Colonels Robert Nugent and Patrick Kelly. He told the president the Brigade had a proud record in every engagement with the Army of the Potomac and he was surprised “their own government had not taken any notice of them; not a single promotion has been selected from their officers”. Lincoln wrote to Halleck asking him to “examine their records with reference to the question of promoting one or both of them.” Nothing came of the request.

Now officially absent without leave, Meagher was hauled before a military commission on February 14 which exonerated him. Meagher enjoyed a hero’s return to the Brigade at Falmouth where he found that only 600 remained of the original 2200 soldiers of the 63rd, 69th and 88th while the 116th Pennsylvania and 28th Massachusetts mustered an additional 500. He kept up the pressure on the government for action. On February 19 he wrote a long letter to war secretary Edwin Stanton asking only for “which has been conceded to other commands, exhibiting equal labors, equal sacrifices, and equal decimation.” Despite their cooperation on the Sickles murder trial, Stanton ignored the request. Meagher’s reckless criticism of the administration in his “death feast” speech was coming back to haunt him. Meagher then tried to take up his request for Brigade leave with the new leader in the field. But Fighting Joe was not willing to act on Meagher’s request either unless Meagher could assure him they would be replaced by an equal number of new troops. He also refused Meagher leave to petition Congress.

The brigadier general cooled his heels in Virginia where despite his frustration, he brought all his usual gusto to the 1863 St Patrick’s Day celebrations at Falmouth. He appeared that morning in the immaculate formal dress of an Irish country gentleman, wearing “a tall white beaver hat, a white stock, a blue swallowtail coat with brass buttons as big as butter chips, white buckskin breeches and gleaming black top boots.” The day started with Mass where Meagher “directed the military bands how and where to play” with Stonyhurst precision. Then the action moved to the field. There was foot races, running after a soaped pig, a wheelbarrow race with competitors bound hand and foot, sack races, a wrestling match and later there was to be “a contest on the light fantastic toe, consisting of Irish reels, jigs and hornpipes; the best dancer to receive $5, the second best $3”. Meagher was the master of the well-lubricated ceremonies where there were “copious draughts of rich wine” and “potations of spiced whiskey punch…ladelled from an enormous bowl”.

The highlight was steeplechase horse races which attracted generals including Hooker and his old courtroom friend Dan Sickles. When Meagher saw soldiers sitting under the improvised stand where the top brass sat, he cried out, “Stand from under! If the stage gives way, you will be crushed by four tons of Major Generals.” Everyone laughed including the four tons, though given his recent rejection letter Hooker would have been aware of the double-edge of Meagher’s joke. As the final sack race was taking place, they heard heavy firing – just as they did at the previous year’s Chickahominy Steeplechase. Rumours of a Rebel attack quickly filtered through camp and everyone went to action stations. Meagher dashed out on the field on his horse shouting “Tear off those things! Fall In! Fall In!” The rumour of an attack proved false but Meagher later remarked, “this would only be keeping with precedents, as a fight seemed to be the inevitable winding up of a big day in the Irish Brigade.” It would not be long before Hooker would give Meagher his final “big day” with his beloved Brigade.

Thomas Francis Meagher’s life in 100 objects 66. The Death Feast

Detail from an Irish Brigade 69th Regiment flag showing the harp and sunburst. The flag is on display at the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, Dublin. Photo: Author’s collection

That  old  green  flag,  that  Irish  flag / It  is  but  now  a  tattered  rag / But India’s store of precious ore / Hath not a gem worth that old flag – From the memoir of St Clair Mulholland.

The guns fell silent that cold and bleak Saturday night in Fredericksburg but all through the darkness the moaning and cries of the wounded rang across the battlefield. The Irish Brigade was among the worst affected. The Times of London, not known for its pro-Irish opinion, said “never at Fontenoy, Albuera, or at Waterloo was more undaunted courage displayed by the sons of Erin that during those six frantic dashes which they directed against the almost impregnable position of their foe.” The less sentimental Conyngham said Fredericksburg was not a battle but “a wholesale slaughter of human beings – sacrificed to the blind ambition and incapacity of some parties.” Who those parties were, Conyngham did not say.

Fog shrouded Fredericksburg again the following morning, when less than 300 members of the Brigade reported for action, many still searching for surviving comrades. All 16 officers of the 69th were killed or wounded as were 75 percent of its enlisted men, Major William Horgan of Mrs Meagher’s Own was dead, and all the 116th Pennsylvania field and staff officers were injured including Colonel Dennis Heenan who suffered severely for months and finally lost the use of his right hand. W.F. Lyons wrote incorrectly that the 28th Massachusetts’ Colonel Richard Byrnes was among the dead (he died at Gettysburg.)

A Rhode Island corporal observed shattered elements of the Irish Brigade wandering about the streets and claimed to have seen Burnside clasping the hand of Meagher who was weeping inconsolably. Meagher does not mention weeping in his report but he had met Burnside at Sumner’s headquarters on the day. Burnside, he said, “did not appear at all dissatisfied with the course I had taken, and with marked cordiality inquired after the Brigade.” Burnside had more urgent matters on his mind than the fate of one Brigade, and Meagher gave a more detailed explanation to Sumner. Meagher said he’d crossed the river to procure rations and ammunition for his men but could find none. He left his wounded men on that side of the river and returned to the battlefield around midnight.

December 14, 1862 was a Sunday, and Father Corby noted at Mass he had “a very small congregation compared to former ones.” Rumours mounted that another assault on Marye’s Heights was planned for that day. Burnside was ready to resume the offensive but Sumner told him bluntly to desist. “It will prove disastrous to the army,” Sumner said. After conferring with other officers Burnside reluctantly agreed and called off the attack that afternoon. Lee might have counter-attacked had he known the extent of Union losses but he was aware Union artillery still commanded the field. The fighting was done for now.

The new flags for the Brigade had finally arrived from New York giving Meagher the excuse to hold his banquet. His original plan was for December 13 but that was the night of the battle. It would now be held two nights later, and the planned celebration would now be an Irish wake to mourn the dead, or what Cavanagh called the “death feast”. Meagher’s banquet hall was “no longer available” so the much diminished party was moved to Frederickburg’s bombed theatre. Meagher presided in the presence of 300 officers and their guests, including 22 generals, including a somewhat bewildered Hancock. Remarkably, given the battle that had just occurred and the shelling that was still continuing, two tables were set up for an elaborate banquet which was cooked up in neighbouring houses, with champagne shipped in from Washington. Military waiters “coolly performed their prescribed duty, heedless of the thunderous boom of the rebel batteries, the screaming shells above their head.” The intensity of the blasting increased once a sharp-eyed Confederate artillery officer noticed a large number of Union officers around the building. One shell tore part of the roof away.

Nevertheless the party continued. Meagher presented the new flags to the commanding officers of each regiment and led the toasts before making his speech. Cavanagh recorded the startling effect of one particular toast to Brigadier-General Alfred Sully whom Meagher said “is not one of your ‘Political Generals’ but a brave and accomplished soldier – who attracted his ‘star’ from the firmament of glory – by the electricity of his sword.” Sully was an odd choice for the compliment, as an undistinguished officer with few obvious Irish connections, and whose brigade did not suffer unduly in the battle. Cavanagh said the audience cheered but initially failed to notice the “bold allusion” of the political general. The allusion is still vague 150 years later. Given that Meagher was both a man of the sword and a Lincoln political appointee himself, he may have lost himself in the metaphor. As historian David Work wrote, civil war political generals were not West Point graduates but men who had gained their position for political or ethnic reasons. “In appointing them, Lincoln sought to secure their and their constituents’ support for the war effort and ensure that the war became a national struggle.”

Meagher was embittered about the sacrifices his men made and, like Conyngham, blamed unnamed “political partisanship.” But attacking the Republican administration was not a particularly clever strategy for a Democrat general. Meagher’s speech was never published in full, though Cavanagh said it was “soul-felt tribute to the unburied dead.” Meagher’s gift for theatre ensured the night had a dramatic ending. A waiter wheeled in a dessert trolley which contained a platter covered with a napkin. Meagher lifted the cloth and inside was a cannonball which had just landed nearby. With the Rebel artillery starting to find their range, Meagher declared the banquet was over. Only the Irish could follow such a fight with such a feast, a bemused Hancock observed.

The union army left Fredericksburg early the following morning ending the war for 1862. Dr Francis Reynolds wrote a medical certificate for Meagher which pronounced his left knee suffered a “furunculous abscess,” 19th century terminology for a boil. “I am quite safe with the exception of a bruised knee,” Meagher wrote his wife, telling her he needed to stay on with “what is left of my noble brigade.” He limped home to a relieved Libby in New York on Christmas Day. In his absence critics began to question Meagher’s actions in the battle, just as they did after Bloody Lane.

War correspondent Henry Villard, who saw him at the hospital after the battle claimed Meagher’s retreat was “nothing but a piece of arrant cowardice.” Second Corps historian Francis Walker also questioned how Meagher had been separated from his men, “in his strange, unaccountable way.” Irish Brigade historian Callaghan did not doubt Meagher’s courage but said questions must be asked about his commitment which perhaps, “did not involve being killed in some god-forsaken swamp or frozen hillside in Virginia.” Perhaps the most pertinent criticism is from David Work, the historian of political generals, who said that if Meagher’s prior injury was so serious then he should have relinquished command to another officer to provide the leadership the Brigade needed in the engagement.

Once again it has to be said no members of the Brigade criticised Meagher’s actions during or after the battle. His superior General Hancock also accepted Meagher’s account of why he took his men across the Rappahannock after the battle saying the Irish Brigade behaved “in great spirit.” In any case, Meagher’s battle faults pale into insignificance compared to the commanders: McDowell, McClellan, Pope, McClellan again, and now Ambrose Burnside. The Union was not learning the lesson that brute force was no longer enough to break a well-defended defensive position. On the other side Lee used winter quarters at Fredericksburg to build more extensive and sophisticated entrenchments. The latter part of the war in the eastern theatre would become a foretaste of the trench warfare of the First World War. Meagher would have to reconsider whether there was still a role for him in this war of attrition as he approached the 40th year of life.