The Great Shame: And the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World

by Thomas Keneally

  It must have been clear to Meagher in that icy camp that he might now with profit abandon his Irish base, given that the brigade was so decimated. There is nothing in his purely military record to suggest he could not have been promoted to command of division or corps. He would have arrived at far better decisions than Burnside did at Fredericksburg. Fellow brigadiergenerals such as French, Sickles and Howard either had been or soon would be promoted. But Meagher chose to remain with his Irish.

  A medical certificate, written by Surgeon Reynolds two days after the battle, certified that Meagher was suffering from a ‘ “Furunculous Abscess” of the left knee, which quite disables him for active duty in the field.’

  He left camp three days before Christmas, accompanying, as a telegram to Major Horgan’s sister in New York indicated, the body of that officer to the foot of Sixth Street, Washington at noon on Monday, 22 December. On Christmas Eve in wistful New York City, Meagher spent the day at his desk at the Broadway headquarters of the Irish Brigade, writing letters to the families of dead officers. Soon he would be at home in Fifth Avenue, at Libby’s side, chatting with Peter Townsend and Barlow, and feeling the dislocation from civilian reality all veterans of that awful year experienced.

  In early January 1863, Judge Daly met a colonel who, wrote Mrs Daly, ‘said that Hancock and Meagher were the only ones who persevered at Fredericksburg.’

  22

  LET ME HAVE IDAHO

  It has long since occurred to me, that in compliment for his [Meagher’s] valuable services, and those of the Irish soldiers generally, it would be fitting acknowledgment on the part of our Government, to select some desirable portion of our territories and call it New Ireland, of which no doubt General Meagher would in due time be elected Governor.

  William West, US consul, Dublin,

  to Secretary Seward, November, 1863

  To mark the New Year, on 2 January 1863, John Mitchel, editor of the Richmond Equirer, remarked that ‘the air was parted brightly.’ Union General Rosecrans had been defeated in the west, Fredericksburg had been a disaster for the Union. ‘It was felt to be a happy augury for the new year.’ But the notices the Enquirer published for conscripts from the counties of Middlesex, King and Queen, Essex, King William, Buckingham and Fluvanna, seemed to indicate the Confederacy had become desperately man-hungry.

  Of course, Mitchel kept his readers informed on how the British and Irish press saw the war. The Nation in Dublin, wrote Mitchel, ‘cautions the Irish against enlisting in Lincoln’s army. Whilst the other, the Irishman, terms us rebels, and traitors, engaged in destroying the “best government the world ever saw.” John Martin was quoted: ‘All true Irish Nationalists are not partisans of the North in this war.’ Mitchel commented, ‘Let Mr Martin, however, and all just and generous Irishmen take comfort in the fact … that there are more Irish in the army of the Confederate States (in proportion to the population) than in that of Lincoln’s. It is true, they flaunt no green banners nor Sunbursts, nor shout Fontenoy! Nor Remember Limerick! They are content to fight simply as Virginians, or as Georgians.’

  Early in the new year, Mitchel joined the Ambulance Committee, a volunteer civilian ambulance service. It gave him a sense of serving his sons, about whom he held tormenting fears. James, now a staff captain, was with the army at Fredericksburg. John served in the much-bombarded and blockaded fortifications of Charleston, but Willy had been sent with his regiment away from the cockpit in Virginia to North Carolina. During a few days’ leave in Richmond, Willy’s exposure to a warm house and a dry bed gave him a severe cold. ‘Since then he has returned to bivouacking in the snow, and is as well as ever.’

  ‘For me, I am doing the principal writing of the Richmond Equirer,’ wrote Mitchel to Miss Thompson, ‘which is supposed to be in the confidence of the Government. 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.’

  Home on his sick leave, a partially refreshed, lame Meagher commenced a press campaign to get his brigade back to New York for rebuilding. This tactic would not endear him to the War Department. But the Irish American supported him: ‘If the Brigade were not so markedly and distinctively Irish, they would not have been treated with the positive injustice and neglect to which they have been exposed.’

  A Requiem Mass was said at St Patrick’s Cathedral for the repose of the souls of the numerous dead. General and Mrs Elizabeth Meagher attended. In an age when there was no acknowledgment of what would later be called war neuroses, Libby was the one who knew how shaken her husband was. Rossini’s beautiful Cujus Animam was sung, but was it enough to mute the screams of falling soldiers? Later, a number of officers went wistfully to Delmonico’s for ‘refreshments.’

  Charles C. Halpine, a poetic officer of the brigade, wrote:

  Then in silence we brimmed our glasses,

  As we rose up—JUST ELEVEN,

  And bowed as we drank to the loved and the dead

  Who had made us THIRTY SEVEN.

  Meagher, called on to speak, remarked percipiently that the battlefield had done more to cement the Union than anything else. He offered an ambiguous toast: ‘The Stars and Stripes,’ but also: ‘The heroism of both armies.’ He congratulated the Irish for doing their duty to the adopted land, when they had not said a word to bring on that crisis! The New York Times of 17 January 1863 said that Meagher then remarked with a laugh, ‘I shall never be a Major-General after this.’

  His leg had not healed, and he stayed on in the Townsend residence. There was no rush; spring was remote. On 30 January 1863, Halleck, general-in-chief, with little time for individualists such as Meagher, sent a directive to the Adjutant-General to ‘enquire of Brig. General Meagher by what authority he is absent from his command.’ Four days later, Meagher wrote to notify the Adjutant-General that ‘the afflicted part still continuing so sore as to incapacitate from active duty,’ he was enclosing further certificates furnished by Dr William F. Edgar, USA. He promised that he would report in person on Wednesday, 11 February, at the War Department.

  He would not in fact return to Washington until 14 February, and be automatically charged for being late. He appeared before a military commission at Falmouth, Virginia, headed by an old friend, one-armed Major-General Howard. The commission at once accepted his explanations. Part of the delay had been due to the fact that while in Washington, he had waited on President Lincoln and made a personal request for the brigade to be relieved. The President had received General Meagher in a levee en masse, perhaps an answer in itself, but took the trouble to cross the room and shake hands with him. On General Meagher’s return to his headquarters, the men surrounded him and cheered enthusiastically as he told them that he was looking forward to the day, ‘if any reliance could be placed on the promises of those in power,’ that he would have the ‘gratification of leading them back to their repose, to the less exacting duties that their gallantry, their enthusiasm, their lofty and single courage had so deservedly won and so richly earned.’

  General Meagher sat down in his tent to write what were for him momentous letters to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. ‘Sir—I have the honour to request that three regiments of the Brigade I command may be temporarily relieved from duty in the field.’

  He detailed their present strength:

  On duty including pioneers, drummers etc … 340

  On extra and daily duty … 132

  Sick and wounded … 59

  No history, however vividly and powerfully written, could do more than these plain and stern statistics in attestation of the cordial loyalty and devotion unto death of this Brigade.

  General Hancock agreed with Meagher that if older brigades should be given furlough, every man on leave would serve as an unofficial recruiter. There was little risk either in resting veteran regiments during the winter and spring. But Hooker, the new commander, returned Meagher’s letter to him. A second letter from Meagher asked fo
r permission to ‘proceed to Washington for three or four days … the undersigned respectfully submits that his proceeding to Washington on the matter in question, will enable him to secure the cooperation of influential and active friends.’ In Washington General Halleck, who hated generals with ‘influential and active friends’ in Congress, simply wrote on the application: ‘Not approved.’

  The late winter camp itself helped restore what was a muscular soul. Meagher certainly brought all his usual gusto to St Patrick’s Day. He strolled through the camp in the garb, kindly brought down from New York by Libby, of the Irish gentry—tall white beaver hat, blue swallowtail coat with brass buttons, white buckskin breeches and black topboots. First, Mass was said in a brush and log church, with Meagher as lay master of ceremonies. Lunch was prepared in a marquee. Generals Hooker and Sickles were there for the planned racing, with Generals Sedgwick and Butterfield. At the improvised race course, Meagher saw soldiers standing and sitting under the ramshackle grandstand. He pointed his whip. ‘Stand from under! If that stage gives way, you will be crushed by four tons of Major-Generals.’

  With Libby beside him, Meagher was utterly his old self, acting as Clerk of the Course. Ten thousand troops watched as three heats were run for the final of the Grand Irish Brigade Steeplechase, with a purse of $500. The winner was Captain Jack Gosson, riding Meagher’s grey hunter Jack Hindon. There were foot races too, casting weights, a soaped pig chase, and a contest of Irish reels, jigs and hornpipes.

  In April Meagher was permitted leave to go up to New York to address a crowd about a new onset of hunger in Ireland. A series of droughts and floods in the west of Ireland had ruined crops of wheat and oats. Blight had returned to part of the potato crop. In some places peat fields were drowned, so that people had no warmth. The already accursed peninsula of Belmullet and Erris Head in Mayo suffered worst. Relief efforts saved people from a revisiting of 1847, but increased evictions brought aggrieved young Irishmen into the Fenian movements in Ireland and the USA. It was 20 April before Meagher telegraphed from Willard’s Hotel, a block from the White House, to General Hancock. ‘I report to you tomorrow. I am a day behind my time but have Dr Clymer’s certificate that it was impossible for me to move. He wanted me to remain here one week longer—but under present circumstances I must be with you and with the Brigade.’ A dinner he had in Falmouth on 26 April with his old friend General Butterfield confirmed some suspicions. Generals Hooker and Butterfield had devised a huge flanking movement to end the war. Hooker would order three corps to slip away from their position opposite Fredericksburg and make a secret march north-east 30 miles upriver, to appear on Lee’s flank and destroy him. How remote Ireland must have seemed now, with the hope of possible Union triumph dominating the imagination.

  Two mornings later Hancock’s division left their camp intact in the pre-dawn and set out cross-country in this great wheeling motion. Miles up the river Meagher’s men crossed the Rappahannock’s United States Ford, where they sent out pickets. But they had brought the manoeuvre off! There was no enemy as they entered the tangle of forest known as the Wilderness, south of the river. They noticed with delight that the woods were full of deer. At Scott’s Mills, a few miles north of a hamlet named Chancellorsville, Meagher occupied and loopholed the mill and offices.

  To ensure Lee himself did not move until Hooker was ready, a number of Union divisions remained in front of Fredericksburg, and when they lunged across the river against the town on 30 April, Lee withdrew. After a screaming assault Marye’s Heights were abandoned by the Confederates. Amongst the Rebel wounded was Mitchel’s son, James, now an officer in General Gordon’s staff, struck in the chest by a shell splinter. By that time, off to the north-west, Hooker’s main Union army’s lines ran in a dogleg from Wilderness Tavern to Chancellorsville in the middle, where the large Chancellor house provided his headquarters, and north to the river. Lee did not yet realise that the movement had occurred, and the diminished Irish Brigade believed that this was the decisive manoeuvre which would justify all losses. About midday, Meagher heard Rebels clash with Union positions a few miles to the east. This was Hooker’s chance to advance his superior hosts on Lee, but he had a rush of timidity and drew his men back into the woods around Chancellorsville. The Irish at Scott’s Mill were all at once in defence.

  The Irish worked on their defences all through Saturday 2 May, and in late afternoon heard a furious hubbub not to their east but to their west. They did not know that Stonewall Jackson had led his men in a typically huge encircling march which would put him west of Hooker’s army. Jackson’s corps now came on down the road towards Chancellorsville and Scott’s Mill. The Irish knew they were coming by the birds and animals which took flight out of the forest all around. A deer leapt the abatis and ran through the Irish lines like an omen. General Meagher had to throw a line across the Chancellorsville road and into the woods in order to intercept General Howard’s panic-stricken fugitives, who had seen their comrades killed while drinking coffee. Some of them were persuaded to join the Irish line.

  Early the next morning, 3 May, Meagher received orders to take the brigade down the dirt road towards the Chancellor house. ‘As we marched through the columns that lay in the way, we were loudly and repeatedly cheered,’ a gratified Meagher wrote. The position they were ordered to take up was a few paces to the rear of the Chancellor house clearing, where Hooker had only one battery of six guns in place, the 5th Maine. Meagher understood now, from signs of Hooker’s planned departure, that the great strategy had failed. From unseen positions in the thick woods ahead, thirty Rebel field-pieces opened on the 5th Maine and the Irish Brigade, and as Meagher would later report, his men were for the next two and a half hours exposed to ‘a most galling fire.’ Conyngham observed that Meagher was active along the lines, and ‘a shell burst which killed four of the Irish Brigade occurred in a spot he had just left.’ Within twenty minutes five of the Union caissons had blown up, and all the battery’s horses were killed or wounded. Only one gun, commanded by a corporal, was still in action. Meagher ordered the 116th Pennsylvania, under fire, to drag away into the woods the remaining guns.

  Stationed on the porch of the Chancellor house, Father Corby saw a cannon ball strike the pillar against which General Hooker was leaning, hurling him to the ground. Another ball immediately cut in two a soldier who was slaking his thirst at the well in front of the house. Surgeons had set up a table of planks near the house and the Irish lines, and a ball landed on a patient undergoing surgery. Corby recorded with horror that the surgeons were paralysed with shock, and the patient was obliterated. The Chancellor house itself now took fire, as did the forest around it, and Captain Conyngham found this melancholy because of the numbers of wounded sheltering in both. Hancock came to Meagher and informed him that Hooker had now departed, dazed. A retreat of the Union army northwards towards the United States Ford had been ordered, and Meagher was to command the divisional rearguard.

  Meagher held the position along the road out of Chancellorsville for the entirety of Sunday night and Monday morning. He wrote: ‘For the two days and nights intervening between this disastrous morning and that of the 6th May the Irish Brigade, along with the other brigades of Hancock’s division, was right in front of the new line of defence, and held their ground … most nobly.’ In between snatched sleep on a pup tent half, and exchanges of fire, he was kept busy absorbing stragglers and commiserating with passing wounded. Tuesday was a rainy day, with scattered exchanges of firing and everyone stupefied by exhaustion, and that night the Irish again lay down in puddles in their damp blankets before being told around midnight to withdraw down a new trail recently cut through the forest. According to Meagher, the 88th were the last regiment in the Federal army to retreat, protecting the shrinking U-shaped defensive formation of Hooker’s multitude as it withdrew to the Rappahannock River.

  On 8 May Meagher, back in the dispiriting camp at Falmouth from which they had marched out a week before to end the war, felt bound b
y earlier warnings he had given the War Department. His letter of resignation would be a gesture which he expected, with too much confidence, to act as a stimulant to the government. Addressed to the Assistant Adjutant-General, it represented

  my resignation as Brigadier General commanding what was once known as the Irish Brigade. That Brigade no longer exists. The assault on the enemy’s works on 13th December last reduced it to something less than a minimum regiment of infantry. For several weeks it remained in this exhausted condition. Brave fellows from the convalescent camp and from sick beds at home gradually reinforced this handful of devoted men … These facts I represented as clearly and forcibly as it was in my power to do, in a memorial to the Secretary of War.

  Meagher confessed with unmilitary frankness that ‘the depression caused by the ungenerous and inconsiderate treatment of a gallant remnant of a brigade which had never once failed to do its duty most liberally and heroically, almost unfitted me to remain in command.’ Though he had tried to be true to those that had been true to him, to remain in the companionship and in charge of such men would be ‘to perpetuate a public deception, in which the hard-won honours of good soldiers, and in them the military reputation of a brave old race, would inevitably be involved and compromised.’ In rendering his resignation, however, he was not withdrawing his services, which belonged to the Union.

  A week later, the War Department, unmoved by his eloquence, sent him a terse two-line answer. ‘Sir—Your resignation has been accepted by the President of the United States, to take effect this day.’ Meagher said goodbye to his brigade on the evening of 19 May. His command consisted of a mere 400 men formed in a square to listen to his last speech. The band of the 14th Connecticut played. Meagher told his men, ‘The graves of many hundreds of brave and devoted soldiers, who went down to death with all the radiance and enthusiasm of the noblest chivalry, are so many guarantees and pledges that, as long as there remains one officer or soldier of the Irish Brigade, so long shall there be found for him, for his family and little ones, if any there be, a devoted friend in Thomas Francis Meagher.’