Meagher’s Sword On Display In Fredericksburg Till 15th
Fredericksburg City Councilman Matt Kelly, a Union Civil War reenactor with a keen interest in the war, provided the impetus to locate the sword and bring it to Fredericksburg on loan for display. The original owner of the sword, a Tiffany & Company 1860-pattern officer’s display sword, was Brig. Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher. The only markings on the sword are the Tiffany name and “New York.” Meagher (pronounced “Mahr”) came to the United States after taking a court-ordered trip from Ireland to Tasmania. Meagher was an unapologetic and very vocal advocate of Irish independence, which earned him a conviction for sedition in the British-ruled Ireland of 1848. His death sentence was commuted to exile on the island off Australia that is today called Tasmania. After several years there, free to move about the island but not to leave, Meagher escaped to the United States in 1852. He became a citizen and was very active as a lecturer and journalist in the New York City Irish community. At the start of the Civil War, Meagher recruited a company of Irishmen that was attached to the 69th New York State Volunteers. The regiment won praise for its conduct at the Union’s debacle at First Manassas in July 1861. By Feb. 3, 1862, Meagher had been promoted to brigadier general and returned to New York to form the Irish Brigade. The brigade fought in the Peninsula Campaign and at Antietam before coming to Fredericksburg. It was one of the units which made futile assaults against the Confederates behind the stone wall on Sunken Road, at the foot of Marye’s Heights. Meagher reported before the battle that his brigade had 1,200 men. The next day he reported only 280 were left. He survived the war and ended up in the West as acting governor of the Territory of Montana. While sick, he fell off a steamboat into the turbulent Missouri River on July 1, 1867, and was never seen again. In 1886, Meagher’s widow donated a number of his Irish Brigade mementos, including two swords, to his hometown of Waterford, Ireland. They became part of the collection in the Waterford Museum of Treasures. This past July councilman Kelly took a family vacation to Ireland and went to Waterford to see the sites connected with Meagher, including the city museum. “There was a display on Meagher which was to include two swords. One was listed as being carried by Meagher at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. The other was a presentation sword,” he said. When he went up to see them, only the presentation sword was there. “I went down to the front desk and learned that the other sword had been given to the U.S. Congress,” Kelly said. The sword arrived from Waterford on April 30, 2008, when Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern presented it to a group of Congressmen known as the Friends of Ireland. The loan of the sword was a gesture of thanks for U.S. support for the successful Irish peace talks between the warring factions in Northern Ireland. The sword was kept at the Irish Embassy, according to Myles Geiran, the embassy press and information officer. When he returned home, Kelly started his quest for the missing Meagher sword. The office of his congressman, Rep. Rob Wittman, located the sword at the Irish Embassy. Kelly contacted Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park Supt. Russ Smith who agreed to write a letter asking for the sword to be displayed in Fredericksburg. Kelly got the Fredericksburg City Council to submit a letter of support. “Both were delivered to the Irish Ambassador through Congressman Wittman’s office. Russ Smith was then advised by the embassy that the Waterford Museum would have to agree to having the sword displayed in Fredericksburg,” Kelly said. Conditions had to be met. “The NPS staff answered approximately 20 pages of questions within 24 hours, and sent them on to the museum,” said Kelly. They got approval on Dec. 9 and picked up the sword at the embassy the following day. NPS historians Greg Mertz and Frank O’Reilly made the trip to Washington. Kelly was invited to accompany them, but was attending his brother’s retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps that day. “We did meet the Irish ambassador,” Mertz said. “Once he learned we were there, he came down and introduced himself,” but mainly two staff members handled the loan. Mertz said the sword’s send-off wasn’t “a ceremony, per se, but rather than say, ‘Here it is, bye,’ they did take some pictures and talk with us for a while.” “They definitely knew that we were excited to get it and I think they were pleased,” he added. The park’s chief historian, John Hennessy, created a display with text and illustrations. “The display was ready to go Friday afternoon. I was honored to place the sword in the display case,” Kelly said. “The NPS are the real heroes in this operation. They did most of the heavy lifting.” The sword will be at the NPS Visitor Center on the Sunken Road until Jan. 15. “I hope to arrange future visits or a longer stay,” said Kelly. “I’d really like it to be here for the 150th anniversary of the battle in 2012.”
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