Irish Confederates: The Civil War’s Forgotten Soldiers
By Phillip Thomas Tucker

Illustrated, bibliography, index, softcover, 127 pp. McWhiney Foundation Press, McMurry Station, Box 637, Abilene, TX 79697-0637, $16.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Blake A. Magner
Blake A. Magner is the Book Review Editor of Civil War News. He makes his liv­ing as an editor, writer, car­tographer and photographer of Civil War history. He is author of At Peace With Honor: The Civil War Burials of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Review:
Many volumes have been written about the Irish soldier who fought for the Union, but the gallant boys of Erin seen to get short shrift when they chose to serve in Confederate armies. The Irishmen who went south suffered less from anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice than those who immigrated to the North, thus making the Confederacy a more friendly place to settle.

It is estimated that 30,000 Irish-born men served the Confederacy. Unfortunately their numbers among the officers corps were not extensive, with only six general officers making the list of 425 Confederate generals.

Probably the most famous of these men was Patrick R. Cleburne who was known as the “Stonewall of the West” and was killed at the battle of Franklin on Nov. 30, 1864. The others include James Hagan, William Montague Browne, Walter Paye Lane, Joseph Finegan and Patrick Moore.

The Irish made up the highest number of foreign-born colonels in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. There were also a high number of Irishmen in the Confederate Navy, including a number of Irishmen who transferred from the 10th Louisiana to the CSS Virginia.

Confederate Irish often fought Union Irish during the war. A case in point is the 10th Louisiana which held a large percentage of Irish who fought against Thomas Francis Meagher’s Union Irish Brigade at Malvern Hill. Meagher’s men once again fought their Irish brothers at Fredericksburg when the Irish Brigade attacked a portion of the stonewall defended by the largely Irish 24th Georgia.

At Antietam the Irishmen of the 20th Georgia helped Robert Toombs hold off the Union advance across the Rohrbach Bridge. Interestingly, the bridge itself was constructed by Irish artisans, masons and laborers.

The 15th Alabama and the 20th Maine who fought on Little Round Top at Gettysburg each contained a large number of Irishmen. In the Western Theater at both Champion Hill and Sabine Pass Irishmen fought Irishmen.

Though not the definitive work on the participation of the Irish in the Confederate armies Irish Confederates is an excellent primer. The volume is well-written and recommended for readers interested in Irish American history.