Which individual from the Civil War would be the most interesting to sit down and speak with over dinner or a tasty beverage? Thomas Francis Meagher
By Terry McHale
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2025, All Rights Reserved
Editor’s note: The subject of the annual Dick Crews Memorial Debate at the January 2025 Roundtable meeting was: “Which individual from the Civil War would be the most interesting to sit down and speak with over dinner or a tasty beverage?” Five members made presentations on the topic; the article below was one of those five presentations.
The date is May 20, 1863. The location is Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher’s quarters on the Rappahannock River outside Fredericksburg, Virginia. Several of us have gathered to mark the general’s last day in command of his famed Irish Brigade – a brigade that has proven its mettle at every battle fought by the Army of the Potomac since Bull Run. Aside from myself, there are a small number of somber “well-wishers” including Colonel Patrick Kelly, who will be promoted to lead the shell of this once proud brigade, and Father William Corby, who is on leave from his teaching position at the University of Notre Dame to serve as the brigade’s chaplain.

Numerous toasts of the 69th New York Regimental Cocktail are offered – a beverage created by General Meagher, himself, which substituted a splash of champagne for Meagher’s preferred sparkling water in a healthy glass of whiskey. Beverages are flowing freely, and as tends to happen when a quorum of Irish folk get to tippling, an abundance of tributes and reminiscences are proposed. Meagher graces us with his gift of oratory and profound wisdom born of diverse life experiences.
He recalls an uncharacteristically privileged childhood, growing up Catholic in Waterford, Ireland and how he came to despise both the English occupiers and the timid Irish place-hunters who categorically rejected even the possibility of considering violent rebellion as a means of regaining Irish self-determination. This radical position earned him the nickname “Meagher of the Sword,” while his youthful impatience, in concert with a like-minded group known as the “Young Irelanders,” culminated in the misguided 1848 rebellion. This unfortunate incident led to Meagher’s exile – “Transportation for Life” as the English authorities euphemistically called it – along with the exile of several of his Young Ireland co-conspirators to a life sentence in the Australian penal colony of Tasmania. In violation of the terms of his transportation, he escaped Van Diemen’s Land for the United States in early 1852.

On arrival in New York, Meagher was welcomed as a hero in a city where fully a quarter of the population were poor Irish immigrants who had fled the Great Hunger of the previous decade. Meagher’s reputation as an eloquent advocate for Irish independence, both as an orator and as a journalist, quickly made him a leader among the Irish diaspora in America, and he was aggressively courted by political, artistic, and religious leaders in his new country. For the next decade he traveled the land, promoting the cause of Irish nationalism while learning through observation and experience as a lecturer, lawyer, and journalist about the American democratic experiment. In 1858 Meagher served as a subordinate to Edwin Stanton on the defense team in the murder trial of Congressman Dan Sickles – a position that Meagher merited not because of his legal scholarship, but rather for his reputation as a stirring orator, and the fact that Sickles’ New York jury was brimming with Irish surnames.
Prior to the outbreak of hostilities, like many of his fellow Irish immigrants, Meagher was initially sympathetic to the Southern perspective. But he also saw the conflict through a lens of dual loyalties. A tipping point in his decision to support the Union came when Colonel Michael Corcoran of the 69th New York Militia refused to march the regiment in a parade honoring the visiting Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria’s son Bertie. Although the 69th was fully enrolled at the outbreak of the war, Corcoran pulled a few strings that allowed Meagher to join the regiment. At First Bull Run, Corcoran was captured, which paved the way for Meagher to assume greater responsibilities in command of the 69th. However, immediately after the battle, the 90-day enlistments of the unit expired, and Meagher persuaded the Lincoln administration to allow him to recruit a brigade of Irish volunteers from both New York and Ireland under 3-year enlistment terms. These initial volunteers of the 63rd, 69th, and 88th New York State Militia were ultimately organized as the Irish Brigade under Meagher, who had also been promoted to brigadier general. In recruiting the brigade, Meagher made no secret of his dual loyalties, explaining:
“It is a moral certainty that many of our countrymen who enlist in this struggle for maintenance of the Union will fall in the contest. But even so, I hold that if only one in ten of us come back when this war is over, the military experience gained by that one will be of more service in the fight for Ireland’s freedom than would that of the entire ten as they are now.”
Throughout the war, the brigade was deployed in the thick of almost every one of the Army of the Potomac’s battles, making it impossible to maintain a full brigade complement of 1,200 men. At Antietam, Meagher’s fearless troops advanced to within 30 feet of the sunken road, suffering 520 casualties in the process before being relieved by General John Caldwell’s 1st Brigade, which ultimately captured the “bloody lane.” But the courage of the Irish lads fighting under their green Harp of Erin brigade banner was recognized by friend and foe alike. That banner, which was shredded to ribbons in the battle, was returned to New York for repairs, so that three months later, at the battle of Fredericksburg, it was necessary for Meagher to distribute sprigs of boxwood for his troops to wear in their caps to serve as a reminder that they were fighting for both the Union and their beloved homeland. In 13 ill-advised and ill-fated assaults on Marye’s Heights, the Irish Brigade was among the few regiments to get within 50 yards of the stone wall, losing another 525 men in the process. The day after the battle, the brigade could muster only 250 men.
Shortly after the battle, Meagher traveled to New York City for a Grand Requiem Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for the fallen at Fredericksburg. On his way back to the front, he stopped in Washington to meet with President Abraham Lincoln and beg for authorization to recruit new troops to bring the brigade back to strength. Lincoln listened to the appeal, but offered no authorization. On return to camp, Meagher also wrote to Secretary Edwin Stanton, requesting leave to recruit replacements for his woefully understaffed brigade and appealing for new enlistments in the 63rd, 69th, and 88th New York. Stanton never approved or denied the request. He simply never responded.
In Meagher’s final action at Chancellorsville leading the Irish Brigade that he created, his unit, which now numbered only 520 men, acquitted themselves with their customary bravery, losing an additional 102 men while conducting a delaying action during Jackson’s surprise attack and covering the retreat of the 5th Maine Battery and extracting their guns.
On his return to Fredericksburg on May 8th, Meagher tendered his resignation from the Army to General Winfield Scott Hancock. The resignation was accepted on May 18th. In his parting words to the brave countrymen he had led for 18 bloody months, Meagher said in part:
“Suffice it to say that, the Irish Brigade no longer existing, I felt that it would be perpetuating a great deception were I to retain the authority and rank of brigadier-general, nominally commanding the same. I therefore conscientiously, though most reluctantly, resigned my command. That resignation has been accepted, and as your general, I now bid you an affectionate farewell.”
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