Regiment was the mother of a
dozen Irish regiments, including the Irish Brigade of Meagher and the
Corcoran Legion. The 9th, 28th, and 29th regiments of Massachusetts
were all Irish. A gallant Irishman, born at Fermoy, was
Brigadier-General Thomas Smyth, who made a name and died in the
battles around Richmond. There was not a regiment from the middle
western and western States that did not hold its quota of Irishmen
and sons of the Irish. After the names of Porter and Farragut in the
Navy stands next highest in honor that of Vice-Admiral Stephen C.
Rowan, born in Dublin, of the famous family that produced Hamilton
Rowan, one of the foremost of the United Irishmen. It was the son of
the vice-admiral, a lieutenant in the army, who carried "the message
to Garcia" from the United States War Department to the Cuban
commander in the eastern jungle of Cuba, before the outbreak of the
war with Spain, and did it so well and bravely through such
difficulties and dangers that his name will stand for "the faithful
messenger" forever.

As a consequence of their stand with the American people in the Civil
War, the position of the whole mass of the Irish and Irish-American
people was vastly uplifted in American eyes. The unlettered poverty
of scores of thousands of Irish immigrants, who came in multitudes
from 1846 on, had made an unfavorable and false impression; their red
blood on the battle field washed it out.

On the southern side as well, Irish valor shone. While the great
flood of the mid-century Irish immigration had spread itself mainly
north, east, and west, the larger cities of the South also received a
share. The slave system precluded the entry of free labor into the
cotton, corn, lumber, and sugar lands of the South, but such cities
as New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Savannah, Vicksburg, and Richmond
gave varied employment to many of the Irish who made their homes in
the Southland, and so they came to furnish thousands of recruits to
the local Confederate levies. The "Louisiana Tigers", who fought so
valiantly at Gettysburg on the Southern side, included many Irish.
The Georgia brigade, that held the Confederate line atop of Marye's
Heights at Fredericksburg, up which the Irish brigade so heroically
charged, had whole companies of Irish. There were scores of Irish in
many of the regiments that made Pickett's memorable charge at
Gettysburg. All through the Confederate armies were valiant
descendants of the earlier Iri