The Irish Brigade, and: New Hampshire Fights the Civil War (review)

282CIVIL WAR HISTORY The Irish Brigade. By Paul Jones. (Washington and New York: Robert B. Luce, Inc., 1969. Pp. 255. $6.95.) New Hampshire Fights the Civil War. By Mather Cleveland, M.D. (New London, N.H.: Privately Printed, 1969. Pp. 230. No Price Given.) Not the least of the problems vexing our political leaders during the secession crisis was the loyalty of Irish immigrants. Would they rally to defend the Union against the slave power, or would they view the Confederacy as another victim of oppression such as their tragic homeland? The sons of Erin were pretty well identified with the Democrats by 1860, and when the shooting began many served bravely in rebel gray. But for others, like Thomas Francis Meagher, a charismatic refugee from the Irish troubles of the 1840's, service to the Stars and Stripes was "the duty of us Irish citizens, who aspire to establish a similar form of government in our native land." Indeed, in The Irish Brigade, retired journalist Paul Jones has provided us a superior analysis of Irish political psychology during the sectional conflict. The Irish Brigade grew out of Meagher's championship of the Federal cause after Sumter. It was built around veterans of his own 69th New York Infantry, which had fought at Bull Run, and eventually included the 116th Pennsylvania, 28th Massachusetts, and the 63d and 88th New York. As its commanding general, Meagher took the brigade through the Peninsula campaign, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Then, piqued at the Army's unwillingness to approve his plans for recruiting the brigade back up to strength, Meagher resigned, on May 8, 1863. The rest is anticlimax, as the brigade goes without him to Gettysburg, the Wilderness, and Petersburg. The reader expecting in these pages to find out "how it really was" with the Irish Brigade will come away dissatisfied. The brigade's story is almost completely smothered in an avalanche of Big Picture digressions , preoccupations with Meagher's life and thought, and panegyrics to the bravery and dash of the Irishman-in-general. There are recurring irritants such as vague handling of organizational connections, Olympian judgments on the worth of famous commanders, and the author's fascination with the famous and familiar. In one chapter, for example, there are 122 names of generals, fifteen lesser officers, eight civilians, and two enlisted men. Paddy O'Toole simply does not come alive under such circumstances. The author's sources are listed in one brief paragraph in the Foreword . It cannot escape the scholar that the bibliography Mr. Jones ignored is far more impressive than the one he used. There is no space here to list all of the neglected sources, but one is moved to wonder why, in a work so devoted to Meagher, Michael Cavanagh's Memoirs of General Thomas Francis Meagher (1892) was overlooked. Neither an index nor a picture of the hero adoms this book. In summary, Jones has produced a charming story, but he might have made a substantial contri- BOOK REVIEWS283 bution to Civil War historiography if only his book had lived up to its title. Considerably more candid about the conduct of Irish volunteers is Mather Cleveland, an orthopedic surgeon from New York who retired to New Hampshire in 1958 and devoted himself to the Civil War traditions of the Granite State. In his New Hampshire Fights The Civil War, Dr. Cleveland notes that valorous Irishmen made up that state's largest pool of foreign-bom man power—and spawned at least their share of bounty-jumpers. New Hampshire contributed about 28,000 men to the Union forces, and nearly a fifth of them failed to survive the war. About three in five of the fatalities resulted from diseases or non-battle causes. As an army medic of two World Wars, Dr. Cleveland handles the surgical and medical facets of the Civil War with ease and perspective. He includes a highly useful index, an enthralling collection of contemporary photographs , and a noteworthy bibliography of original materials. Because his book is a series of sketches of regimental histories, Cleveland has largely eliminated reader appeal from this story of New Hampshire 's fighting men. What he has produced is...