Shades of Green: Irish Regiments, American Soldiers, and Local Communities in the Civil War Era by Ryan W. Keating (review)

Despite an apparently ceaseless stream of titles relating to the military exploits of the Irish Brigade, it is surprising how little detailed and considered scholarly analysis has been produced on Irish service in the Union military. The most significant contributions have been by historians William L. Burton, Christian G. Samito, and, most influentially, Susannah J. Ural, whose 2006 publication, The Harp and the Eagle: Irish American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865, has become the standard text on the topic. With Shades of Green: Irish Regiments, American Soldiers, and Local Communities in the Civil War Era, Ryan W. Keating has made a major contribution to the field, not least because he moved beyond the New York–Philadelphia–Boston enclaves of the Irish in search of his source material.

Keating takes three ethnic Irish regiments—the 23d Illinois Infantry, 9th Connecticut Infantry, and 17th Wisconsin Infantry—as the building blocks with which he constructs his argument, that the historical debate needs to move away from a monolithic view of "Irish America" and toward a concept of different "Irish Americas . . . connected to both local and national communities" (13). For his foundations, Keating compiled individual information on 5,029 men, drawn from military, pension, and population records as well as newspapers. This approach makes Shades of Green the first study exploring the Irish in Federal service to adopt such a bottom-up approach.

The book begins with three chapters on the formation of each regiment and their initial service. The September 1861 actions of the 23d Illinois at Lexington, Missouri, saw it join the 69th New York State Militia as an inspiration for ethnic Irish communities seeking to emulate their example and performance, including those in Connecticut and Wisconsin. Ultimately the 9th Connecticut left the state in November 1861, with the 17th Wisconsin—the least "Irish" of the three—following suit in March 1862. Keating uses comparative social history to demonstrate the many differences that existed between ostensibly similar ethnic regiments, something particularly identifiable in both recruitment patterns and recruit profile. Therefore, we learn that while the 23d Illinois was able to draw heavily on specific local communities for volunteers, the 9th Connecticut had to adopt a countywide recruitment approach. Officers in the 17th Wisconsin had the toughest task of all, ranging far and wide through the state to fill their regiment. Nor were all these men the same; those who marched with James Mulligan and the 23d Illinois to Lexington had significantly fewer working-class representatives in their ranks than did Thomas Cahill's 9th Connecticut when they disembarked at Ship Island.

The book's core adopts a thematic approach, examining the regiments and their communities on the home front through the course of the war and beyond. The most significant questions facing scholars of the Irish in the Civil War revolve around the nature of Irish American ethnic identity, its compatibility with the Union war effort, and how natives reacted to that identity during the conflict. Keating has much to contribute to the debate. He finds in Illinois, Connecticut and Wisconsin a more nuanced picture than that identified by Susannah Ural in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. A particularly insightful chapter on reactions to New York's 1863 draft riots is a case in point. While we might expect that Irish communities in Illinois, Connecticut, and Wisconsin were quick to condemn the rioters, what surprises is the extent to which the native-born in those states rallied behind their Irish neighbors to ward off nativist sentiment. Keating attributes this response primarily to local Irish support for Union and the way these smaller ethnic communities interacted with those around them. The level and sustained nature of that support for the Union is one of the most important findings of Shades of Green. In these communities, "the relationship between adopted citizens...