Those who immigrate to the United States are called First Generation Americans. Their U.S.-born children are said to belong to the Second Generation. Sociologists recognize an intermediate group, children born in another country but who come here while still very young. Often called Generation 1.5, these young people are both fully American and entirely integrated into their ethnic communities. They are said to have their “feet in two worlds.”1
Patrick Henry O’Rorke, known to history as “Paddy O’Rorke,” had deep roots in his people’s diaspora. Born in Ireland 24 years before the Civil War, O’Rorke’s family moved first to Canada, and then, when he was six, they settled in Rochester New York in the city’s Irish ghetto known as “Dublin.” O’Rorke was a promising teenager and he was offered a scholarship to attend the University of Rochester, a Baptist school. From an ardently Catholic family, he turned the school down and worked as a stonemason. Soon after, he was selected to attend West Point, becoming the first Irish immigrant to be appointed to the Academy. O’Rorke graduated first in his class just as the Civil War broke out.
Patrick O’Rorke at West Point.
O’Rorke displayed his young courage at the First Battle of Bull Run where the brand new lieutenant had his horse shot out from under him. When a new regiment was organized in Rochester in the second year of the war, O’Rorke was offered its command. At 25 he became Colonel O’Rorke. The new regiment, the 140th New York, had strong Irish working class representation. Men from backgrounds like Col. O’Rorke’s made up a fifth of the regiment. German immigrants made up another fifth. In all, half of the regiment’s soldiers were born in another country. The regiment also had one Native American.3
One-in-ten of the regiment’s men were day laborers. One-in-twenty worked as boatmen on the Erie Canal that flowed through the city. Many of the native-born men were farmers from the rural districts of Western New York. There were no lawyers in the ranks but there was one professional dancer.4
On July 2, 1863, Confederate commander Robert E. Lee hoped to exploit his victory in the first day of fighting at Gettysburg by crushing the defeated Unionists on the hills south of that village. Most of Lee’s troops had already arrived on the field of battle, but the Union soldiers were not all up and they were coming up piecemeal. If Lee could attack the Union troops before they solidified their lines, he might be able to defeat the seven corps of the United States army one at a time. 5
The Confederate attack would open on the far left of the Union line. Lee’s most trusted general, James Longstreet, was to overrun what he believed to be an almost undefended hill at the very end of the Union defenses that was called Little Round Top.6
The scenes of the fighting on the left would soon be frozen in American memory as Devil’s Den, the Valley of Death, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard, but on that day they were just rises of land, scattered boulders, and farmers’ plantings. Because of an error by Union General Dan Sickles, a New York politician with no military training, the far left was isolated from the rest of the Union line, but it was not undefended. 7
A small brigade led by 26 year old Colonel Strong Vincent was establishing a thin defense of the strategic hill when the Confederate assault began. Vincent would soon be mortally wounded, but his subordinates, including the college professor Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, would stubbornly defend Little Round Top. They repelled the initial Confederate attacks but they were running out of men, ammunition, and energy when a Union general on the hill saw new Confederate regiments moving around the right of Strong Vincent’s brigade.8
General Gouverneur Warren raced down the hill looking for reinforcements. The first regiment he met was the 140th New York which had orders to head away from Little Round Top. Warren found Colonel O’Rorke and begged him “Paddy give me a regiment.” O’Rorke had his orders, but he knew Warren and understood immediately what was on the line.9
O’Rorke did not hesitate. He resolved to lead his men to the very point of the new Confederate attack, a place where no Union troops stood. Warren’s aide, George Washington Roebling who would later build the Brooklyn Bridge, guided O’Rorke up the hill. His men, dressed in the baggy pants, red jackets, and fezs of North African zouaves, came up right behind him.10
When they reached the crest of Little Round Top Col. O’Rorke waved his sword and shouted “Down this way boys.” Only 40 feet away from the Confederates, O’Rorke ordered his men to open fire. At that moment O’Rorke was hit in the neck by a Confederate bullet. He died instantly.11
Harry Pfantz, the Chief Historian of the National Park Service, wrote that “O’Rorke’s five hundred men tipped the scales heavily in the defenders’ favor.” The Irish colonel’s decision to break from his orders when an emergency erupted, his decisive lack of hesitation, and his quick ascent secured the hill that secured the whole Union battle line.12
The colonel’s death was felt throughout the regiment, especially among the immigrant soldiers who saw O’Rorke as a pathfinder for the rising generation of Irish Americans, men who could excel in learning and lead other men in action while maintaining their Irishness. Lieutenant Porter Farley wrote “Up until that time in my life I had never felt a grief so sharply…To me and all of us he had seemed so near the beau ideal of a soldier and a gentleman, all that he had been and the bright promise of what was to be was so fresh in our minds, and now, in an instant, the fatal bullet had cut short the chapter of that fair life.”13
The O’Rorke monument at Gettysburg.
It was not only his men who felt O’Rorke’s death. A year earlier he had married his childhood sweetheart Clara Bishop at the Catholic Church in the heart of Rochester’s Irish ghetto. When the young woman found out she was a childless widow she decided not to remarry. Instead she became a nun. Clara would educate thousands of young people throughout her career as a teacher and administrator, but her chance to have a child of her own died on that small mountain at Gettysburg.
Clara Bishop O’Rorke in later life.
Sources: [will be inserted July 30, 2026]
1. O’Rorke’s name is sometimes spelled “O’Rourke”.
