Category: Immigrants
Why Did the Irish Fight When They Were So Despised?
Originally Posted June 24, 2011 by Patrick Young, Esq. In the mid-1800s, the abuse that newly arrived Irish in the US had taken from the…
Why the Germans Fought for the Union
Originally Posted June 17, 2011 by Patrick Young, Esq. Within weeks of Lincoln’s election, Southern states had started to leave the Union. Lincoln would not even…
Immigrants Rush To Join the Union Army—Why?
Originally Posted June 9, 2011 by Patrick Young, Esq. If you have been reading The Immigrants’ Civil War, you know that one-in-four soldiers fighting for the…
Immigrant Day Laborers Help Build First Fort To Protect Washington
Originally Posted May 20, 2011 by Patrick Young The Irish 69th Regiment of the New York State Militia may have earned the nickname “The Fighting…
New York’s Irish Rush to Save Washington
Originally Posted May 12, 2011 by Patrick Young, Esq. The attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, left Washington, DC, isolated and alone. With Virginia moving…
The Germans Save St. Louis for the Union
Originally Posted May 6, 2011 by Patrick Young, Esq. Missouri was a border state. That meant that it was a slave state lying between…
The Rabbi Who Seceded From the South
Originally Posted April 15, 2011 by Patrick Young, Esq. Bertram Korn, rabbi and scholar of 19th century American Jewish history, observed a half century ago…
Pat Cleburne: The South Can’t Use Black Soldiers Without Ending Slavery
The proposal Patrick Cleburne made on January 2, 1864 to arm blacks to fight for the Confederacy is often understood as either promoting the use…
Pat Cleburne: The Irish Confederate’s “Emancipation Proclamation”
On January 12, 1864 Major General W.H.T. Walker of the Confederate Army of Tennessee forwarded a confidential document to President Jefferson Davis. The words in…
Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861–1865 by Damian Shiels
Green and Blue: Irish Americans in the Union Military, 1861–1865 by Damian Shiels published by LSU Press 318 pages (2025) Damian Shiels has been researching…