Peter Welsh was a married carpenter from New York when he went to Boston in 1862 to try to settle a dispute among his relatives. A failure as a mediator, he went off on “a spree”, drinking himself poor in a few days time. Disgusted with himself, he joined the Union army without consulting his wife Margaret. For the rest of his life he would write her almost weekly explaining why he had done something which would affect her forever.1
Peter was an Irishman, but he was not born in Ireland. A Canadian by birth, his parents likely followed the path of many poverty-stricken Irish who took advantage of low cost travel from Ireland subsidized by the British Crown to its colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Perhaps, like many others, they slowly made their way south through Maine, New Hampshire, and then on to Boston and New York. The regions near the site of current United States Route 1 in northern New England bore a distinctly Irish cast for nearly a century as a result of this walking migration of immigrants from Canada.2
The regiment Peter joined, the 28th Massachusetts was an Irish one, and to his misfortune, it would suffer the seventh worst losses of the more than 2,000 regiments that fought for the Union. Peter’s Company K would see more men die from battle wounds than any other company in the regiment.3
The 28th Massachusetts was organized in 1861 and its recruits believed that they were destined to join Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish Brigade. Meagher had participated in recruiting the regiment from among Boston’s Irish day laborers and artisans, and workers from factory towns in the state but instead of the 28th joining the famous brigade, it was sent on an expedition to the Carolinas. The 29th Mass., a non-Irish unit, was designated for the Irish Brigade instead. The 28th Mass. would spend its first year fighting at places like the Battles of the Second Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam. While the 28th was but a few miles from the Irish Brigade during much of this time, it did not join the brigade until November of 1862.4
Welsh enlisted in the 28th as it was chasing Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army through Maryland. His first battle came at South Mountain after he had been in the army for only 10 days. The untrained new soldier was in combat again, just two weeks to the day after he enlisted, at the bloodiest battle in American history at Antietam. He would be fortunate. Many new recruits did not survive their first day of fighting.5
As Peter Welsh marched off towards this momentous combat, he felt called upon to assure his wife that the calamity that had helped land him in this dangerous situation need not worry her anymore. He wrote that “you need not be afraid for my drinking now for there is no liker allowed in the army.[sic]”The idea that she might be more afraid that her young husband might be killed by a rebel bullet seems not to have occurred to him.6
In November, 1862, Welsh would write to Margaret of the reassignment of the regiment. “We are now joined with the Irish Brigade,” he wrote her proudly, and “I am glad of the change.” The brigade was on its way to its bloodiest fight of the war.7
Video: Honest Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade
Although some Irish songs of the Civil War struck a heroic note, others, like “Pat Murphy” were more naturalistic. Death and the loneliness of fighting far from the land of their birth were recurrent topics in these songs. By the way, the shillelagh referred to in the song is a hard tree branch used as a fighting club in Ireland and by the Irish in America. This version was presented by Mick Moloney, a professor at NYU.
Lyrics:
Says Pat to his mother, “It looks strange to me
Brothers fighting in such a queer manner,
But I’ll fight till I die if I never get killed
For America’s bright starry banner.”
Far away in the East came a dashing young blade,
And the song he was singing so gayly,
‘Twas honest Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade
And the song of the splintered shillelagh.
The morning soon broke, and poor Paddy awoke,
He found rebels to give satisfaction,
And the drummer was beating the Devil’s tatoo,
They were calling the boys into action.
Far away in the East was a dashing young blade,
And the song he was singing so gayly,
Was honest Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade
And the song of the splintered shillelagh.
Sure, the day after battle, the dead lay in heaps,
And Pat Murphy lay bleeding and gory,
With a hole in his head by some enemy’s ball
That ended his passion for glory.
No more in the camp will his letters be read,
Or the song be heard singing so gayly,
For he died far away from the friends that he loved,
And far from the land of shillelagh.
Resources:
There is an excellent website devoted to the 28th Massachusetts.
Peter Welsh’s letters have been collected and published in Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986).
Sources:
1. Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986).
2. Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986).
3. Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986).
4. Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986).
5. Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986).
6. Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986) p. 17.
7. Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh, Color Sergeant, 28th Massachusetts edited by Lawrence Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard published by Fordham University Press; 2 edition (1986) p. 33.
Note: Feature illustration is the 28th Mass. Infantry Tiffany Flag from Massachusetts State House Battle Flag Collection
This was originally published on September 29, 2012 in the Long Island Wins site as part of the Immigrants’ Civil War series.
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