MESSRS. MICHAEL F. DOOLEY, THOMAS ZANSLAUR LEE, JOHN MCMANUS, and
PATRICK CARTER, Local Members of the Executive Council of the
American Irish Historical Society:—
_Gentlemen_: I am in receipt of your cordial letter of October
fourteenth and the splendid punch bowl for Macedonia. I heartily thank
you for them both, and you may be sure that the home of the bowl will
be Macedonia.
It certainly brings to my mind one of the pleasantest days of my life,
and I truly hope that Father Time will deal gently with us so that at
no distant date we will all meet again at Macedonia, and with good
fellowship drink from the bowl to good luck and prosperity for all.
Thanking you for the kind remembrance, I remain,
Most truly yours,
CHARLES ALEXANDER.
The whole event from beginning to end was well managed and the gentlemen
present enjoyed every minute of the time spent at Macedonia. The affair
was managed by Colonel Alexander and Mr. Dooley, and not a single detail
for the comfort or pleasure of the Executive Council was omitted. July
22d, 1909, and Macedonia will be long remembered by the members of the
Executive Council who participated in this most enjoyable occasion.
FORT SHERIDAN.
BY LIEUT. ERNEST VAN D. MURPHY, FT. SHERIDAN, ILL.
In 1888 the United States Government, following its traditional policy
in the bestowal of names on its fortifications and the stations of its
armed forces, selected and gave to the new military post recently
established on the shores of Lake Michigan, the name of “Fort Sheridan,”
in commemoration of that illustrious Irish-American soldier, General
Philip H. Sheridan, who had, but a few years previously, died while in
chief command of the army. Placed as it is, on the high bluffs
overlooking the blue waters of our exclusively American Sea, the natural
advantages of the site combined with the carefully thought out scheme of
construction, to say nothing of the care and interest that has been
manifested by the various commanding officers, who have, since its
foundation been charged with the carrying out of the designs of the War
Department, all combine to make the post, as a whole, a worthy memorial
of its gallant namesake.
The French, far back in the colonial period, recognized the importance,
to their schemes of trade and colonization, of the control of the great
natural channels of communication between the Great Lakes and the
Mississippi Valley, and to secure their supremacy established a number
of military posts in northern Illinois—Fort St. Joseph on the eastern
side of Lake Michigan; Fort Crevecœur and Kaskasia among others.
Following the French, the British and afterward the American Governments
continued the policy of the French and kept up a number of
establishments whose functions were mainly to provide a measure of
control over the Indian inhabitants. Fort Dearborn, on the present site
of the City of Chicago, was built in 1804 and was kept up until the
settling of the country and the consequent removal west of the
aborigines made its further maintenance unnecessary.
[Illustration:
STEPHEN FARRELLY, ESQ.,
Of New York City.
A Life Member of the Society, and a Member of the Executive Council.
]
These early posts in the northwest were, as a rule, mere stockades, with
such block-houses and angles let into the trace as were necessary to
prevent dead spaces and command the ditch. They provided shelter from
the rifle fire of that day but were of little value against artillery.
So today, Fort Sheridan, the successor of Fort Dearborn, is not, from a
military standpoint, a place of even temporary defense, much less a
stronghold. The control of the natural and artificial ways of
communication between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, is dependent
now, as a century ago, not on heavy ordnance and great fortifications,
nor on our naval strength on the lakes, for unfortunately we have
none—but depends directly upon such forces of the mobile army as the
government may have available at a crisis. Thus it may be seen that Fort
Sheridan, as one of the largest stations of the regular army, plays an
important part in the subject of the strategical defenses of our
northern frontier. Its central location, with the unparalleled railroad
facilities of Chicago at hand; the water routes of the lakes and the
excellent road system of the northern-central states permit the garrison
to be moved rapidly and surely to the points at which its presence, in
time of national need may be necessary.
The reservation consists of about 700 acres of grass and woodland,
nearly level and but very little cut up ravines. Not being handicapped
by the presence of old structures, the barracks, quarters and other
buildings built when the post was started present a handsome appearance.
They represent the most approved methods of construction of their time
and through their simplicity of design and large details they permit of
ready and economical maintenance and bid fair to endure for years.
During the summer months, from April to November, and in the winter when
weather conditions are favorable the garrison, a regiment of Infantry, a
squadron of cavalry, a battalion of Field Artillery, and such details of
the special arms, the Signal Corps, Hospital Corps, etc., is busy
carrying on its training for active service or in providing for its own
immediate necessities. For it must be understood the government’s
immense plant,—two hundred and odd buildings, five hundred horses and
mules, the grounds and the valuable machinery of war must be cared for
by the ones who use them. Thus it is that the soldier not only does his
own cooking and general housekeeping but works for the general good of
the little city in which he lives; grooming horses, driving teams,
hauling supplies, or if his capabilities lie in that direction working
as carpenter or mason on the buildings of the post. His housekeeping and
other work, that in civil life is usually looked out for by his mother
or wife, he must, in the army, do to live, after that comes the training
in the fighting arts which finally decide wars. The military year is
divided into two seasons, the season of practical work, carried out in
the open, and the season of theoretical work, carried on indoors and
outside as circumstances permit. The theoretical training is carried on
usually in the winter but as a matter of fact there is some overlapping.
The pleasant summer weather brings thousands of the residents of Chicago
to the post. Lunch basket in hand, they make a peaceful invasion and
forget the heat, smoke and soot of their city surroundings as they
wander through the clean grass and shady groves. Then, too, the training
of the soldier, be he of the cavalry, the “eyes of the service”; the
artillery with its scientific leanings; or of the “walk-a-heaps,” as the
Indians call the infantry—the backbone of all armies; all present much
of interest to the civilian, who, unless he visits their stations rarely
sees the regular soldier, save, perhaps as he marches by in some
celebration of national importance, or toils, in heavy marching order
through the country districts carrying out some manœuvre problem.
Thus it may be seen that the American people, through their
representatives, have, in Fort Sheridan, erected and maintained, to the
memory of their gallant general, not a cold, dead memorial of stone, but
a living, vital monument, a link in the defenses of the nation, and have
placed it where his deeds and the work going on under the shadow of his
name, serve as an inspiration to the patriotism of the youth of our
second city.
THE IRISH ELEMENT IN AMERICA.
BY MR. R. C. O’CONNOR OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
The Irish people have been coming to this country from the time of its
earliest settlement. Many came involuntarily, having been deported
hither by order of the Cromwell Government, and some historians assert
that during the ten years succeeding the close of the Cromwellian war,
in 1652, a hundred thousand young men and young women were shipped to
the West Indies and to the colonies. Voluntary emigration, however, had
not begun to any great extent before the opening of the 18th century. We
have historical evidence, however, in support of the statement that the
Irish came with the earliest settlers of the colonies.
Reverend William Elliott Griffis in his work, “Brave Little Holland and
What She Taught Us,” says on page 208: “In the ‘Mayflower’ ... were one
hundred and one men, women, boys and girls, as passengers, besides
captain and crew. These were of English, Dutch, French and Irish
ancestry and thus typical of our national stock.” We know from Hatten’s
“Original Lists,” and other authorities, that Irish immigration to
Virginia was in progress as far back as 1634–35. And Felt’s
“Ecclesiastical History of New England” says that William Collins led a
number of Irish refugees to Connecticut from the West Indies about the
year 1640. Previous to the beginning of the 18th century Irish emigrants
turned their faces towards Europe, where the young men entered the
armies with the hope of some day returning to achieve the independence
of their country. An idea can be formed of the extent of this emigration
from a statement made by the Abbe Macgeoghan, who was chaplain to the
Irish Brigade in France, who says that “the records of the War Office of
France show that during the fifty years preceding the battle of
Fontenoy, in 1745, over 450,000 Irishmen entered the service of that
country alone.” When peace with England was declared in 1748 the Irish
found, much to their disgust and contrary to their hopes and to the
promises held out to them, that France had left them out of her
reckoning and that their blood so lavishly shed for that country had
been shed in vain, as far as any advantage to their native land was
concerned. After that time the Irish ceased to emigrate to Europe to any
great extent, and turned their faces to the great West, then opening up
before the world, and since that time, now two hundred years ago, they
have been coming in a steady stream to this country.
No statistics of the nationality of immigrants were kept by this
Government until 1820, and we are kept in more or less doubt as to the
exact number of our people who came here previous to that time. We have,
however, historical evidence that this number was very large. Wilson in
his “History of the American People,” speaking of the early years of the
18th century, says: “For several years after the first quarter of the
new century had run out (that is, after 1725) immigration from the North
of Ireland came crowding in twelve thousand strong to the year. In 1729
quite 5,000 of them entered Pennsylvania alone. From Pennsylvania they
passed along the broad, inviting valley, southward, into the western
part of Virginia.” Thomas Bond, British Consul at Philadelphia from 1787
to 1812, who is described as the most efficient of the British officials
of the United States, writing to the Duke of Leeds, head of the English
Foreign Office, in 1789, says: “The immigrants hither since the peace,
my lord, that is since the conclusion of the war in 1783, have been much
greater from Ireland than from all other parts of Europe. Of 25,716
passengers, redemptioners and servants imported since the peace into
Pennsylvania, 1,893 only were Germans; the rest consisted of Irish and a
very few Scotch. Of 2,167 already imported in the present year, 114 only
were Germans; the rest were Irish.... I have not yet been able to obtain
any account of the number of Irish passengers brought hither for any
given series of years before the war, but from my own recollection I
know the number was very great, and I have been told that in one year
6,000 landed at Philadelphia, Wilmington and Newcastle upon Delaware.”
Ramsay, the historian, writing in this same year (1789) says: “The
colonies, which now form the United States, may be considered as Europe
transplanted. Ireland, England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland,
Sweden, Poland and Italy furnished the original stock of the population,
and have been supposed to contribute to it in the order named. _For the
last seventy or eighty years no nation has contributed so much to the
population of America as Ireland._” [The emphasis is mine.]
This is significant and valuable testimony to our numbers in the years
preceding the Revolution, and justifies the statements that have been
made that the Irish element formed one-third of the population at the
close of the colonial period. Doctor Lynch, Bishop of Charleston, South
Carolina, says: “The Irish immigration almost took possession of the
State. Irish family names abound in every rank and condition of life,
and there are few natives of the State in whose veins there does not run
more or less Irish blood.”
Sims’ “Life of General Marion” says: “The people of Williamsburg were
sprung generally from Irish parentage. They inherited in common with all
the descendants of the Irish in America a hearty detestation of the
English name and authority. This feeling rendered them excellent
patriots and daring soldiers wherever the British lion was the object of
hostility.
“The most numerous name in the First Census of South Carolina is Murphy,
there having been fifty distinct families of that name, although the
forty-eight Kelly families gave them a close race. The Gill and McGill
families run nip and tuck with the O’Neills and Nealls; there were
thirty-four of the former to thirty-three of the latter. The O’Briens
and O’Bryans ran the gauntlet of many changes. The Census enumerators
failed to appreciate the significance of the regal prefix ‘O,’ so they
wrote the name Obrient, Obriant, Bryan and Briant. There were
fifty-three of these in South Carolina in 1790. The Celtic ‘Macs’ make a
great showing. There are upwards of 1,000 of such families in all. When
we consider that in 1790 the total number of free white males of 16
years of age and upward in South Carolina was only 35,766 we can readily
understand that one thousand heads of families, with their wives and
children, must have constituted a large percentage of the population.
Among the ‘Macs’ are McCarts, McCarthys, McMahon, McClures, McMullens,
McNeils, etc. Then there are forty-one distinct families of Bradleys,
twenty-four Sullivans, twenty-eight Reynolds, twenty-three Connors and
O’Connors, twenty-one Carrolls, etc.” (I have taken the foregoing from a
very instructive article by Michael J. O’Brien in Vol. 8 of “The Journal
of the American Irish Historical Society.”) The names are interesting as
showing that the emigrants from Ireland to the colonies during the 18th
century were not all from the North of Ireland, as is generally
supposed.
But the Irish were even more distinguished, if not more numerous, in
Virginia than in South Carolina. I will mention only a single family,
that of John Preston, who was born in Ireland and came to Virginia in
1735. Dr. R. A. Brock in his “Virginia and Virginians” says: “Scarce
another American family has numbered as many prominent and honored
representatives as that of the yeoman founded Preston, with its
collateral lines and alliances. It has furnished the national Government
a Vice-President (Hon. John Cabell Breckenridge); has been represented
in several of the executive departments and in both branches of
Congress. It has given Virginia five governors—McDowell, Campbell,
Preston and the two Floyds—and to Kentucky, Missouri and California, one
each, in Governors Jacobs, B. Gratz Brown and Miller; Thomas Hart
Benton, John J. Crittenden, William C. and William Ballard Preston,
leading molders of public sentiment; the Breckenridges, Dr. Robert J.
and William L., distinguished theologians of Kentucky; Professors
Holmes, Venable and Cabell of the University of Virginia, besides other
distinguished educators.” To this family also belonged Generals Wade
Hampton, Albert Sydney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, John B. Floyd, John
C. Breckenridge and John S. and William C. Preston.
The families of Charles Carroll of Maryland and John Sullivan of
Massachusetts, with their collateral branches, became as distinguished,
if not as numerous, as the Preston family.
I cannot dismiss this part of my subject without mentioning one other
distinguished Irish immigrant, the renowned Dean of Derry, known later
as Bishop Berkeley, the friend of Swift and the founder of the school of
philosophy which bears his name. He was a native of Kilkenny. He came to
America to found a college for the conversion and education of Indians.
Before he returned to Ireland he gave his private library to Yale
College, the most magnificent collection of books that had been brought
to America down to that day. Our University Town across the Bay is named
after him.
Let me now call attention briefly to the part which the Irish element
played in the Revolution. Did they ally themselves with the patriots of
the day and were their services in any degree commensurate with their
numbers and their wealth? In regard to the numbers of Irish in the
Revolutionary army, the following testimony should be considered
conclusive:
In the British House of Commons’ report, fifth session, fourteenth
Parliament, Vol. 13, page 303, the following report of an investigation
of the causes of the defeat in the war with the colonies will be found.
The investigation was held in 1779. Major General Robertson, who had
served twenty-four years in America, was asked: “How are the Provincial
Corps composed, mostly from native Americans or from emigrants from
various nations from Europe?” He answered: “Some of the corps mostly of
natives; others, I believe the greatest number, are enlisted from such
people as can be got in the country and many of them may be emigrants. I
remember General Lee telling me he believed half the rebel army were
from Ireland.” In Vol. 13, British Commons’ Reports, page 431, Joseph
Galloway, a native of Pennsylvania, speaker of the Assembly of the
Colony for twelve years and a delegate to the first Continental
Congress, who became a violent Tory in 1773, was examined for several
days by members of the House of Commons. Among the questions asked was:
“That part of the rebel army that enlisted in the service of Congress,
were they chiefly composed of natives of America, or were the greater
part of them English, Scotch, or Irish?” Galloway answered: “The names
and places of their nativity being taken down I can answer the question
with precision. There were scarcely one-fourth natives of America,
_one-half Irish_, the other one-fourth English and Scotch.” So much for
the rank and file.
Among those who distinguished themselves during the Revolution were:
General John Sullivan, the son of an Irish teacher; O’Brien, who, with
his sons, won the first naval battle of the Revolution, known as the
“Lexington of the seas”; Montgomery, who, after capturing Fort St. John
and Montreal, was killed at Quebec; General Knox, commander of the
artillery in the American army, and who commanded the American troops
when they marched into New York after the evacuation of the British;
General Reed, Major General Stark, the hero of Bennington, General
Walter Stewart, who was a colonel in the American army before he was 21;
John Barry, “Father of the American Navy”; General Anthony Wayne,
General George Clinton, General Stephen Moylan, General John Fitzgerald,
General William Irvine, General Richard Butler, Generals Campbell,
Cochran, McDowell, McCall, McCreary, Jasper, Graham, Pickens and many
others. It has been officially ascertained that out of 131 of the most
prominent officers in the war for American Independence twenty were of
English ancestry, twenty-five of French, ten of German and Dutch, eight
of Scotch, two of Polish, and eighty-four of Irish and Welsh.
But the Irish were not less conspicuous in commercial and industrial
life during the Colonial period, and the assistance which they gave to
Washington and his army during the darkest days of the long struggle for
independence contributed materially to his final success. In 1780, when
the finances of the nation were at their lowest ebb, when the patriot
army encamped at Valley Forge had neither sufficient food nor clothing,
when discontent among the troops, in consequence, almost bordered on
mutiny, when Congress importuned by Washington was unable to comply with
his repeated demands for supplies, the business men of Philadelphia
raised 315,000 pounds sterling and gave it to Congress. Of this amount
the “Friendly Sons of St. Patrick” contributed £103,000. This timely
contribution saved the national cause from disaster.
Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence of Irish birth or
blood were John Hancock, descended from a County Down family; James
Smith, George Taylor, George Read, Thomas McKean, William Whipple,
Edward Rutledge, Charles Carroll, Matthew Thornton, born in Ireland;
Thomas Nelson, Thomas Lynch, Robert Treat Paine, whose real name was
O’Neill, but his father, to save an estate, changed his name from
O’Neill to Paine, his mother’s family name. Thomas Nelson was also
descended from the O’Neills of Ulster. He succeeded Jefferson as
Governor of Virginia, and commanded the State’s troops during
Lafayette’s campaign against Cornwallis, down to the surrender of
Yorktown.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the Irish element contributed
their full share to the building of the nation, pledging their lives and
their fortunes to the cause of liberty, standing faithfully by
Washington in every crisis of the prolonged struggle until the
promulgation of the Declaration of Independence heralded the birth of a
new nation, which was sealed and confirmed by the glory of Yorktown.
After the independence of the country had been established the Irish
still continued to come in ever increasing numbers. It was not, however,
until the great famine of 1846–1848 that the Irish began to come to this
country in large numbers. That fearful calamity, that within two years
sent into famine graves over 1,250,000 of the population of Ireland,
sent millions to seek a home in foreign countries. The great bulk of the
emigration came to this country, and even of those who emigrated to
Canada and other countries thousands subsequently found their way into
the United States. Between the years 1821 and 1890 Ireland gave
3,781,253 emigrants to the United States, a number greater than the
entire population of this country at the time of the Revolution. Ireland
contributed more than two-fifths of all immigrants from 1821 to 1850,
more than one-third from 1851 to 1860, and very nearly one-fifth from
1861 to 1870. From 1891 to 1900 it gave but little more than one-tenth.
The wonder is that after the fearful drain of the previous half century
any were left. So much for the original stock. Of the children born of
foreign parents, according to the census of 1900, 4,981,047 were born of
Irish fathers, and those born of Irish mothers, with fathers of other
nationalities, numbered 236,627. The census of 1900 shows that Irishmen
and their descendants in the first degree in that year numbered nearly
7,000,000 in round numbers. When you consider the figures which I have
given, taken from the most reliable sources, is it an exaggeration to
assert, as some do, that one-third of the population of the country is
of Irish descent, especially when the fecundity of the race, which is
not excelled by that of any other people, is taken into account. To
write the history, therefore, of the Irish element in the United States
is to write the history of the country. When we add to the Irish element
the German element, which for the past twenty-five years has largely
outnumbered the Irish, is it not amusing to hear certain Anglo-maniacs
speak of this country as “Anglo-Saxon?”