war of the rebellion was not less conspicuous than that which their
countrymen played in the Revolution. They gave to the Union cause an
army greater by many thousands than that by which Wellington defeated
Napoleon at Waterloo. Let me quote but two instances from many that
could be given in which men of Irish blood rendered conspicuous services
to the country.
For more than two years after the commencement of the rebellion the war
was confined almost entirely to the Southern States. Soon after the
opening of the campaign in 1863 Lee conceived the idea that he would
change the theater of war by marching into Pennsylvania, defeat the
Union army opposed to him, capture Washington and thus, perhaps, end the
war and make secession an accomplished fact. The plan was cleverly
thought out and to a man of Lee’s unquestioned military genius did not
seem impossible of accomplishment. He therefore proceeded to put his
plan into execution. With a force of 61,000 men he attacked Hooker, with
an army of 105,000 men, at Chancellorsville and defeated him. Lincoln
was in despair and preparations were made to evacuate Washington. Lee
led his victorious army through the valley of Virginia, crossed the
Potomac and entered Pennsylvania. The army of the Potomac retreated
before him, keeping between the Confederates and the National Capital.
On June 28 a new commander was given to the National army, Hooker was
removed and General George G. Meade was appointed to succeed him. Meade
was the grandson of George Meade, who was one of the founders of “The
Friendly Sons of St. Patrick” in Philadelphia, twenty-seven of whom
contributed £103,000 to Congress, to which I have already alluded. Three
days after the armies came together again. On July 1, 1863, Lee attacked
the Union forces on the heights of Gettysburg. For three days the awful
conflict raged, each side knowing full well what the consequences of
victory or defeat would be. After a battle almost unparalleled in human
warfare, the army which Lee had whipped at Chancellorsville whipped him
at Gettysburg, broke the back of the Confederacy, saved the National
Capital and compelled Lee to recross the Potomac. Thus the descendant of
an Irish emigrant saved the Nation from disaster, perhaps from
dismemberment.
Once more, in 1864, Lee, hard pressed by the army under Grant, tried to
create a diversion in favor of his army by sending General Jubal Early,
the ablest of his cavalry generals, to surprise the national forces in
camp at Cedar Creek, advance to the National Capital and thus compel the
withdrawal of Grant’s army for the defense of Washington. With great
quickness and secrecy he marched up the Shenandoah Valley, and on the
morning of October 19th, under cover of a thick fog, which concealed his
approach, he suddenly attacked the Union forces. Completely surprised,
they hastily retreated and a great disaster threatened the army. The
Eighth Corps was rolled up, the center gave way and soon the whole army
was in rapid retreat. Sheridan had been in Washington, and was then in
Winchester, twenty miles away, on his way to join his army, when he
heard the firing. Rapidly riding toward the conflict, he found his army
retreating in confusion. Raising his hat he shouted to his men, who were
panic-stricken: “Face the other way, boys, face the other way; we are
going back.” “Who is that?” a soldier asked of his comrade, for Sheridan
is scarcely recognizable through the dust on his clothes and the foam on
his black steed from hard riding. But there was no mistaking the manner
of the man, and after closely scrutinizing the flying horseman, the
comrade replies, “Little Phil, by G—!” and in his enthusiasm shouted,
“Hurrah for Sheridan.” The enthusiasm spread, along the whole retreating
line the shout went up, again and again repeated, and men who were
flying in panic before the victorious army of Early, inspired with full
confidence in that leader who had never lost a battle, reformed their
lines and long before the close of that eventful day Sheridan was able
to telegraph to Washington this characteristic despatch: “We have met
the enemy under Early and have sent him whirling up the valley.”
Thus a second time was the National Capital saved by the genius and dash
of the son of an Irishman.
Grant paid Sheridan the compliment of saying that he was the only man
which the war developed capable of commanding a hundred thousand men
under his own eye.
But it is not as soldiers alone that the Irish have won distinction;
they have been conspicuous in every walk of life, in every department of
human activity. They have filled with distinction the highest office in
the gift of the American people, in giving to the Presidency such men as
Andrew Jackson, who was the son of an Irish farmer; James Buchanan, the
son of an Irish emigrant; James K. Polk, the grandson of Irish parents;
Chester A. Arthur, the son of an Irish Episcopal clergyman; William
McKinley, whose granduncle was executed by the British Government for
participation in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Claims of Irish descent
have also been made for Taylor, Johnson and Cleveland (see “The Puritan
in Holland, England and America,” Vol. 2, p. 493). In the long roll of
distinguished names of the Senate and House of Representatives none
stand higher for eloquence and statesmanship than those who trace their
ancestry to Ireland.
In journalism men of Irish blood have been among the leaders of those
who have moulded public opinion. Hugh Gaine, a native of Ireland, began
the publication of the “Mercury” in 1752; Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, a
native of Wicklow, started the “Farmers’ Library” and later the
“Fairhaven Gazette.” He was known as a “peppery, red-headed Irishman.”
He was indicted by the United States Court for an article reflecting on
President John Adams, and was fined $1,000 and imprisoned for three
months. One of the most interesting characters in the early history of
journalism in this country was John Burk, a native of Ireland, who
published “The Time Piece” in New York. John Dunlap, a native of
Strabane, was the first Congressional printer. I can only give the names
of a few of those who were prominent as publishers during colonial times
and in the early days of the Republic. John Binn, William B. Kenny,
proprietor of the “New Jersey State Gazette,” the first daily paper in
that State; Henry O’Reilly, editor of the “Patriot” and later of the
“Rochester Daily Advertiser,” the first daily paper between the Hudson
River and the Pacific Ocean. We have Fitz James O’Brien, Col. James
Mulligan, Thomas Francis Meagher, soldier, orator and writer; Robert S.
McKenzie, Thomas Kinsella of the “Brooklyn Eagle.” James Gordon Bennett,
Scotch by birth, was the son of an Irish mother. The roster of employees
on the staff of the “Herald” during his life reads like the roll call of
a Fenian regiment. Horace Greeley, one of the greatest of newspapermen,
was the son of Irish parents. He made the “Tribune” the most influential
paper in the United States during the war, and for ten years thereafter
was a power in National politics. I cannot close this brief mention of
Irishmen in journalism without naming one whose writings stirred not
only America but all Europe, J. A. MacGahan. He was largely instrumental
in bringing about the Bulgarian war of 1875, which changed the geography
of Europe. John Boyle O’Reilly, of the “Boston Pilot,” exercised a wide
influence by his writings, as did also his successor, James Jeffrey
Roche. Patrick Forde, of the “Irish World,” has been a power in
journalism for more than a quarter of a century.
It is unnecessary to call attention to the part which the Irish have
played in the ecclesiastical history of this country. We need only look
around us to see what they are doing today. From the Prince of the
Church, Cardinal Gibbons, down through a long line of illustrious
Archbishops and Bishops, to the latest arrival from Carlow or All
Hallows, all zealous workers in the vineyard of the Lord. And what a
harvest they have gleaned! And what the Irish are doing today they have
been doing from the beginning—zealous, eloquent, self-sacrificing,
untiring in the discharge of their duty, giving ungrudgingly to God’s
service the best that is in them.
We have no reason to hang our heads at the part which our people have
played in the history of the United States. No element that enters into
the cosmopolitan population of this country has contributed more in
every quality that goes to make a great people than the Irish. We have
given eloquence to the bar, dignity to the bench, learning and virtue to
the pulpit, wisdom to the Senate, and glory to the sword. We were
present at the birth of the Nation and sustained its infantile arms
during the years of its struggle for liberty, sharing in the hardships
of Valley Forge and in the glory of Yorktown. We fought with Jackson at
New Orleans and with Perry in Lake Erie; stormed Chapultepec with
Shields, rode from Winchester down the valley of Shenandoah with
Sheridan; stormed Marye’s Heights with Meagher and his brigade, and
later climbed the heights of San Juan with Buckey O’Neill and “Rafferty
of ‘F’.” On every field the Irish marched to the battle-front side by
side with the Puritan from New England, the Knickerbocker from New York,
and the liberty-loving dweller of the rolling prairies of Iowa and
Illinois. In the same deep grave they sleep “the silent sleep that knows
no waking.” The snows of winter, like a winding sheet, lie coldly above
them, and as each returning spring awakens into life and beauty the
sleeping forces of nature, the green grass grows and the wild flowers
bloom above their common grave.
I will close by quoting the following tributes to the Irish by men who
were not of our race: Col. John Parke Custis, the adopted son of
Washington, says: “Then honored be the old and good services of the sons
of Erin in the war of Independence. Let the shamrock be entwined with
the laurels of the Revolution; and truth and justice, guiding the pen of
history, inscribe on the tablets of American remembrance: ‘Eternal
gratitude to Irishmen.’”
Similar sentiments were expressed by the late Senator Bayard, in the
Senate of the United States. “If,” said he, “the names of the men of
Irish birth and of Irish blood who have dignified and decorated the
annals of American history were to be erased from the record, how much
of the glory of our country would be subtracted? In the list of American
statesmen and patriots, theologians and poets, soldiers and sailors,
priests and orators, what names shine with purer lustre or are mentioned
with more respect than those of the men, past and present, we owe to
Ireland. On that imperishable roll of honor, the Declaration of
Independence, we find their names, and in the prolonged struggle that
followed there was no battlefield from the St. Lawrence to the Savannah
but was enriched with Irish blood shed in the cause of civil and
religious liberty.”
THE REMINISCENCES OF AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS, ONE OF THE FIRST MEMBERS OF
THE SOCIETY, EDITED BY HIS SON, HOMER SAINT-GAUDENS, AND PUBLISHED
THROUGH THE COURTESY OF THE CENTURY MAGAZINE.
My father began his reminiscences in the early spring of 1906, while
recovering from a surgical operation in the Corey Hill Hospital of
Brookline, Massachusetts. As he had spent a most active life, he chafed
at that confinement until this scheme was devised to pass his hours;
whereupon, to his great amusement, he dictated the first quarter of the
work. Later, after his return to Windsor, when, to his bitter
disappointment, he found that he could not for any length of time remain
on his feet to model, he continued to write at odd moments up to the
middle of the summer.
The contents of my father’s text itself I have left intact, save where
exceptionally rough; but the order of thought and anecdote, which was
badly tangled, owing to the lack of revision, I have shifted back and
forth into a semblance of methodical progression.
My father begins:
“Reminiscences are more likely to be tiresome than otherwise to the
readers of later generations; but among the consoling pleasures that
appear over the horizon as years advance is that of rambling away
about one’s past....
* * * * *
“I was born March 1, 1848, in Dublin, Ireland, near 37 Charlemount
Street. If that is not the house, no doubt the record in the nearest
Catholic church would give the number.”
My uncle, Mr. Louis Saint-Gaudens, who visited Dublin in the summer of
1890, found the building at number 35, near the head of Charlemount
Street and not far from a bridge built over the canal which runs by the
southeastern part of the city. There, under the trees that line the
banks and in sight of the Wicklow Hills, my father as a baby must have
been carried by my grandmother.
The reminiscences continue:
“My mother’s maiden name was Mary McGuiness. Of her ancestry I know
nothing except that her mother was married twice, the second time to a
veteran of the Napoleonic wars.”
My father’s maternal grandmother’s name was Daly. She married Arthur
McGuiness, of whom it is only recalled that he worked in the Dublin
plaster mills and that he was a Freemason. Neither of the couple lived
to be old. Their daughter Mary McGuiness was born to them at Bally
Mahon, County Longford.
To return to the autobiography:
“Of my mother’s family the only member of which I have had a glimpse
was her brother George McGuiness, whom I saw in Forsyth Street. I have
a daguerreotype of his delightfully kind and extremely homely face—a
face like a benediction, as I have heard some one describe it. He, of
all men, became the owner of two slaves in the South, and, judging
from a daguerreotype, married an equally homely and kindly-looking
woman. He was in some way connected with the navy yard at Pensacola.
The war cut off all further communication with him.
“Of my father’s birth and ancestry I am as ignorant as of my mother’s,
knowing only that his father was a soldier under Napoleon, who died
comparatively young and suddenly after what I suspect was a gorgeous
spree.”
My father’s paternal grandfather was called André Saint-Gaudens. His
wife’s maiden name was Boy. Tradition has it that she sold butter and
eggs in the market-place at Aspet, and that she became a miser, leaving
under her bed upon her death the conventional box crammed with gold
pieces.
The reminiscences continue:
“My father’s full name was Bernard Paul Ernest Saint-Gaudens; Bernard
Paul ‘Honeste,’ if you please, he called it later in life; it sounded
nicer. He was born in the little village of Aspet, about fifty miles
from Toulouse, at the foot of the Pyrenees, five miles south of the
town of Saint-Gaudens, in the arrondissement of Saint-Gaudens, in the
department of the Haute-Garonne, a most beautiful country, as the many
searchers for health at the baths of Bagnères-de-Luchon know.”...
Three years my grandfather passed in London and, later, seven years in
Dublin before he met his future wife in the shoe store for which he made
shoes and where she did the binding of slippers. There, previous to my
father’s birth, two sons, George and Louis, died, George at the age of
six, and Louis in infancy. But when my father was six months old,
“red-headed, whopper-jawed, and hopeful,” as he would repeat, the famine
in Ireland compelled his parents to go with him to America, setting out
from Liverpool, England, in the sailing-ship _Desdemona_.
The autobiography goes on:
“Father told me that an overcrowded passenger-list prevented his
leaving Dublin with my mother, with me at her breast, in a ship named
the _Star of the West_ that burned at sea during the trip. But because
he told me this does not mean that it was so. His Gascon imagination
could give character or make beauty wherever these qualities were
necessary to add interest to what he was saying.
“They landed at Boston town probably in September, 1848, he a short,
stocky, bullet-headed, enthusiastic young man of about thirty, with
dark hair cf reddish tendencies and a light red mustache, she of his
height, with the typical long, generous, loving Irish face, with wavy
black hair, a few years his junior, and ‘the most beautiful girl in
the world,’ as he used to say.
“Leaving mother in Boston,—where, by the way, I am beginning this
account in the hospital fifty-six years afterward,—he started to find
work in New York. In six weeks he sent for her. He said we first lived
in Duane Street. Of this I knew nothing.
“From there we went to a house on the west side of Forsyth Street,
probably near Houston Street, where now is the bronze foundry in which
the statue of Peter Cooper which I modeled was cast forty-five years
later. There my brother Andrew was born on Hallowe’en in 1850 or 1851,
and there I made the beginning of my conscious life.
[Illustration:
FRANCIS I. McCANNA, ESQ.,
of Providence, R. I.
A Valued Member of the Society.
]
“The beginnings of my father’s business were peculiar, since what
interested him infinitely more than his store were the two or three
societies to which he belonged and of which he was generally the
‘Grand Panjandrum.’ There were constant meetings of committees and
sub-committees when there were not general ones. The principal society
was the ‘Union Fraternelle Française,’ a mutual-benefit affair of
which he was one of the founders and for many years the leading
figure.”
My grandfather enjoyed as well the making of speeches at Irish
festivals, where he would round off his conclusions with spirited
perorations in the Gaelic tongue. Also he became an abolitionist, a
“Black Republican,” during the Civil War; while, to involve matters
still further, he was a Freemason who insisted on associating with the
Negro Freemasons, and presiding at their initiations. The white
Freemasons thereupon blacklisted him.
The reminiscences say of him:
“In the daytime, notwithstanding mother’s gentle pleadings, instead of
preparing work, he was constantly writing letters about these
societies, all naturally to the serious detriment of his affairs.
“Nevertheless, for so small an establishment, father had an
extraordinary clientèle, embracing the names of most of the principal
families in New York—Governor Morgan, General Dix, some of the Astors,
Belmonts and the wife of General Daniel E. Sickles.”
Horace Greeley also was a steady purchaser, for he delighted to wrangle
with this argumentative shoemaker upon the philosophy of footwear.
The reminiscences continue:
“No doubt those who came were attracted by my father’s picturesque
personality, as well as by the fact that at that time everything
French was the fashion, and by the steadiness of his assurance as to
the superiority and beauty of his productions. His sign, ‘French
Ladies’ Boots and Shoes,’ must have been irresistible when taken
together with the wonderfully complex mixture of his fierce French
accent and Irish brogue. This bewildering language was just as bad at
the end of fifty years as when he first landed. In the family he spoke
English to mother and French to the three boys; we spoke English to
mother and French to him; mother spoke English to all of us.”
Moreover, further to adorn his discourse, my grandfather constantly
embroidered his remarks with fantastic proverbs of uncertain and
international origin. “As much use as a mustard plaster on a wooden
leg,” he would say; or, “Sorry as a dog at his father’s funeral”; or “As
handy with his hands as a pig with his tail”; or “A cross before a dead
man”; or (and this my father repeated after him through all his life)
“What you are saying and nothing at all is the same thing.”
“In addition, close to that time my mother’s cousin, John Daly, a marine
on one of the United States government ships, paid us a visit, when he
read to us in papers brought from Honolulu and showed us great walrus
teeth that had come from the Pacific. And finally I can see myself among
the other children who attended the Sunday school of St. Patrick’s
Cathedral in Elizabeth Street.”
THE BATTLE OF COLLIERVILLE.
BY CAPT. P. J. CARMODY.
On a lovely October morning the battalion left Memphis by rail. It was
the 11th day of the month,—Sunday—1863. The battalion consisted of the
headquarter guard, with General Sherman and his staff, destined to
reinforce Grant at Chattanooga. We got away from Memphis about ten
o’clock, General Sherman, the staff and officers occupying the coaches.
The rest of the battalion took places on top of the cars. Everything
went smoothly enough until we got to Collierville, a small station about
twenty-six or seven miles out of Memphis. I did not feel exactly right
that morning; I had a premonition that something was going to happen,
and, as first Sergeant of E Co., 13th U. S. Infantry, I was
over-vigilant. I took particular pains to see that the men did not
remove accoutrements.
Within something like a mile from Collierville, as the train panted
along, I discovered three men riding hard towards the track. They were
armed with crowbars instead of guns. One of our men let fly a shot at
them, and the battalion was immediately in arms. The train stopped at
the station. It was nearly mid-day, and no time was lost in action. The
first work of General Sherman was to telegraph to Germantown, about
twelve miles away, for hasty reinforcements, saying he had to cope with
a division of Confederates numbering 3,100, with five pieces of
artillery. It was the one opportunity of a generation for the
Confederates to make a great capture; and the result would have been
simple if those three men with crowbars and wire-cutting apparatus had
got in their work in time. But it was not to be; fortune was on our side
and the telegram for reinforcements reached its destination in time.
The battalion was detrained and ordered to form a line of battle. I will
never forget that line. I looked to the right and to the left, scanning
about two hundred and forty as good and brave officers and men as ever
met an enemy. We marched in battle line two or three hundred yards from
the train towards the enemy, and were ordered to lie down. We observed
that communication was being made in the rebel lines with a flag of
truce. This communication was received by Col. Irish, commander of the
little dismantled fort, with 240 or 250 men stationed at that point.
General Chalmers demanded the unconditional surrender of General
Sherman, his troops and supplies. He added that refusal would mean a
useless sacrifice of lives, because he had 3,100 cavalry, infantry and
artillery in his command. What do you think your “Uncle Billy” said?
“Give my compliments to General Chalmers,” said he, “and tell him that
the government pays me to fight, not to surrender.”
As soon as the rebel aide rode back to his command, the ball opened with
grape and cannister; but they overshot us and only a few were wounded.
They threw four or five rounds into us, and the order was given to stand
up and then to fall back on the fort and entrenchments. This was done in
fairly good order, but let me tell you, comrades, we made awfully fast
time in the three hundred yards to the fort. I cast the heel of my
shoe—shot off.
The men were disposed of to the very best advantage. It was an easy
matter to distribute the 240 of our battalion, and I suppose Col. Irish,
with his six companies of the 66th Indiana, did not have much trouble in
placing them where they would do most good. Well, here we were partially
protected by rifle pits, a dismantled fort, and a train of cars—480 men
against an army of 3,100. Comrades, think of it!
I had been paid at Memphis and I had two fifty dollar bills with me. I
was so sure of being captured, I cut the sole of my shoe open and
slipped the two fifties in there. I knew that if we were taken
prisoners, they would shake us down; and made up my mind that the money
would help my chances of escaping during the night if captured. It was
hammer and tongs until about four o’clock in the afternoon.