A Brief History of the Irish Brigade
The Irish Brigade was spawned out of gratitude and animosity: The debt of gratitude to an America that offered the recent immigrant opportunity, and animosity towards the British for turning the Irish homeland into a wasteland.
Redemption was sought by the charismatic General Thomas Meagher who gathered three Irish volunteer regiments together into the Irish Brigade. His goal was to reunite the split country, and after the conflict, with trained troops, chase the British from Ireland. The Army of the Potomac was amazed at the determination and fearlessness with which the Irish Brigade charged impregnable fortifications. Although the sacrifices at Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg were horrific and legendary, the Irish Brigade was full of bonhomie and high spirits in camp.
The battlefield performance ignited their acceptance as U.S. citizens and doused the nativist fires that had burned Roman Catholic Churches. The twelfth century mystic St. Malachy prophesied that the Irish would one day find glory in the West—it just took seven centuries for the process to begin.