Gotham_ A History of New York City to 1898 - Edwin G. Burrows [694]
Hungarians and Swiss flocked to join George D’Utassy’s First Foreign Rifles, which swiftly merged with the Italian Legion formed by Alexander Repetti (who had served under Giuseppe Garibaldi in the Italian reunification struggle of 1848-49). The merged unit—the Garibaldi Guard—followed European practice and equipped wives of members as vivandieres. Dressed in red flannel basques and blue skirts, it was their job to lead troops in dress parade and sometimes into battle, as well as to serve as nurses, cooks, laundresses, soldiers’ confidantes, and matrons of the company in camp. Several young working women from Jersey City ran away from home to serve, marrying men on the spot in order to sail with the Garibaldians. Escorted to the dock and off to war by the Teutonic and Germania societies, they would later be followed by the DeKalb Regiment, composed entirely of German clerks, and by the Polish Legion.
No group surpassed the Irish in enthusiasm. The Sixty-ninth, which had refused to honor the prince of Wales, voted unanimously to enlist under Michael Corcoran. Within days, an additional sixty-five hundred were pleading to serve under the Donegal-born Fenian leader. On April 23 the regiment was blessed by Archbishop Hughes at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and marched off to the ferry. After their ninety-day service was up, which included honorable duty at First Bull Run, they returned to the Battery on July 27 for an uproarious welcome from Irish fire companies, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Sons of Erin, and bands blaring “The Cruiskeen Lawn” and “St. Patrick’s Day in the Morning.” Most reenlisted immediately and inspired yet another wave of Irish to join up.
Corcoran himself, wounded and captured at First Bull Run, didn’t make it back to New York until August 1862, when Lincoln got him exchanged. In his absence Thomas Francis Meagher organized an Irish Brigade. Meagher had been a leader of the Young Ireland agitation of the 1840s. Exiled to Tasmania, he escaped to New York, where he
The Irish Sixty-ninth Regiment departing for the war, April 23, 1861. Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, facing Mott Street, is at the right. Hibernian Hall, “the Irish Headquarters,” is the two-story building with dormer windows on Prince Street in the left center. The large building with two wings on the left is the St. Patrick’s School, run by the Sisters of Charity. (© Collection of The New-York Historical Society)
set up a law practice and led anti-British agitation among the immigrants. Now Meagher recruited thousands into the brigade’s three regiments; Irish women sewed it flags and banners; Daniel Devlin furnished its uniforms free of charge; and the troops departed in late 1861.
When Corcoran returned from Confederate prison to a triumphal welcome in 1862—the kitchen help for miles around flooded to the streets to welcome their hero, noted young Joseph Choate, partner in a Wall Street law firm—he promptly organized yet another four new regiments into an Irish Legion. Corcoran would command its four thousand members—who received an en masse outdoor blessing from Archbishop Hughes—as a brigadier general until his death in 1863.
For many Irish, joining up had political overtones. Patriotic participation, some hoped, would forever silence nativist charges that Hibernian Catholics were unworthy of citizenship. Recruiting posters also emphasized that the war was a blow against England, natural ally of the Confederate “cotton lords.” Many noted, too, that Union army training would serve them well in Ireland’s coming war of liberation. For others, volunteering was part lark and part escape from hard times. It was impossible to get work in the panic spring and summer of 1861, and many followed suggestions in the Herald to sign up for the soldier’s pay of thirteen dollars a month. These companies, extremely rambunctious, constantly tested the limits of military authority.
Billy Wilson’s Boys, the Sixth Regiment, were a case in point. Wilson, an expugilist and ex-alderman, recruited his volunteers at a dogfighting