Changes

When war broke out on April 12, 1861, the U.S. halted funding to public works programs, which provided a great amount of employment for immigrants, in favor of war spending. As a result of the declining economy, enlistment in the army among the Irish rose dramatically. Men were forced into a position of making a choice between poverty and war. The army provided immigrants with funds, food, and shelter whereas civilian life and the labor market looked dismal. Immigrant Thomas McManus wrote to his concerned relatives in Ireland that he was not “‘forced to list up,’” but rather did so because, “‘the bounty was very tempting.’” <ref> Kerby A. Miller, ''Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America '' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 360-361.</ref> The enlistment bounty McManus received was $700; a sum equal to more than ten years of wages for an Irish laborer. By enlisting in the armed forces, Irishmen were constructing a new national identity for themselves.

Confederate John C. Mitchel and Unionist Thomas Francis Meagher both came to New York after being exiled from Ireland for their rebellious acts against England. The two leaders continued to work together in New York in an attempt to promote awareness of the Irish plight due to the Famine. Meagher saw the U.S. as a sanctuary for destitute and exiled Irish immigrants whereas Mitchel became increasingly disillusioned by the rampant poverty and discrimination faced by his fellow Irishmen. He worked his way south and settled in Richmond, Virginia by the time war erupted. Similar to the situation in Ireland, the South was an agrarian culture that hated interference from a dominant national government. The North; however, was an urban industrial society and a hotbed for the growing abolitionist movement. Peculiar to the South, slavery not only provided an unpaid labor force, the institution also constituted a permanent underclass. Whereas Irish Catholics in the northern states faced racial and religious discrimination and unemployment, Irish members of the southern states lived in a society wherein African American slaves filled the role of the inferior other. An outspoken secessionist and staunch supporter of slavery, Mitchel stated that, “in national character the North is more English, the South more Irish.” <ref> David T. Gleeson, ''The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America '' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 21.</ref> Given the hatred felt by Irishmen toward the English, sentiments such as these incited fervent support among southern Irishmen for the cause of the Confederacy. His counterpart was taking a different approach to garner support in the North.

With the departure of Mitchel and the support of the Catholic Church, Thomas Meagher departed from his position as a passive Southern sympathizer and embraced the role of outspoken advocate for the Union Army. Though not blind to the low wages, scarce jobs, and rampant racism, Meagher maintained his great appreciation toward the United States for being a refuge for his countrymen. He showed his appreciation when he did not hesitate to enlist in Company K of the 69th New York Volunteer Regiment. <ref> McCarthy, ''Green, Blue, and Grey'', 45.</ref> After the Union’s crushing defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, the 69th returned to New York where Meagher spoke in order to bolster recruitment among the Irish. He urged his countrymen to “rise in defence of the flag,” that harbored them safely from the “poison of England’s supremacy.” <ref> D.P. Conyngham, ''The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns'', ed. Lawrence Frederick Kohl (1866; repr., New York: Fordham University Press, 1994), 49.</ref> While trying to enforce the sense of “Irishness”, both Meagher and Mitchel actually introduced a new nationality to their Irish followers, which emerged as the defining factor of identity when these men met in Fredericksburg.