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As he was deemed a fugitive from justice, he was unable to return to England to be with his wife as she died from Typhoid Fever. In 1856, he married the prominent Elizabeth Townsend and became a staunch supporter of the Union in the growing tensions of the Antebellum Era in the United States. Meagher felt a great deal of gratitude for his adopted country and worked to instill that same feeling among his fellow Irishmen. Although jobs were scarce, wages were low, and racism was rampant, the Irishmen who made it to America were alive. Perhaps due to his political fervor or life on Van Damien’s Land, Meagher was a staunch Unionist and without hesitation enlisted in company K of the 69th New York Volunteer Regiment.<ref>Cal McCarthy, ''Green, Blue, and Grey: The Irish in the American Civil War'' (Cork, Ireland: Collins Press, 2009), 45.</ref>The 69th engaged in combat at the First Battle of Bull Run. It was during this fight that the regiment lost its commander, Michael Corcoran, to an enemy prison camp after he suffered a wound to his leg.<ref>D.P. Conyngham, ''The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns'', ed. Lawrence Frederick Kohl (1866; repr., New York: Fordham University Press, 1994), 41.</ref>After this significant Union loss and an even greater loss to the 69th, Meagher returned to New York to recruit what he hoped to be an all Irish brigade. The oratory skills for which he was renowned did not fail him as he fired American patriotism into Irish hearts and minds.

When the 69th returned to New York after the defeat at Bull Run, they were feted with a hero’s welcome from their adopted city. In order to bolster recruitment and support for the northern cause, Meagher accepted the invitation to speak at a “grand and enthusiastic festival,” that was being held to support the 69th’s widows and orphans.<ref>Conyngham, 48.</ref>He urged his fellow Irishmen to “rise in defence [sic] of the flag,” that had harbored them safely from the “poison of England’s supremacy.”<ref>Conyngham, 49.</ref>Although Meagher was sincere in his words of gratitude, he also had an agenda that was to benefit Ireland in future endeavors. He, like Corcoran before him, saw the American Civil War as an opportunity to train Erin’s sons on the battlefield so as to avail Ireland’s rebels with skilled and battle hardened soldiers.

==== Murder Suspects ====

One of the most widely held and very plausible opinions is that Meagher was killed at the hands of Wilbur Fisk Sanders. He was the founder and leader of the Vigilante Committee, possessed vast monetary resources and had personal access to vigilantes who felt as he did towards Meagher. Additionally, and oddly, he was the man with who Meagher spent his last day. He also had a political motive for eliminating the Irishman as Fisk held ambitions of being a U.S. Senator and feared that Meagher would stand in his way. Unbeknownst to him, and most everyone, Meagher had no inclination to further his political career. In fact, a new governor to Montana was appointed by President Andrew Johnson and Meagher had resigned his post as Secretary of the territory. His last official act was to travel to Fort Benton, Montana on July 1, 1867 in order to proceed one hundred twenty miles down the Missouri river by steamboat to retrieve rifles sent by General Sherman for the purpose of protecting Montana citizens from a perceived Indian threat. General Meagher wanted to live the remainder of his life in solitude and out of the public eye.

Sanders was supposedly unaware of this, however; eyewitness accounts and his own testimony swear that the two men spent the entire day together in Fort Benton. It is very plausible that at some point these two outspoken politicians discussed plans for their futures. Neither man was shy about expressing himself or about prodding others for information. It can therefore be argued that Sanders did in fact know that Meagher had no intention of obstructing his path to the U.S. Senate, thus eliminating Sanders’ motive for wanting Meagher eliminated. Without a motive and with the knowledge that Meagher was no longer a threat politically or in any other fashion, Sanders had no reason to have Meagher murdered. That being the case, other suspects can be addressed.

Judge Munson has been mentioned as a possible assassin due to his outrage over the Daniels affair the previous year. He, too was a member of the Vigilante Committee with vast resources. One must ask; does an overturned sentence to a relatively obscure citizen warrant the assassination of a man one year later? If Munson was so inclined to have Meagher murdered, why would he wait a full year? Meagher could have been captured and killed anytime over that span and any of the hundreds of vigilantes in Virginia City would have been accused. No, if Munson wanted Meagher dead, he would have acted sooner and in a more logical fashion.

On his way to Fort Benton, Meagher stopped for six days in Sun River, Montana. It was reported that he drank considerably for most of his stay and that he also suffered from dysentery. It is entirely sound to speculate that Meagher’s dysentery, something from which he suffered regularly, was caused by an intestinal infection. Suffering greatly before he and his twelve companions broke camp in Sun River, Meagher opted to forgo alcohol until his intestines were healed. At the time of his arrival in Fort Benton, Meagher had been without alcohol for at least forty-eight hours and was suffering through an intestinal infection.

It is also agreed upon in the medical and psychiatric community that the symptoms of DTs are “characteristically worse at night.”<ref>Michael Gelder, Richard Mayou, John Geddes, ''Psychiatry (Oxford Core Texts)'', 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 188.</ref>Both Sanders and Doran attested that Meagher’s mental state deteriorated at dusk. He noted that Meagher appeared paranoid and delusional “‘about dusk.’” Sanders stated, “‘It was apparent that he was deranged. He was loudly demanding a revolver to defend himself against the citizens of Fort Benton who, in his disturbed mental condition, he declared were hostile to him.’”<ref>Sanders, quoted in Wylie, 315.</ref>Sanders and two or three others accompanied Meagher to his room aboard the steamship. Doran watched as the general removed his clothes and prepared for bed. He claimed to have been the last man to speak with Meagher.

General Thomas Francis Meagher was a hero to both Ireland and the United States. He made many enemies over the years of his service to both countries, a fact that cannot be disputed. His enemies did not kill him. The war did not kill him. Meagher died as a result of his own addiction and the unforgiving nature of the Missouri River.

==References==