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== Mitchel and Meagher ==

Ironically, the men who possessed the most influence over their regional Irish population both reached America through identical routes. Thomas Francis Meagher and John C. Mitchel were both prominent instigators of the Rebellion of the Young Irelanders in 1848; an uprising and futile attempt at Irish independence. Meagher and Mitchel were both tried and convicted of treason and had their death sentences commuted to prison terms on Van Damien’s land; that is, present day Tasmania, Australia. Meagher escaped and reached New York in 1852 while Mitchel did the same just one year later. After working together in New York to promote an awareness of the Irish cause, their paths veered off in different directions. Mitchel headed south and through a series of events began writing opinion pieces for a newspaper, while Meagher stayed north to hone his oratorical skills on Irish audiences. When the guns of war sounded at Fort Sumter, the former countrymen displayed the vast differences in their individual ideals.

Mitchel used his considerable influence over his fellow Irishmen in order to launch a propaganda campaign in support of the Confederacy. While still in New York, Mitchel averred that the Great Famine was a “deliberate genocidal policy enacted and encouraged by the British government.”<ref>Gleeson,''The Green and the Gray,''19.</ref> After moving to Knoxville, Tennessee in 1855 and later Richmond, Virginia, he continually reinforced the genocide hypothesis in the minds of Irish born southerners. As the war drew closer, he introduced a new theory to his southern brethren in order to guarantee their alliance to the Confederacy. He opined that, “‘in national character the North is more English, the South more Irish.’”<ref>Gleeson, ''The Green and the Gray,''21.</ref>By linking these two thoughts less than ten years after the conclusion of the Famine, Mitchel created an explosion of Confederate patriotism in the southern states. He manipulated the Irish of the South into believing that the cause of the Confederacy was akin to the cause of Ireland. Meagher made a different appeal to his Irish New Yorkers.

With the departure of his friend Mitchel and the support of Bishop John Hughes and the Catholic Church, Thomas Meagher went from being a passive southern sympathizer to an active and outspoken advocate of the Union. Meagher felt a great deal of gratitude for his adopted country and worked to instill that same feeling among his fellow Irishmen. Though 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. 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 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.” Like his southern counterpart, Meagher also invoked the name of England to further his cause. Though 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.

Corcoran and Meagher were not alone in their loyalty to America or in their foresight for Ireland’s future. Color sergeant Peter Welsh served with the 28th Massachusetts Regiment, which was part of the Irish Brigade, from September 1862 until he was wounded at Spotsylvania on May 12, 1864. During his time with the army, he was the author of hundreds of letters to his wife, Margaret. A letter dated 1863 to his father-in-law, who was still in Ireland, succinctly addressed the duality of the Irish motives for participating in the Union Army. In response to his father-in-law’s question of why it was necessary for Irishmen to participate in another country’s war, Welsh remarked that “When fighting for America we are fighting in the interest of Irland [sic] striking a double blow cutting with a two edged sword.” Aside from being a fertile training ground, Welsh also viewed America as a potential ally for Ireland in her struggle against England. The sergeant saw America as “Irlands refuge Irlands last hope [sic],” and warned “destroy this republic and her hopes are blasted.” Welsh believed that if Ireland were to become free “the means to accomplish it must come from the shores of America.”<ref>Lawrence Frederick Kohl and Margaret Cosse Richard, eds., ''Irish Green and Union Blue: The Civil War Letters of Peter Welsh; Color Sergeant, 28th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers'' (New York: Fordham University Press, 1986), 102. For the complete text of this letter see pages 100-104. Welsh wrote this letter one month before he participated in the battle of Gettysburg.</ref> He spent the next several pages emphasizing that without a strong Union army, the Confederacy would prevail, thus rendering the American republic obsolete, along with any hopes for an independent Ireland. Although the beliefs of men such as Meagher, Corcoran, and Welsh were farsighted and practical, the metaphoric rhetoric employed by southern propagandists was equally effective.