There has been significant interest in Irish participation in the American Civil War, with a number of monographs and biographies appearing, over the last decade at least, and this has greatly expanded our knowledge of Irishmen who fought for both north and south. This has been part of a surge in publications related to the war with an increasing range of interests that has moved well beyond the traditional military history. Similarly, there have been a number of recent works on the Mexican War, several of which focus on The San Patricios, an Irish regiment in the Mexican Army during that war. Arthur Mitchell's edited anthology is part of this.
For several reasons it makes less of a contribution than it might have. The project extended over a long period of time. The ultimate publisher wanted a significantly shorter volume and, in the midst of this, one of the editors, the late David N. Doyle, was forced to drop out due to his failing health. Had it appeared when intended it would have been in the forefront of a wave of publications and its findings would have had much more impact. Many of the essays would benefit from more discussion and more detail to illustrate and support the points made; they simply need to be longer. Despite these weaknesses, the resulting volume is a useful contribution to our understanding of the Irish participation in the American Civil War.
The first section of the book has two essays on the Mexican War; both devote considerable time to the San Patricios. Unfortunately, the regiment and its story is no longer unknown, but has received a great deal of attention, which blunts the impact of the essays by Larry Hogan, author of one of the recent books on the San Patricios, which appeared in 2012 and Arthur Mitchell, whose chapter provides a good discussion of the role religion, especially Catholicism, played in the politics of the war and military recruitment in the United States.
Sixteen chapters are devoted to the American Civil War and the majority deal with Irish Americans in a traditional way by addressing the Irish in specific cities and/or focusing on prominent individuals. Much more time is devoted to the north than the south. This is understandable given the much larger Irish Catholic population in the north. However, in recent years the work of David Gleeson and others have shown that many southern soldiers who were Protestant identified as Irish. Two chapters deal with New York city, including one of the longest chapters on the Irish from New York who enlisted and their families. The second New York-centric chapter looks at the Civil War experience through the life of Judge Charles Daly. Individual chapters deal with the Irish experience in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago.
Four chapters deal with the Irish in the south and each focuses on an individual. Patrick Cleburne's brief, but successful, military career is reviewed. A chapter discusses the activities of Bishop Patrick Lynch of Charleston, who tried to enlist European and Vatican support for the Confederacy. Young Irelander John Mitchel's pro-Confederate activities are covered in a brief, tightly focused chapter. The final southern chapter deals with Lieutenant Dick Dowling, who commanded an artillery battery at the Battle of Sabine Pass. The late Ann Caraway Ivins combined the biography of Dowling, who emigrated from Galway, with the history of his regiment in an interesting chapter.
Five chapters take up topics that have attracted the attention of historians relatively recently. The late Ruthann Harris used her extensive knowledge of immigrant letters to explore the career of one letter writer, Christopher Byrne, in a very brief chapter. Eileen M. MacMahon offers a chapter on Irish women, including nuns, and the many roles they filled during the war in both civilian and military life. Two chapters deal with questions surrounding motivation; D. R. O'Connor Lysaght looks at the issue in a general way, while Owen McGee looks at the question in terms of Fenian involvement. Andrew Fleche addresses the complex relationships between the Irish and African Americans in a very brief chapter. Frank Boyle looks at the 69th Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry, a type of unit that was important late in the war but has not been well-studied. Last there is a very brief chapter on the military strategists Dennis Hart Mahan, and his son, Alfred Thayer Mahan.
Anthologies are challenging as they include a range of topics and approaches and rarely have a single theme or thesis. The editor is quite candid in discussing the challenges of bringing this book to press. It is hard, as a reviewer not to note how this has affected the final product. The uneven length of the chapters leads to very uneven coverage of the various topics. Most do not fully develop important points or provide much context. The imbalance between the coverage of the Mexican War and the Civil War raises the question of the inclusion of the Mexican War at the expense of longer chapters for the Civil War topics. End notes and bibliographies seems overkill. I am not a fan of endnotes, given modern printing technology, but accept them. Individual chapter bibliographies seem redundant and are repetitive. Further, given the editor's statement about the need to cut the essays for length they represent space that might have allowed more discussion in a number of the essays that suffer from brevity. Finally, there seem to be an excessive number of typographical errors. In a few cases they cause confusion.
Despite my criticisms, the book offers a great deal. One notices the truncated chapters because the author has your attention and you want more information. This volume may not be for the specialist, but as an introduction to the Irish in the American Civil War it offers a broad overview that provides a guide to the many monographs and biographies that have appeared while it was in its prolonged gestation.
