Glories of Ireland — The Fighting Race, Part 2

II. --THE FIGHTING RACE ABROAD.

We next see Irish soldiers fighting abroad.

The blood they had shed so freely for the Stuarts at the Boyne, at Athlone, at Aughrim, at Limerick was in vain.

The king of France, if he sent armies to Ireland, demanded Irish troops in return.

The transports that brought the French regiments over in May, 1690, took back over five thousand officers and men from Ireland, who formed the first Irish Brigade in the service of France.

This, remember, was before the battle of the Boyne.

The men were formed on their arrival in France into three regiments, those of Mountcashel, O'Brien, and Dillon, named after their commanders, and were sent to Savoy.

The French aid to James in Ireland helped best in giving confidence to the raw Irish levies, but it was more than offset by the German troops brought over by William.

The weakness, indecision, or worse, of James before Derry, his chicken-hearted failure to overwhelm Schomberg when he lay at his mercy before the arrival of William, ruined his chances.

Remember that the Irish army, if defeated at the Boyne, was not broken, and was strong enough, when pursued by William, to repulse him with 500 killed and 1,000 wounded and to compel him to raise the siege of Limerick.

The dash and skill of Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, backed by Irish desperation, won the day.

The French troops sailed home after William's retreat.

In the next year's campaign occurred the crowning disasters of the war, but in any other country or with any other people than the English the terms of capitulation at Limerick, which were formulated by Ginkel and showed a soldier's respect for a brave and still powerful foe, would have ushered in an era of peace.

The Irish soldiers' distrust of the conquerors was shown in the fact that, since the stipulations allowed the free departure of the garrison with honors of war, 19,059 officers and men took service with France, and sailed in October, 1691, on the French fleet, which by the irony of fate had arrived in the Shannon too late, on the very day after the signing of the treaty of Limerick.

Never in the whole course of the history of nations has more hideous treachery been shown than in the immediate breaking of that treaty; and dearly has England paid for it ever since, although, for the hundred years that followed, Ireland sank to the very depths under the penal laws, with her trade ruined, her lands stolen, her religion persecuted, and all education and enlightenment forbidden by abominable, drastic laws.

If, as has been computed, 450,000 Irish fought and died in the service of France between 1690 and 1745, a further 30,000 are to be added down to 1793. A French writer estimates the whole Irish contingent at 750,000, but, for a roster of seekers of glory from an impoverished people, the more reasonable half-million should surely suffice.

Long would be the story to follow the fighting fortunes of the Irish Brigades.

Officered by Irish gentlemen and drilled to perfection, they soon came to hold in the French service the esteem that later was given to Irish regiments in the service of England.

King Louis welcomed them heartily and paid them a higher wage than his native soldiers.

No duty was too arduous or too dangerous for the Irish Brigades.

Seldom were they left to rust in idleness.

Europe was a caldron of wars of high ambitions.

The Irish regiments fought through the war in Flanders.

At Landen, July 29, 1693, the French under the duke of Luxembourg defeated the English under William III.

with a slaughter of 10,473 men, losing 8,000 men themselves.

In the retreat, Ginkel, William's general in the Irish campaign, was almost drowned in the river Greete.

The Irish Royal Regiment of Footguards, that of Dorrington, was the first corps to break through the English intrenchments, its gallant leader, Colonel Barrett, falling as he headed the charge.

Here also was stricken Lieutenant-Colonel Nugent of Sheldon's Irish Regiment.

Here also fell--saddest loss of all--Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, brave, resourceful, a true unfaltering-soldier and lover of his country.

The legend of his life blood flowing before his eyes and his utterance, "Would it had been shed for Ireland", may and should be true, although he lived three days after the battle.

Would, indeed, it had been shed for Ireland--after such a day!

It was in 1703 that the celebrated defence of Cremona lifted Irish renown to great heights throughout Europe.

There were but 600 Irish troopers all told in that long day's work, and from the break of day till nightfall they held at bay Prince Eugene's army of 10,000 men.

The two battalions of Bourke and Dillon were surprised at early morn to learn that the Austrians--and there were Irish officers among them--were in the town.

Major O'Mahony and his men ran from their beds to the gates, and neither the foes without nor the foes within could make them budge.

Terribly they suffered under concentrated attacks, but a withering fire from the Irish met every assault.

It was nightfall before relief came, and then the sons of Ireland who had held Cremona for the French were acclaimed by all, but of their 600 they had lost nearly 350. Small wonder that the honor list that day was long.

In Bourke's battalion the specially distinguished were Captains Wauchop, Plunkett, Donnellan, MacAuliffe, Carrin, Power, Nugent, and Ivers; in Dillon's, Major O'Mahony, Captains Dillon, Lynch, MacDonough, and Magee, and Lieutenants Dillon and Gibbon, John Bourke and Thomas Dillon.

Major O'Mahony was sent to Paris to carry the news of the victory to the king, who presented him with a purse of 1,000 louis d'or, a pension of 1,000 livres, and the brevet of colonel.

So the history proceeds, the Irish regiments lost in the array of the French forces, but showing here and there a glint of charging bayonets, captured trenches, and gushes of Irish blood.

In 1703 the brigade regiments fought in Italy and Germany under the Duc de Vendome.

We hear of the regiments of Berwick, Bourke, Dillon, Galmoy, and Fitzgerald vigorously engaged.

In Germany the story is of Sheldon's Horse and two battalions of the regiments of Dorrington and Clare.

At the first battle of Blenheim, September 20, 1703, the regiment of Clare lost one of its colors, rallied, charged with the bayonet and recovered it, taking two colors from the enemy.

This was a French victory.

Not so the great battle of Blenheim, August, 1704, when Marlborough and Prince Eugene severely defeated the French and Bavarians.

Three Irish battalions shared in the disaster.

In 1705 at Cassano in Italy an Irish regiment, finding itself badly galled by artillery fire from the opposite bank of the Adda, declared they could stand it no longer, and thereupon jumped in, swam the river, and captured the battery.

In 1705 Colonel O'Mahony of Cremona fame distinguished himself in Spain.

In the next year at the battle of Ramillies, in which Marlborough with the Dutch defeated the French under Villeroi, Lord Clare's regiment captured the colors of the English Churchill regiment and of the Scottish regiment in the Dutch service.

In the same year and the next, the Irish Brigade fought many battles in Spain.

One cannot pursue the details of the engagements.

Regiments ever decimated were ever recruited by the "Wild Geese" from Ireland--the adventurous Catholic youth of the country who sought congenial outlet for their love of adventure and glory.

Many Irish also joined the French army after deserting from the English forces in Flanders.

It was, however, at Fontenoy, May 11, 1745, that the Irish Brigade rendered their most signal service to France.

The English under the Duke of Cumberland, son of George II.

, with 55,000 men including a large German and Dutch auxiliary, met the French under Marshal Saxe, and in the presence of the French king Louis XV.

, near Tournai in Belgium.

Saxe had 40,000 men in action and 24,000 around Tournai, which town was the objective of the English advance.

Among the troops on the field were the six Irish regiments of Clare, Dillon, Bulkeley, Roth, Berwick, and Lally, all under Charles O'Brien, Viscount Clare, afterwards Marshal Thomond of France.

After fierce cannonading on both sides and a check to the allies on their right and left, a great column of English veterans advanced on the French centre, breaking through with sheer force.

They had thus reached high ground when some cannonading halted them.

It was at this moment of gravest peril to the French that the Irish regiments with unshotted guns charged headlong up the slope on their ancient enemies, crying, "Remember Limerick and British Faith!"

The great English column, already roughly handled by the cannon, broke and fled in wild disorder before that irresistible onslaught, and France had won a priceless victory, but the six Irish regiments lost one-third of their gallant men by a single volley as they followed their steel into the English lines.

When Charles Edward, the Stuart Pretender, landed in Scotland in 1745, he was followed by a small French force, including 500 Irishmen from the Brigade.

Colonel John O'Sullivan was much relied on by the prince in his extraordinary campaign.

Sir Thomas Sheridan also distinguished himself.

There were 475 Irish at the battle of Culloden, that foredoomed defeat of the Stuart cause, and two days later a score of Irish officers were among those who surrendered at Inverness.

In Spain at the beginning of the 18th century there were hundreds of Irish officers in the military service, and eight Irish regiments.

Among the officers were thirteen Kellys, thirteen Burkes, and four Sheas.

It seemed that Ireland had soldiers for the world.

Don Patricio, Don Miguel, Don Carlos, Don Tadeo took the place of Patrick, Michael, Charles, and Thadeus.

O'Hart gives a list of sixty descendants of the "Wild Geese" in places of honor in Spain.

General Prim was a descendant of the Princes of Inisnage in Kilkenny.

An O'Donnell was Duke of Tetuan and field marshal of Spain.

Ambrose O'Higgins, born in county Meath, Ireland, was the foremost Spanish soldier in Chile and Peru; Admiral Patricio Lynch was one of its most distinguished sailors; and James McKenna its greatest military engineer.

The son of O'Higgins was foremost among those who fought for Chilean independence and gained it, and one of his ablest lieutenants was Colonel Charles Patrick O'Madden of Maryland.

In Austria the Irish soldiers were particularly welcome.

They count forty-one field-marshals, major-generals, generals of cavalry, and masters of ordnance of Irish birth in the Austrian service.

O'Callaghan relates that on March 17, 1766, His Excellency Count Mahony (son of the O'Mahony of Cremona), ambassador from Spain to the court of Vienna, gave a grand entertainment in honor of St. Patrick, to which he invited all persons of condition who were of Irish descent.

Among many others, there were present Count Lacy, President of the Council at War, the generals O'Donnell, McGuire, O'Kelly, Browne, Plunkett, and MacElligot, four chiefs of the Grand Cross, two governors, several knights military, six staff officers, and four privy councillors, with the principal officers of State.

All wore Patrick's crosses in honor of the Irish nation, as did the whole court that day.

Emperor Francis I. said: "The more Irish officers in the Austrian service the better; bravery will not be wanting; our troops will always be well disciplined."

The Austrian O'Reillys and Taaffes were famous.

It was the dragoon regiment of Count O'Reilly that by a splendid charge saved the remnant of the Austrian army at Austerlitz.

In the American war of the Revolution, General Charles Geoghegan of the Irish Brigade made the campaigns of Rochambeau and Lafayette.

He received the order of the Cincinnati from Washington and was ever proud of it.

Lieutenant General O'Moran also served in America.

He was afterwards executed in the French Revolution, for the "Brigade" remained royalist to the end.

General Arthur Dillon, who served in the Brigade, was also guillotined in 1794, crying, "_Vive le roi!

_" At the foot of the scaffold a woman, probably Mme.

Hébert, also condemned, stood beside him.

The executioner told her to mount the steps.

"Oh, Monsieur Dillon," she said, "pray go first."

"Anything to oblige a lady," he answered gaily, and so faced his God.

Lord Macaulay, commenting upon these things and deploring the policies that brought them about, says with great significance: "There were Irish Catholics of great ability, but they were to be found everywhere except in Ireland--at Versailles, at St. Ildefonso, in the armies of Frederic, in the armies of Maria Theresa.

One exile (Lord Clare) became a marshal of France, another (General Wall) became Prime Minister of Spain....

Scattered all over Europe were to be found brave Irish generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists, Irish counts, Irish barons, Irish knights of St. Louis and St. Leopold, of the White Eagle, and of the Golden Fleece, who if they remained in the house of bondage, could not have been ensigns of marching regiments or freemen of petty corporations."

The old Irish brigades ended with the French monarchy.

Battalions of the regiments of Dillon and Walsh were with the French fleet in the West Indies at Grenada and St. Eustache, also at Savannah, and under Rochambeau at Yorktown, but, except as to the officers, the surviving regiments of Berwick, Dillon, and Walsh were largely French.

With the better times under Grattan's Parliament in Ireland, the soldier emigration to France had all but ceased.

The Irish Volunteers of 1782 numbered 100,000 men, of whom an appreciable proportion were Catholics.

Many Irish went into the English army and navy, but there was another stream of fighting emigrants, that which flocked to the standard of revolt against England in America, of which much was to be heard thereafter.

In the American colonies before the Revolution there were thousands of descendants of the Catholic Irish who had settled in Maryland and Pennsylvania during the seventeenth century, as well as hardy Irish Presbyterians from Ulster, who came in great multitudes during the first half of the eighteenth century.

They had suffered persecution in Ireland for conscience sake from their fellow-Protestants.

In Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas they constituted entire communities.

The emigration of the Catholic or purely Celtic Irish to America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was often compulsory.

At any rate, after the middle of the eighteenth century it was large and became continuous--a true drift.

Catholics and Presbyterians alike brought hostility to the English government with them, and their voices fed the storm of discontent.

The Irish schoolmasters, of whom there were hundreds, were especially efficient in this.

They came in every ship to the colonies.

They had no love for England, for they had experienced in Ireland the tyranny of English law, and they would be more than human if they did not imbue the minds of the American children under their care with their own hatred of oppression and wrong and English domination.

The log schoolhouse of the Irish teacher became the nursery of revolution.

They were a very important factor, therefore, in the making of the Revolution, and many of them took an active part as soldiers in the field.

The Irish, both Catholics and Protestants, poured into the patriot ranks once the standard of revolt was raised in 1775. The Pennsylvania line, which General Lee called "the line of Ireland," was almost entirely Irish, and the rosters of several of the Maryland and Virginia regiments contain a remarkably large proportion of Irish names, in some cases running as high as 60 per cent.

It is computed that the Irish furnished not less than a third of the whole American forces.

A common cause blotted out all old religious prejudices between Irishmen in the American service.

It was John Sullivan, of New Hampshire, son of a Limerick schoolmaster, who began the revolt by seizing the fort of William and Mary and its storehouses filled with that powder which charged the guns at Bunker Hill in the following year.

It was Captain Jeremiah O'Brien, with his brothers, who made the first sea attack on the British off Machias, Maine, in May, 1775, an engagement which Fenimore Cooper calls "the Lexington of the Seas."

There were fifteen Celtic Irish names among the Minute Men at the Battle of Lexington.

Colonel Barrett, who commanded at Concord, was Irish.

There were 258 Celtic Irish names on the rosters of the American forces at the battle of Bunker Hill.

John Sullivan had been made a major-general, thereafter to be a notable figure in the war at Princeton, Trenton, Newport, and in his Indian campaign.

The Connecticut line was thick with Irish names.

Around Washington himself was a circle of brilliant Irishmen: Adjutant-General Edward Hand leading his rifles, Stephen Moylan his dragoons, General Henry Knox and Colonel Proctor at the head of his artillery, John Dunlop his body-guard, Andrew Lewis his brigadier-general, Ephraim Elaine his quartermaster, all of Irish birth or ancestry.

Commodore John Barry, born in Wexford in 1739 and bred to the sea, was a ship captain in his early twenties, trading from Philadelphia.

When the Continental Congress met, he at once volunteered, and was given command of the _Lexington_, the first American ship to capture a British war vessel.

Later, after gallant fighting on sea and land, he was given command of the U. S.

frigate _Alliance_, in which he crossed the Atlantic to France, and fought and captured in a rattling battle two British warships, the _Atlanta_ and the _Trepasay_.

He was the Father of the American navy, holding captain's certificate No. 1, signed by Washington himself--the highest rank then issued.

General Richard Montgomery, the brave and able soldier who fell at Quebec as he charged the heights, was an Irishman.

General George Clinton, son of an Irishman, was a brigadier-general, governor of New York and twice Vice-President of the United States.

Fifty-seven officers of New York regiments in the Revolution were Irish, and a large number of the officers in the Southern regiments of the line, as well as of the militia, were native Irish or of Irish descent.

The rosters of the enlisted Irishmen of the New York regiments run into the thousands.

Hundreds of Irish soldiers suffered in the prison ships of New York, the horrors of which served so conspicuously to stimulate American determination to carry the war to the only rightful conclusion.

Washington always recognized America's debt to the Irish.

"St. Patrick" he made the watchword in the patriot lines the night before the English evacuated Boston forever on the memorable 17th of March, 1776. After the war he was made, with his own consent, an honorary member of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick.

Major-General Richard Butler and his four brothers, all officers, and Brigadier-Generals John Armstrong, William Irvine, William Thompson, James Smith, and Griffith Rutherford all fought with distinction.

All of these officers were Irish-born.

It was in truth an Irish war, so far as Irish sentiment and whole-hearted service could make it.

The record of Irish soldiers' names alone would fill volumes.

The thirst of the Irish race for the glory of war is shown in the large enlistments in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and since, in the English army and navy.

Grattan, in pleading for Ireland, claimed that a large percentage of the British forces were Irish.

Wolfe Tone avers that there were 210 Irishmen out of 220 in the crew of a British frigate that overhauled his ship on its way to America.

Bonaparte had in his armies an Irish Legion that did good service in Holland, Spain, Portugal, and Germany.

Marshal Clarke, Duke of Feltre, French Minister of War in 1809, was Irish.

Up and down the Spanish Peninsula, Irish blood was shed in abundance in the armies of Wellington.

Never was more brilliant fighting done than that which stands to Irish credit from the lines of Torres Vedras to Badajos and Toulouse.

Of the Waterloo campaign volumes have been written in praise of Irish valor.

As Maxwell says in his _Tales of Waterloo_:--"The victors of Marengo and Austerlitz reeled before the charge of the Connaught Rangers."

Wellington himself was Irish, as in the later wars of England Lord Gough, Lord Wolseley, Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, and General French came from Ireland.

The Irish soldiers in the English service by a pitiful irony of fate helped materially to fasten the chains of English domination on the peoples of India in a long series of wars.

In America, the War of 1812 once more gave opportunity to the Fighting Race.

The commanding figure of the war, which opened so inauspiciously for the United States, was General Andrew Jackson, the hero of the battle of New Orleans, and afterwards twice elected President of the United States.

"Old Hickory", as he came to be lovingly called, was proud of his Irish father, and sympathized with the national longings of the Irish people.

He was a splendid soldier, and his defeat of the English general, Pakenham, on January 8, 1815, which meant the control of the mouths of the Mississippi, as well as safeguarding the city of New Orleans, reflected the highest credit on his skill and unflagging energy.

The English had superior numbers, between 8,000 and 9,000 men, against a scant 6,000 under Jackson, and their force was made up of veterans of the European wars.

In command of the left of his line Jackson placed the gallant general William Carroll, born in Philadelphia, but of Irish blood, who was afterwards twice governor of Tennessee.

The British general made the mistake of despising the soldier value of his enemy, yet before evening of that day he saw his artillery silenced and his lines broken, as he died of a wound on the field.

The battle was actually fought after the signing of the treaty of peace at Ghent; it annihilated British pretensions in this part of the world, anyway.

After Commodore Perry, the victor in the battle of Lake Erie, and himself the son of an Irish mother, the northern naval glory of the War of 1812 falls to Lieutenant Thomas MacDonough, of Irish descent, whose victory on Lake Champlain over the British squadron was almost as important as Perry's. Admiral Charles L. Stewart ("Old Ironsides"), who commanded the frigate _Constitution_ when she captured the _Cyane_ and the _Levant_, fighting them by moonlight, was a great and renowned figure.

His parents came from Ireland, and Charles Stewart Parnell's mother was the great sea-fighter's daughter.

Lieutenant Stephen Cassin commanded the _Ticonderoga_ and fought her well.

Captain Johnston Blakely, who was born in Ireland, captured in the _Wasp_ of 18 guns the much larger British _Reindeer_ of 20 guns and 175 men in a splendid fight, and later sank the _Avon_, an 18-gun brig.

After capturing a great prize, which he sent to Savannah, he sailed for the Spanish main and was never heard of more.

Captain Boyle, in the privateer _Comet_ of Baltimore, fought the _Hibernia_, of 18 guns, and later in the _Chasseur_, known as the phantom ship, so fast she sailed, took eighty prizes on the high seas.

General A. E.

Maccomb, who commanded victoriously at Plattsburg, was of Irish descent, and Colonel Robert Carr, who distinguished himself in the same campaign, was born in Ireland.

Major George Croghan of Kentucky, the hero of Fort Stephenson, was the son of an Irish father who had been a soldier in the Revolution.

Colonel Hugh Brady, of the 22nd Infantry, commanded at Niagara.

He remained in the army and fought in Mexico.

William McRee, of Irish descent, was General Browne's chief engineer in laying out the military works of the American army at Niagara.

Let it not be forgotten that in this memorable company brave Mrs. Doyle has a place.

Her husband, Patrick Doyle, an Irish artilleryman, had been taken prisoner by the British in the affair at Queenston and had been refused a parole.

Accordingly, when the guns were trained on the English lines before Fort Niagara, Mary, emulating the example of her countrywoman, "Molly" Pitcher, at Monmouth, determined to take her husband's place, and, regardless of flying British balls, tended a blacksmith's bellows all day, providing red-hot shot for the American gun battery, and sending a prayer with every shot into the British lines.

After the Queenston affair, it is well to note, the English doctrine of perpetual allegiance was abated.

Twenty-three Irish-born men were among the captives of the English in that engagement.

They were manacled to be sent to Ireland to be tried for treason, not as enemies taken in the field.

Winfield Scott, then lieutenant-colonel, was also a prisoner with them.

He protested loudly against this infamous course.

Upon his release he laid aside twenty-three British prisoners to be treated like the Irishmen, eye for eye and tooth for tooth.

As a result, the Irish prisoners were exchanged.

Colonel John Allen, who fell at the head of the First Regiment of Kentucky Riflemen at the battle of the river Raisin on January 21, 1813, was one of the Irish Allens of Kentucky.

His father and mother were natives of Ireland.

The Mexican War (1846-48) again showed Irish valor at the front.

It was not a great war, though brilliantly fought and rich in territorial accessions.

The campaigning comprised the work of two main expeditions and a subsidiary movement in California.

One column, under General Zachary Taylor, penetrated northern Mexico and fought the battles of Matamoras, Palo Alto, and Resaca de la Palma, in May, 1846, with a force of 2,200 men; forced the evacuation of Monterey in September, his army swelled to 5,000; and defeated Santa Anna at Buena Vista in February, 1847. General Winfield Scott, with a naval expediton, attacked Vera Cruz from the sea in March, 1847, and took up the march, 13,000 strong, to Mexico City, fighting the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec, and entered Mexico City on September 14. General James Shields, born in Tyrone, Ireland, in 1810, was in command with his brigade under Scott.

A brilliant soldier, he was severely wounded at Cerro Gordo and again at Chapultepec.

He served as United States Senator after the war and again took the field in the Civil War, his forces defeating Stonewall Jackson at the first battle of Winchester in 1862. The glamour of chivalry lights the name of Phil Kearney.

Here was a born soldier.

He was a volunteer with the French in Algiers in 1839-40. He also commanded under Scott with brilliant bravery, and was brevetted major on the field for "gallant and meritorious conduct" at the battles of Contreras and Churubusco.

In the French war with Austria in 1859-60, Kearney fought with the French, distinguishing himself at the decisive and bloody battle of Solferino.

In the Civil War he was brigadier-general of New Jersey troops in 1861 and major-general in 1863, taking distinguished part in the battles of the Peninsula and second Bull Run, and was killed while reconnoitring at Chantilly.

General Stephen W. Kearney, with the Army of the West, by dint of long marches, secured California among the fruits of the war.

General Bennet Riley, born in Maryland of Irish ancestry, commanded a brigade at Contreras, making a wonderful charge, and also fought brilliantly at Cerro Gordo and Churubusco, and was brevetted brigadier-general.

He attained the army rank in 1858. Major-General William O. Butler, under Zachary Taylor, was one of the heroes of Monterey.

Born in Kentucky, son of Percival Butler of Kilkenny, who was one of the famous five Butler brothers of the Revolutionary War whom Washington once toasted as "The Butlers and their five sons," General Butler succeeded General Scott in command of the entire American army in Mexico in February, 1848. Another of clear Irish descent who fought under Zachary Taylor was Major-General George Croghan, whose father, born in Sligo, Ireland, had fought in the Revolution.

He himself took part, as we have seen, in the War of 1812, and now was at the front before Monterey.

Once, when a Tennessee regiment wavered under a hot converging fire, Croghan rushed to the front and, taking off his hat, shouted, "Men of Tennessee, your fathers conquered with Jackson at New Orleans.

Come, follow me!"

and they followed in a successful assault.

Major-General Robert Paterson, who was born at Strabane, Ireland, and was the son of a '98 man, saw service in 1812, and became major-general of militia in Pennsylvania, whence he went to the Mexican War.

He also lived to serve in the War of the States.

Among Irish-named officers mentioned honorably in official despatches are Major Edward H. Fitzgerald, Major Patrick J. O'Brien; Captain Casey, chosen to lead the first storming party at Chapultepec;

Captains Hogan, Byrne, Kane, McElvin, McGill, Burke, Barny, O'Sullivan, McCarthy, McGarry, and McKeon.

Captain Mayne Reid, the novelist, a native of Ireland, was in the storming of Chapultepec.

Theodore O'Hara, the poet, served with the Kentucky troops and was brevetted major for gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco, while on the staff of General Franklin Pierce (afterwards President of the United States).

O'Hara's magnificent poem, "The Bivouac of the Dead," has made his name immortal.

It was written on the occasion of the interment at Frankfort, Ky.

, of the Kentucky dead of the Mexican War, where "Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead."

Irwin C. McDowell, who was brevetted captain at Buena Vista, commanded a corps in the Civil War.

George A. McCall, brevetted lieutenant-colonel at Palo Alto, was a major-general in the Civil War.

Francis T. Bryan was a hero of Buena Vista.

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas P. Moore and Captain James Hogan both won fame in the 3rd Dragoons.

Lieutenant Thomas Claiborn of the Mounted Rifles became a colonel in the Confederate Army.

Lieutenant-Colonel J. W.

Geary fought brilliantly and was to be heard from later with renown.

Colonel John F. Reynolds of the 3rd Artillery lived to be major-general in the Civil War, and to fall gloriously at Gettysburg.

Nor must we forget Major Folliot Lally's bravery at Cerro Gordo;

Second Lieutenant Thomas W. Sweeny, a brigadier-general of the Civil War and the planner of the Fenian invasion of Canada in 1866;

Lieutenant Henry B. Kelly of the 2nd Infantry, afterwards a Confederate colonel; Captain Martin Burke of the 1st Artillery, killed at Churubusco; nor Lieutenant William F. Barry of the 2nd Artillery, a brigadier-general in the Civil War.

There were scores of other Irish named officers.

In the whole American force of 30,000 engaged, the Irish born and Irish descended troops of all arms were numbered by thousands.

It was, however, in the Civil War that the flood of Irish valor and loyalty to the American Republic was at its height.

The 2,800,000 enlistments on the Northern side stood probably for 1,800,000 individual soldiers serving during the four years of the war.

Not less than 40 per cent, of these were Irish born or of Irish descent.

Of the 337,800 men furnished by the State of New York, 51,206 were natives of Ireland out of the total of 134,178 foreign born, or 38 per cent, of the latter, while not less than 80,000 of Irish descent figured among the 203,600 native born soldiers.

Of the 2,261 engagements in the war, few there were that saw no Irishmen in arms, and certainly, in every one of the 519 engagements that made Virginia a great graveyard, the Irish figured largely.

Of the 1,000,516 mustered out in 1865, not less than 150,000 were natives of Ireland, while those of Irish descent numbered hundreds of thousands.

They fought well everywhere, and it would require volumes to give the names and deeds of those who distinguished themselves more than their fellows.

One name, however, shines with a great blaze above them all, the name of Philip H. Sheridan, one of the three supreme soldiers of the Union, Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman being the others.

Had Ireland furnished only Sheridan to the Union cause, her service would be beyond reward.

He was born in Albany, N. Y.

, in March, 1831, the year after his parents, John and Mary Sheridan, arrived there from the Co. Cavan, in Ireland.

The family moved to Somerset, Perry Co. , Ohio, the following year.

There Philip began village life.

How he gained the beginning of an education; worked in a grocery store; became a bookkeeper; longed for a West Point nomination and got it; how he worked through the Academy in 1853;

served as lieutenant on the frontier, in Texas, California, and Oregon, until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he was promoted captain and ordered east, can be quickly told.

His history until the fall of the Confederacy would need many long chapters.

His military genius included all the requirements of a great captain, and his opportunties of exhibiting all his qualities in action came in rapid succession.

In every service from quartermaster to army commander his talents shone.

His tremendous vigor, incredible mental alertness, and genius for detail, added to his skill and outreach, continually set him forward.

He stood 5 feet 5 inches high, but somehow looked taller, owing to his erect, splendid bearing.

There was something in the full chest, the thick muscular neck, the heavy head, the dark blazing eyes, and the quick bodily movements that arrested attention.

His name has come down to this generation mainly as a great cavalry leader, but he was a natural commander of all arms, a great tactician, a born strategist.

His campaign of the Shenandoah Valley was a whirlwind of success.

His great battles around Richmond were wonderful.

General Grant's opinion of Sheridan, given thirteen years after the war, sums up the man.

It is here quoted from J. R.

Young's book, _Around the World with General Grant_.

It runs, in part, as follows: "As a soldier, as a commander of troops, as a man capable of doing all that is possible with any number of men, there is no man living greater than Sheridan.

He belongs to the very first rank of soldiers, not only of our country but of the world.

I rank Sheridan with Napoleon and Frederick and the great commanders in history.

No man ever had such a faculty of finding things out as Sheridan, of knowing all about the enemy.

He was always the best informed of his command as to the enemy.

Then he had that magnetic quality of swaying men, which I wish I had, a rare quality in a general.

I don't think anyone can give Sheridan too high praise."

Praise from U. S.

Grant is praise indeed.

A peculiar feature of the Civil War was the growth of the generals: Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, all conspicuously experienced it.

With Sheridan, however, one point is notable, namely, that He triumphed in every branch in each successive extension of the field of his duties, and he went from captain to major-general in three years of the regular army.

His care for his men was constant.

His troops were always the best fed, best clothed, best rested in the armies en either side, but on no troops was there more constant call for endeavor, and they were never found to fail him.

In action he is described as severe, peremptory, dominating, but his determinations were mighty things, not to be interfered with.

He wanted things done and done at once.

His men of all grades soon conceded that he knew best what to do, and set about doing it accordingly.

Out of action he was joyous of spirit, but, in fight or out of it, his alertness and his lightning-like decisions marked him apart from every other commander.

His career in the Tennessee campaign was meteoric.

Of his score and more of great conflicts, the most picturesque was his wonderful battle at Cedar Creek, to fight which he rode at breakneck speed "from Winchester twenty miles away" through the dust and debris of a broken army to the extreme front, rallying the scattered regiments and turning a defeat into a crushing victory, which recovered all that had been lost, taking 25 cannon and 1,200 prisoners, and driving for miles the lately victorious enemy under Early.

Captain P. J.

O'Keefe was one of the two who made the ride beside him.

The battles of Waynesboro, Five Forks, and Sailor's Creek showed the same brilliant generalship on the part of Sheridan.

His hold on the affection of the army and the admiration of the people continued to the day of his death, August 5, 1888, when he held the headship of the United States army as general in succession to the great Sherman.

General Sheridan, towards the end of the war, had a soldier's difference with Major-General George G. Meade, commander of the Army of the Potomac, but that did not blind "Little Phil" to the real merit of the victor in the tremendous three days' battle of Gettysburg, handling an army new to his hand against Robert E. Lee.

The Meade family is of Irish descent.

George Meade, the grandfather, came from Dublin and was a patriot in the American Revolutionary War.

General Meade commanded a division at Antietam and a corps at Fredericksburg, and held command of the Army of the Potomac to the end of the war.

He was a fine soldier and gentleman.

Of quiet manners at most times, he was most irascible in the hour of battle, but his temper did not becloud his judgment.

General James Shields and General Irwin McDowell, both fine Irish soldiers, have already been mentioned.

It would be hard to compass in a brief article even the names of the general officers of Irish blood in the Civil War.

General John Logan, who fought with the western armies, is worthy of high and honorable mention, as is General Thomas Francis Meagher, a patriot in Ireland, a prisoner in Australia, a soldier of dash in the Civil War.

Meagher's Irish Brigade left a record of valor unsurpassed: their charge at Fredericksburg up Marye's Heights alone should give them full meed of fame.

General Michael Corcoran, a native of Ireland, commanded the wholly Irish 69th Regiment when it departed for the war in 1861, and after his exchange from a Confederate prison raised and organized the Corcoran Legion.

Major-General McDowell McCook commanded brilliantly in the western campaigns.

Who has not heard of the Fighting McCooks?

--a family of splendid men and hardy warriors.

Brigadier-General Thomas C. Devin was a superb cavalry commander, who led the first division of Sheridan's Shenandoah army through all its great operations.

General James Mulligan of Illinois was of the true fighting breed.

Colonel Timothy O'Meara led his superb Irish Legion from Illinois up Missionary Ridge.

Brigadier-General C. C.

Sullivan of western army fame was one of the five generals, headed by Rosecrans, who recommended Phil Sheridan for promotion to brigadier-general after the battle of Booneville as "worth his weight in gold."

General Brannan was a gallant division commander in the Middle Tennessee campaign.

Colonel William P. Carlin made a name at Stone River.

General James T. Boyle, of the Army of the Ohio under Buell, was the brave man whose promotion to division commander left a vacancy for "Little Phil", that was to be an immediate stepping stone to higher opportunity.

Brigadier-General McMillan, who commanded the second brigide at Cedar Creek; Colonel Thomas W. Cahill, 9th Connecticut;

Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Neafie of the 156th New York; Captain Charles McCarthy of the 175th New York; Lieutenant-Colonel Alex.

J.

Kenny of the 8th Indiana; Lieutenant Terrence Reilly of the Horse Artillery, all won distinction in the Shenandoah Valley.