Part 8

As a recognition of what had been done, Sullivan and his troops received the thanks of Congress, and were complimented in General Orders by Washington. At the conclusion of his military service, John Sullivan returned to his native state, where he lived to the hour of his death, honored and respected by those who knew him best. He was its third governor, its first United States judge, appointed by Washington, and the organizer, and for a time commander, of the state militia.

He was attorney-general of his state for years, and was succeeded later in the same position by his son and grandson. His great great grandson, Captain John Sullivan, was an officer in the Thirteenth N. H. Regiment in the Civil War. From the entrenchments round Boston in the winter of 1775 he wrote to the Committee of Safety of New Hampshire, in response to its request, giving his opinion of the kind of a government we ought to have for he was in favor of separation from the outset. On the line of his suggestions was drafted the State Constitution of 1776, which was the first to be adopted by any of the thirteen colonies, and this at a time when the minds of many, prominent in public affairs, were wavering on the question of independence. There was no intention to give, in this paper, any account in detail of the great events occurring between 1682 and 1779, save what is necessary to bring out as clearly as possible the characters and the deeds of a few men of Irish blood who aided largely in furnishing material for making American history, and as well to give the country which produced them the credit to which it is justly entitled.

The credit due Ireland for them, as well as for many others who have distinguished themselves here in years gone by, has not always been given. Our duty, as members of the American-Irish Historical Society, will be to right this great wrong and never cease our efforts until the errors of latter day historians, so far as they relate to the Irish in America, are corrected. This expedition against the Six Nations is in itself a great illustration of the prominent part taken by men of Irish birth or parentage in the War for Independence and the establishment of the Republic. Of the five generals holding command, the leader, Major-General John Sullivan, and Brigade-Commander James Clinton were born here of Irish parentage. Two of the other three, namely: General Edward Hand and General Wm. Maxwell, were born in Ireland. The fifth, General Enoch Poor, was a native of New Hampshire.

That there were many of Irish blood in the ranks with muskets on their shoulders, the rosters of each regiment will doubtless show. Among them was Timothy Murphy, who was one of the few of Lieutenant Boyd’s scouting party escaping capture by the Indians. He was styled by Colonel Hubbley, commander of one of the Pennsylvania regiments, in his diary, as a noted marksman and a great soldier. On his authority Murphy killed, during the campaign, thirty-three Indians. His name is, in consequence, a household word in Pennsylvania and New York. Among those of Boyd’s party killed or tortured to death were Lieut. Thomas Boyd, Corp. Michael Parker, John Conroy, William Faughey, James McElroy, Benjamin Curtin and Corporal Calahawn. Col. Thomas Proctor, who commanded the Pennsylvania artillery regiment, and Col. William Butler, of the same brigade, were both born in Ireland.

As a native of Ireland I am proud of the record here spread forth of the deeds of Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen; and as an adopted son of New Hampshire, I glory in the spirit of independence displayed by the people of that state from the very first, and believe that it is largely due to the liberal strain of Irish blood running in the veins of her sons. Her men were with Johnson at Crown Point, as they were with Stark at Bunker Hill, and Sullivan at Newtown. They never failed to go where duty called, and their service in the Civil War showed no degeneration, for the official records of the Union and Confederate armies give the Fifth New Hampshire credit for losing more men in action than any other infantry regiment in the Union army. Territorially, as well as in population, she does not cut a large figure to-day, but less than a century and a half ago, she sent as many men to Crown Point as the province of New York, and contributed nearly one quarter of the troops for Sullivan’s expedition, besides furnishing its commander.

She contributed more than her quota of men to the Continental army, one hundred thousand dollars more than her proportion of money, and possessed within her borders fewer Tories than did any one of the original thirteen colonies. It has often and truthfully been said, “New Hampshire is a good state to hail from.” She gave you here in New York one of your most distinguished governors, Gen. John A. Dix, who, when the shadow of secession hung like a cloud all over the country, penned the memorable sentence, “If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.” She sent to Massachusetts the only man, Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, who dared to execute the order; only he thought shooting too honorable and hanged the man Mumford, who dared to disobey it. The record of her sons for bravery and honorable service has been second to none. One of her regimental commanders, Henry Dearborn, who was with Sullivan in his campaign, became afterwards commander-in-chief of the United States army. Another, Maj.-Gen. John G. Foster, was one of the defenders of Sumter, and a gallant soldier of the Civil War. Still another was Maj.-Gen. Fitz John Porter, who, like General Dix, became a resident of New York. The _Kearsarge_, built of New Hampshire timber and manned mainly by New Hampshire tars, met the _Alabama_, and under the direction of executive officer Capt. James S. Thornton, the grandson of New Hampshire’s Irish-born signer of the Declaration of Independence, in a fair, open fight, sent the British-built and British-armed privateer to the bottom of the ocean.

In civil affairs, also, her sons have distinguished themselves. She sent to Massachusetts, Henry Wilson; to Maine, William Pitt Fessenden; to Iowa, James W. Grimes; to Michigan, Zachariah Chandler; and to Ohio, Salmon P. Chase. The latter was secretary of the treasury, and the others chairmen, respectively, during the Civil War, of the senate committees on military affairs, on finance and appropriations, on District of Columbia, and on committee on commerce. To represent herself during the same period, she sent to the United States senate John P. Hale and Daniel Clark. The former was chairman of the committee on naval affairs, the latter chairman of the committee on claims.

She contributed to New York, in addition to those named, Horace Greeley and Charles A. Dana. Of those here mentioned, John P. Hale, Daniel Clark, James W. Grimes and Horace Greeley were of Irish descent. Hale was the son of Mary O’Brien. Her father was Wm. O’Brien, the younger of the historic O’Brien brothers of Maine. While acting as second in command under his brother, Capt. John O’Brien, on the Hibernia ship of war during the Revolution, he was mortally wounded in an engagement with an English vessel, and died of his wounds at the age of twenty-two.

The reader of history to-day, if conversant with the events occurring in British and French America from the first settlement down to the outbreak of the Revolution, can see the wisdom of securing the friendship of the Six Nations. For a century they stood as a bulwark between the English and their northern rivals. Without their aid and with their enmity the former could not have prospered as they had; and, as a consequence, would not have been in condition to resist the unjust exactions of the home government. For this reason the names of Colonel Thomas Dongan and of Sir William Johnson ought to be held forever in remembrance in New York and in New England for what they had done in bringing this about. The ways of Providence are mysterious, and to mortals often beyond comprehension.

This powerful confederacy, for so many years the terror of the French, as it was the hope of the English settlements, outlived its usefulness; and its downfall was finally brought about by the men or the children of the men with whom it had been for so many years in alliance. As in the first instance, the union between it and the English had been effected mainly through the influence of two men of Irish birth, so in the end it was broken forever by an army led by a man of Irish parentage.

If these conclusions are correct, Thomas Dongan, Wm. Johnson O’Neill, and John Sullivan ought to be assigned honorable positions among the pioneers and builders of the United States of America.

FOUR STATE VICE-PRESIDENTS OF THE SOCIETY.

THE IRISH ELEMENT IN THE SECOND MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS IN THE RECENT WAR (WITH SPAIN).

BY REV. JOHN J. McCOY, P. R., CHICOPEE, MASS.

“What have ye brought to our Nation-building, Sons of the Gael? What is your burden or guerdon from old Innisfail? Here build we higher and deeper than men ever built before; And we raise no Shinar tower, but a temple forevermore.” —_John Boyle O’Reilly._

Just after the Parnell investigation in 1885, when the Irish Parliamentary party came out of the fires of ill will and fraud, and was crowned with the world’s credit, John Boyle O’Reilly said to a priest friend of mine, the Rev. Dr. O’Callaghan of Boston, “Father Denis, in the clubs of Boston to-night it is a glory to be an Irishman.”

What the hot-hearted O’Reilly said that happy night of exclusive and scholarly Boston may as truthfully be said now of the whole state from the Cape to the Berkshires. Men who most love the Bay state’s white flag, with its protecting shield and uplifted arm, are saying it is a glory in Massachusetts to-night to be an Irishman or an Irishman’s son; and they find their reason for this in the heroic showing of her citizen soldiers, who went out from a people that had not enervated under more than thirty years of softening peace, right into the zone of flame and blood at El Caney, San Juan, and Santiago, and bore themselves so gallantly there, and in the other fact that more than every second man in the Massachusetts contingent had the heart within him warmed by the red blood of the fighting Gael.

The Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers, though not entirely as is usually supposed of Irish blood, is yet so nearly so, that at home our people commonly speak of the splendid command, as “the Irish Ninth;” while the Second, which has won imperishable renown in Cuba, and has awakened the honest pride of every patriotic heart at home, in the valley of the Connecticut, upon the Berkshire hills, and along the quiet Quinsigamond, is spoken of by press and people as the ideal Massachusetts regiment, and as made up from the best blood of liberty-loving New England. This is true; and it is the best blood because most of it is Irish blood. Many men appear to think that a man to be of Irish stock must be an O’Sullivan, an O’Brien, a McCarthy or an O’Neill.

Five young men of my near neighborhood went to the war. Their names were Tobin, Nesbett, McCullough, Braziel and Judd. Three, Tobin, Braziel and Judd, were of Irish parents, but American born, and a few months before were boys in my parish school. The two others, McCullough and Nesbitt, were Protestant boys born in Ireland. Only one of the names would ordinarily be recognized as Irish. Thinking that what was true in this case might be in others, and that many of the men of the regiment might be of Irish blood, I sought for the facts, believing that the facts when known would make for the credit of our people. I sought the rosters of the companies, and asked the officers to mark the names of men of Irish blood, and from this excellent source have I the word which I say to-night.

In answer to a letter sent to the captains of companies, I received replies giving me the following figures:

Company A has 11, known to be of Irish blood, and then such names as Allison, Fay, Cardin and Young have not been counted in.

Company B has 33 men of Irish blood, and does not count Devine or Young. Company C has 9 men. Company D has 14 men. Company E has 6, and still we find such names as Doane, Leonard and Blake outside the count. Company F has 14 men.

Company G has 40 Irish Catholics, 2 Irish Protestants, 2 Italians, 3 Germans, 3 Scots, 2 Swedes, 1 Nova Scotian, 7 French-Canadians, and 17 of old Yankee stock.

Company H has 13 men. Company I, 24 officers and men. Company K has 12, and still we are not counting such names as Verrily, Kelley, Carr and Crehy.

Company L has 13, and outside of that we find Barnes, Carney, Kingston, Norton and Raymond.

Company M has 22, and beyond that 22 there is a Simmons, a Carey, Daniels, Graham, Manning, Riley and Ward—all good old Irish names.

The count I have given you is in most cases that of the captains of companies, as far as received, and is as close as hasty work can hope to be. I am satisfied that with more time and kindly aid of officers and men, I shall be able to make the roll exact and the number of men of Irish stock much increased.

We may note, too, that our count to-night is only of men Irish born or in the first American generation. Many of the best in the regiment have it farther back, as for instance the gallant colonel himself, who writes me, “My great-grandfather was Patrick Clark who came from Ireland.”

In the regiment was a young second lieutenant, whom the correspondents praised and the artists pictured, and who drew the eyes of Massachusetts to himself by his cool bravery and marvelous skill as a sharpshooter which he used in silencing the murderous Spaniards who fired from the trees at our wounded. A Spanish mauser ploughed through his shoulder, but he is alive and well, and to-day the gentlest and most unspoiled hero of the war is Lieut. Daniel Moynihan of Northampton.

“I myself am of Irish blood, and Second Lieut. Thomas F. Burke is of Irish blood also,” writes the city marshal of Springfield, Henry McDonald, who was captain of Company B.

Of Irish blood, too, is the captain of Company G, who was acting major in the dangerous time, John J. Leonard. So, too, is his soldierly and capable first lieutenant, William G. Hayes. So, too, the second lieutenant, Edward J. Leyden, and Sergeants Scully, Ward, Murphy and Gibbons.

After a long and intimate knowledge of the regiment, and a closer acquaintance with its _personnel_ than any other man could possess just now, its colonel, who is high sheriff of Hampden county and known for his conservativeness and thoughtfulness of speech, thus gives me his estimate, and writes it over his own hand: “If we go back for two generations, I think from one half to three fourths of the members of the Second Massachusetts Volunteers were of Irish blood.”

This regiment had in the war the gratuitous services of a chaplain whose name is a benediction to-day in the Connecticut valley, Father Fitzgerald, chaplain of the Twenty-second Infantry, U. S. A. He is an Irishman born, and may fittingly be spoken of in this connection, and the world will honor us as well as him. Every man of the regiment, Catholic and Protestant alike, loves him, and can scarcely meet a priest to-day without claiming kindly right to speak of him. The gist of the general love is in the words of an enthusiastic captain, who writes me in this manner: “The Rev. E. A. Fitzgerald, chaplain Twenty-second Infantry, U. S. A., was as truly chaplain of the First Brigade, Second Division of the Fifth Army Corps, comprising the Eighth and Twenty-second Regular Infantry and the Second Massachusetts Volunteers.”

Chaplain Fitzgerald had the respect of all the officers and men of the brigade for his earnest devotion to their interests and for his unflinching courage during the progress of the battles at El Caney and San Juan, where he confronted danger at every turn and amid shot and shell attended to the needs of the wounded. He won for himself a name unequaled in bravery by that of any other chaplain in the Santiago campaign. While he was not wounded, his clothing showed the effect of the mausers.

During the time of disease, a horror of war more trying than battle, he was unceasing in his labors for the sick, going from one end of the brigade to the other daily, and reeking with sweat during the heat of the day. His cheerful countenance and kindly disposition in his daily work brought comfort and true sunshine to many a drooping soldier irrespective of creed or race. Colonel Clark, Second Massachusetts Volunteers, says of him: “One of God’s noblemen,” and Adjutant Hall, Twenty-second Infantry, in speaking of him, said that he was the “salt of the earth.” The officers and men of the brigade are unstinted in his praise, and his name will ever be cherished with reverence, respect and good wishes by his comrades in the Santiago campaign, the rank and file of the unassuming volunteers of the Second Massachusetts. I am satisfied that a study of the men who fought on land and on the sea in the war with Spain, will be highly creditable to our people.

FOUR STATE VICE-PRESIDENTS.

THE “SCOTCH-IRISH” AND “ANGLO-SAXON” FALLACIES.

BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE, BOSTON, MASS.

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY:

A few weeks ago I attended a performance of Sheridan’s comedy, “The Rivals,” very ably interpreted by a new company of players.

One of them, an excellent performer, taking the part of Sir Lucius O’Trigger, interpolated a “gag,” as it is called in theatrical parlance, to the effect that modesty is a word which has no equivalent in the Irish language. It was an interpolation to make the unthinking laugh—but to make the judicious grieve.

For the Irishman is not immodest, not as the word is meant to imply—impudent. Thackeray, the shrewd judge of character, rather condemns the Irishman for his national bashfulness.

The Irishman, at home and abroad, has ever been shamefully apologetic for his race and himself. He, the proudest of mortals, is always depreciating his nation’s glory before the world.

The most successful of Irish soldiers, as we gauge success, was Wellington, a man of Irish birth, whose family had lived in Ireland for three hundred years. Yet, if we may believe biography, he always called himself an “Englishman.” If he with three hundred years of Irish ancestry behind him was English, is there, on all this continent, such a being as an “American,” since not many of us can call ourselves “natives” by much over one century of heritage?

Quite recently, in Boston, a wise and patriotic Irishman, though not a Home Ruler, said, in presenting his case before an American audience, that his family was not exactly “Irish,” since they had been in Ireland only six hundred years!

And the patriotic poet, Doctor Sigerson, of Dublin, talking with my dear lamented friend, the late Alfred Williams, himself a descendant of the great Roger Williams, of Rhode Island, remarked, incidentally, in regard to a mutual friend, that “there was an old feud between his family and mine—but we have agreed to forget it.”

The “feud” dated back to the Danish invasion—many centuries ago—when Doctor Sigerson’s ancestors fought against Brian Boru! I mention this incident merely to show that it is possible to go back—too far—in the path of genealogy.

Let us be content with reasonable research. If we can prove that St. Brendan was the first discoverer of America, and that a seaman named “Patrick Maguire” was the bow-oar who set the first foot on the strand of the New World, from the boat of Columbus—what of it? Any clumsy forger will come forward at once and declare that Brendan was a “Scotch-Irishman” and Maguire an “Anglo-Saxon,” as their names imply. For have they not demonstrated, to their own entire satisfaction, that St. Patrick was not only a Scot, but also a Calvinist—centuries ere Calvin was born? We can afford to ignore the fables of what is, to us, comparative antiquity.

The point that I wish to make is this: I concede willingly, and, I may say, gladly, that the founders of the great Irish-American societies in America, a century or a century and a half ago, were not all of the distinctively Irish race whose faith was Catholic; but of their nationality there was not the shadow of a doubt. They were Irish, and proud to call themselves such. They were not “Scotch-Irish,” nor “Anglo-Irish.”

If they belonged, for the most part, to the faith of Grattan and Tone and Emmet, does any true Irishman love their memory the less therefor? Not one! In all the history of this, our poor, crime-stained, unhappy world, there is no nation so free from the sin of persecution for conscience’s sake as poor, persecuted Catholic Ireland. Our national saints and martyrs have been Catholic and Protestant. We have never discriminated against any man because of his religious belief, but, rather, have been proud of following our leaders who loved Ireland first.

But we are jealous in claiming our own. We do not want any man to be called “Scotch-Irish” or “Anglo-Saxon,” because he did not happen to be of the same faith as Strongbow or Henry the Second, the Catholic invaders who first overran Ireland.

Emmet is ours as much as O’Connell; Parnell belongs to Ireland as much as Owen Roe. We do not discriminate between Andrew Jackson and Phil Sheridan when we glory in the deeds of Irish-Americans.

We have only one living thought at present. Our faces are set against any alliance with the hereditary enemy of Ireland and of America. That feeling is not Irish alone; it is American. It is born of experience. On our part, seven hundred years old. On the part of America, over one hundred years old. But is not the experience of one century as valuable as that of seven when we have to deal with real things? It ought to be more valuable, even as the injury of yesterday is more stinging than one of seven years ago.

The danger of an Anglo-American alliance is imminent. Its effect on Ireland is comparatively trivial. Its effect on America is immeasurably disastrous. By it we should forfeit the friendship of France, whose men and money made our freedom possible, and of Russia, whose timely aid saved us from disintegration during the Civil War. “Republics are ungrateful,” says the old adage. _This_ republic must prove, at least, one exception to the rule, if it be a rule.

The American, and especially the Irish-American, who would favor an alliance with England, would be unworthy of Heaven, unwelcome in Purgatory, and lonesome in Perdition.

THE IRISH NAME.

John Jerome Rooney, of New York, read the following beautiful and stirring poem: