Changes

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.