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== Irish Racism ==
Many southerners, immigrant and native alike, have held firm that the move towards secession and ultimately war was due to the South’s refusal to relinquish their states’ rights and succumb to an overbearing central government. Conversely, the Irish members of the northern Army were fighting ''solely'' for the preservation of the Union and to uphold the United States Constitution. 1863 challenged the commitment of most Irish immigrants while it enlightened and opened the minds of others.
[[File:69thflag.jpg|thumbnail|200px270px|Regimental flag of the 69th New York, Irish Brigade.]]
The casualties suffered at Antietam and Fredericksburg, coupled with the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation was more than some Irish Unionists were willing to tolerate. Many felt as though the Irish Brigade and other Irish regiments were being exploited and overused during the most dangerous battles. They were even more outraged with the Proclamation as they were adamant in their stance against fighting a war to free slaves. The last straw came in March 1863 when the Enrollment Act was passed. This conscription act differed from the South’s in that immigrants in the North were not excluded from the draft. Adding to the fury of northern Irishmen, most of whom were at the level of poverty, was the stipulation in the Enrollment Act that a draftee was allowed to pay a substitute to take his place. As most Irishmen barely had the means to feed their families, and the reports of the latest battles were grim, tempers flared and the cities of the North boiled over. The most infamous example of the explosion in the North is the New York Draft Riots. The hostilities, primarily perpetrated by the Irish, were directed at the draft office and a “colored” orphanage. During these three days in July, people were killed, offices were destroyed, and homes were looted. These hateful and destructive acts naturally reflected poorly on the Irish population as a whole thereby erasing the progress made by the heroic soldiers towards bringing respectability to Erin’s children.
[[File:New_York_Draft_Riots_-_Harpers_-_beating.jpg|thumbnail|250px300px|A sketch from ''Harper's'' depicting the 1863 Draft Riots in New York.]]
The Irish immigrants in the North began to rescind their support of the Union due to the events of 1863. The Irish Brigade was but a skeleton of what it was a year prior and the country as a whole was tiring of war. Two years earlier in Boston, the 9th Massachusetts regiment came into the city as a unit from what was then called Long Island, in Boston Harbor. The regiment had completed their training and were in the city to march on parade before heading back to the island to await orders. As reported in the Boston Pilot, an Irish Catholic newspaper, when the 9th was sailing out of port an American born bystander remarked, “There goes a load of Irish rubbish out of the city.”<ref>Christian G. Samito, ''Becoming American Under Fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the Politics of Citizenship during the Civil War Era'' (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), 105.</ref> Regardless of the wounds, deaths, deprivations, or disease endured by Irish immigrants, some nativists refused to see these men as anything but “rubbish.”
At nearly the same time the 9th Massachusetts was being called rubbish, Thomas Meagher was appealing to Irishmen in New York to support the Union cause. He passionately asserted that, “‘we could not hope to succeed in our effort to make Ireland a Republic without the moral and material aid of the liberty-loving citizens of these United States.’” This one statement made clear Meagher’s two primary motives in advocating for the perseverance of the Union: his devotion to the United States and his plans for Ireland’s future. Unlike those Irish who reacted with violence to the Emancipation Proclamation, Meagher’s intelligence prompted him to reconsider slavery. Although never a true supporter of the South’s “peculiar institution,” Meagher at one time was a passive supporter of the rights the southern states demanded. In an 1863 letter to his friend Patrick Guiney of the 9th Massachusetts, he described the Democratic Party, of which he was once a staunch member, as a “‘selfish and conscienceless faction.’” Later the same year, Meagher’s position on slavery was at last made clear when he exclaimed, “‘Thank God! That disgrace has been averted.”<ref>Paul R. Wylie, ''The Irish General: Thomas Francis Meagher'' (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 204-05.</ref> Meagher’s acceptance of slavery was due in part to his unwavering support of the Union and the Constitution. He was well aware of his status among the Irish community and used it to his full advantage when advocating for Union causes, especially those that were in the best interest of Ireland.
== Conclusion ==