On St. Patrick’s Day, we remember Irish contributions to American history. There were presidents (Kennedy and Reagan), authors and movie stars (F. Scott Fitzgerald and James Cagney) and many more.
One figure especially stands out. He was militantly proud of his Celtic heritage. Part hero, part scamp and a whole lot in between, his death could have been an “Unsolved Mysteries” episode.
This is the story of Thomas Francis Meagher, the Irishman’s Irishman.
He was born in 1823 in Waterford, Ireland (home of the famous crystal) where his father was mayor. Young Meagher had the gift of Blarney. His silver tongue moved and inspired listeners.
He joined Young Ireland, a nationalist organization, and helped found a group called the Irish Confederation. A failed uprising in 1848 landed him in a British prison, where he and several associates were sentenced to be hanged. Public outcry forced the British crown to grant the man clemency. They were instead ordered sent to “the other side of the world,” which meant Van Diemen’s Land – now known as Tasmania, Australia. Meagher responded by reinforcing his Irishness, proclaiming he would be known as “O’Meagher” from then on. (That O’ part was short-lived.)
Once Down Under, he promised authorities he wouldn’t try to escape without informing them first. He married a woman named Katherine Bennett, upsetting his associates because her father was a robber.
Less than a year later, with Katherine sick and far along in pregnancy, Meagher sent a note to officials that essentially said, “I’m outta here!” and escaped to the United States. Katherine joined him a few months later, and their infant son died at age four months after that. Pregnant and ill again, Meagher sent her to Ireland where Katherine had another son and quickly died. Relatives raised the boy Meagher never met.
Back in New York, he studied law and journalism and became a lecturer. He had two great passions: Irish independence and Thomas Francis Meagher, and he promoted both with equal vigor. In the late 1850s he visited Costa Rica to see if it might make a good colony for Irish exiles. (It didn’t, although his travel articles were published nationwide.) He courted a rich Protestant woman, causing a major uproar in her family. But true love won out: she converted to Catholicism and they married.
Meagher’s big moment arrived with the Civil War. He was made a brigadier general and recruited what became one of the hardest-fighting units of the entire war named (what else?) the Irish Brigade. It marched off in 1862 behind a Kelly green battlefield flag bearing the Harp of Erin.
Whenever it went into battle, the Irish Brigade meant business. It suffered 540 casualties at Antietam, where Meagher fell off his horse amid rumors he was drunk (allegations of overindulging dogged him throughout the war). Casualties were particularly appalling at Fredericksburg: of the 1,200 men sent into battle, only 280 were present the next morning. (Meagher remained in the rear with “a most painful ulcer of the knee joint.”)
Denied permission to raise reinforcements, he resigned his commission. But the army said no: Meagher was too valuable for recruiting Irish immigrants. He was sent west to command a non-Irish unit, but it didn’t work out.
After the war, Meagher was appointed secretary of Montana Territory, where he remained as controversial as ever. He became acting governor and tried to get the Republican executive and judicial branches and the Democratic legislative branches to get along. He united them alright – in fierce opposition to him!
On July 1, 1867 Meagher took a steamboat to Fort Benton to accept an arms shipment for the Montana Militia. Sometime that evening, he fell into the rushing Missouri River and disappeared. Searchers never found his body.
Some say it was an accident. Drinking claims resurfaced with some blaming the bottle. Conspiracy theorists still claim he was murdered by his political opponents. Only this much was certain: Thomas Francis Meagher’s life was over at age 43.
Was he a hero? A rascal? Both? Historians still debate it. But I challenge you to come up with a more interesting Irish-American figure this St. Patrick’s Day.
J. Mark Powell (@JMarkPowell) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a former broadcast journalist and government communicator. His weekly offbeat look at our forgotten past, “Holy Cow! History,” can be read at jmarkpowell.com.
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