The Irish and the start of the American Civil War-A Short Thread. The conflict began today in 1861, when Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. Within the Fort's walls, there were more Irish-born than American-born soldiers. 1/9 #IrishDiaspora
Within the Fort, Captain Abner Doubleday is regarded as the man who gave the command to return fire- the first U.S. shot of the war. Galwegian Private James Gibbons (below) may well have served that gun. Years later he would claim to be the man who physically fired that shot. 2/9
The Confederates had opened fire due to the imminent arrival at Fort Sumter of provisioning U.S. vessels. Many of those ship crews were also Irish-born. Dubliner Stephen Rowan held a key role during the operation, as Commander of the sloop-of-war USS Pawnee. 3/9
As news of events at Sumter reached Ireland, the ramifications were quickly grasped. The Cork Examiner predicted that "the lives of her (Ireland's) exiled children will be offered in thousands" and "many a fireside will be filled with mourning as each American mail arrives." 4/9
Fort Sumter surrendered without loss of life. But as her garrison fired a 100-gun salute at the lowering of the Stars & Stripes, an accidental explosion rocked one of the guns, sending her crew flying into the air. Of that crew, all but one had been born in Ireland. 5/9
Two of the men were mortally wounded. The first to die was Daniel Hough, a former farmer from Co. Tipperary. The second was Edward Gallwey, a former clerk from Greenpark, Skibbereen, Co. Cork. They were the first U.S. soldiers to be killed in the American Civil War. 6/9
It would not be the Gallwey family's last sacrifice during the conflict. An 1863 Cork Examiner Death Notification (below) brought the news that Edward's brother Andrew had fallen in the fighting at Port Hudson, Louisiana. He is buried in Baton Rouge. 7/9
The Cork Examiner's 1861 prediction would prove remarkably prescient. In the years that followed, some 180,000 Irish-born men and another c. 70,000 sons of Irish emigrants would enlist in the Union military. Tens of thousands of them would die in service to the United States. 8/9
Just as the Irish were there at the first, they were there at the last. Four years after Sumter, on the morning that Robert E. Lee surrendered, Tom Smyth from Ballyhooly, Co. Cork, died of his wounds in Virginia- becoming the last Union General killed during the Civil War. 9/9
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