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{{Mediawiki:Banner1Kindleoasis}}__NOTOC__[[File: Battle_of_Fredericksburg,_Dec_13,_1862.png|thumbnail|left|350px|Battle of Fredericksburg - Dec. 13, 1862]]
Whose blood was spilled December 13, 1862 on the battlefield in Fredericksburg, Virginia? During the American Civil War, the Battle of Fredericksburg was but one meeting ground of Irish immigrants from both the Union and Confederacy. Once fellow countrymen, these soldiers were forced to assume new perspectives on their identities amidst the chaos of war. The ability to consider themselves Irish immigrants vanished when they donned a blue or gray uniform. With the Battle of Fredericksburg as an example, where the predominantly Irish 24th Georgia regiment of the Confederate States of America (CSA) engaged the Irish Brigade of the Union Army in battle, ethnicity clashed with nationality.
With the departure of Mitchel and the support of the Catholic Church, Thomas Meagher departed from his position as a passive Southern sympathizer and embraced the role of outspoken advocate for the Union Army. Though not blind to the low wages, scarce jobs, and rampant racism, Meagher maintained his great appreciation toward the United States for being a refuge for his countrymen. He showed his appreciation when he did not hesitate to enlist in Company K of the 69th New York Volunteer Regiment. <ref>McCarthy, ''Green, Blue, and Grey'', 45.</ref> After the Union’s crushing defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia, the 69th returned to New York where Meagher spoke in order to bolster recruitment among the Irish. He urged his countrymen to “rise in defence of the flag,” that harbored them safely from the “poison of England’s supremacy.” <ref> D.P. Conyngham, ''The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns'', ed. Lawrence Frederick Kohl (1866; repr., New York: Fordham University Press, 1994), 49.</ref> While trying to enforce the sense of “Irishness”, both Meagher and Mitchel actually introduced a new nationality to their Irish followers, which emerged as the defining factor of identity when these men met in Fredericksburg.
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==The Battle of Fredericksburg==
Against the advice of his subordinates, General Ambrose Burnside, then commander of the Army of the Potomac, ordered his troops across the Rappahannock River and into Fredericksburg. The Confederates retreated across an open field behind the town and dug in atop a hill known as Marye’s Heights. Burnside then deployed a massive infantry assault to take the Heights; with the hope of proceeding southward to the Confederate capitol of Richmond. Hence, on December 13, 1862, the Irish soldiers of the Union came into direct conflict with Irish soldiers of the Confederacy.
Infantry regiments from New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania composed the Union’s famed Irish Brigade; commanded by the General Thomas F. Meagher. On the Confederate side, Brigadier General T.R.R. Cobb led a brigade that included the overwhelmingly Irish 24th Georgia Regiment. From their vantage point, the 24th had a clear view of the emerald battle flag emblazoned with the gold harp ̶ ̶ ̶ Ireland’s symbol ̶ ̶ ̶ of the 28th Massachusetts regiment that led the entire Irish Brigade into combat. The Brigade marched together across the open field at the base of the Heights and began the climb up a slope to a stone wall that concealed the men of Cobb’s Brigade; including the 24th Georgia. When they got to within “50 paces of this wall, Cobb’s solid brigade of Rebel infantry, said to have been 2,400 strong, suddenly sprang up from behind it,” and fired in unison directly into the oncoming Irish Brigade.<ref> William McCarter, ''My Life in the Irish Brigade: The Civil War Memoirs of Private William McCarter, 116th Pennsylvania Infantry'', ed. Kevin E. O’Brien (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 1996), 178.</ref> When Cobb’s men of the 24th Georgia arose to fire, so too did their battle flag, which was also adorned with the gold harp amid the stars and bars of the Confederacy.
Approximately 1,200 men of the Irish Brigade went into battle that December day; little more than half returned unscathed. The casualties of the Brigade, including killed, wounded, and missing, numbered 545. Fifty of that number represent the men who were killed on the field. <ref> ''The U.S. War Department, War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies'', 128 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1888), vol. 21, p. 129.</ref> McCarter recalled that, “every third man had fallen and, along some parts of the line, every second soldier had been killed or wounded.”<ref> McCarter, ''My Life'', 179.</ref> Union Captain D.P. Conyngham described the battle as a “wholesale slaughter of human beings.”<ref> Conyngham, ''The Irish Brigade'', 343.</ref>
[[File: Cobbtrr.jpg|thumbnail|175px|Brigadier General T.R.R. Cobb]]
From a nearby hillside, Confederate General Robert E. Lee watched the Brigade in action and claimed, “Never were men so brave.”<ref> Tucker, ''Irish Confederates'', 63.</ref> Private E.H. Sutton of the 24th Georgia remembered that after the Union sounded retreat, “Private James Williams was so overcome with emotion that he “leaped upon the top of the [stone] wall and gave three ringing cheers.”<ref>Tucker, 63.</ref> Confederate General George Pickett also witnessed the action at Fredericksburg and wrote in a letter to his wife the following day:
“Your Soldier’s heart almost stood still as he watched those sons of Erin fearlessly rush to their death. The brilliant assault on Marye’s Heights of their Irish Brigade was beyond description. Why, my darling, we forgot they were fighting us, and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our lines.”<ref>George E. Pickett and LaSalle Corbell Pickett, ''The Heart of a Soldier: As Revealed in the Intimate Letters of GenlGen. George E. Pickett '' (New York: S. Moyle, 1913), 66.</ref>
Neither Pickett nor Hutton was Irish; therefore, the Confederate cheers given for the men of the Brigade were given in recognition of the bravery that was displayed. Ethnicity did not play a part in the display of admiration as the combatants were no longer countrymen.
==Nationality vs. Ethnicity==
Upon realizing that the division that held Marye’s Heights was composed of several Irish regiments, Union Captain D.P. Conyngham remarked that the men of the Brigade were “pitted against their countrymen.” <ref> Conyngham, ''The Irish Brigade'', 337.</ref> This is an incorrect statement as one cannot simultaneously fight for and against the same country. Ethnicity, not nationality, was the common thread that linked the Irish soldiers of opposing armies, thereby making it impossible for enemy combatants to be considered fellow countrymen. The opposing soldiers shared an ethnic heritage and were, at a previous time, fellow countrymen; however, at the time of battle, the country that was home to the Irish soldiers of the 24th Georgia Regiment was the Confederate States of America just as the men who marched with Meagher were members of the United States of America. Soldiers such as William McCarter belonged to only one country at the moment they were battling Irish Confederates in Fredericksburg.
Private McCarter published a detailed account of the battle as seen through only his eyes. In the entirety of his memoirs, he never once mentioned the Irish ethnicity of the enemy. He spoke of both his fellow Union soldiers and those of the Confederacy as men who fought for “their country.”<ref> McCarter, ''My Life in the Irish Brigade'', 175.</ref> Irishmen like McCarter and Private Williams of the 24th Georgia were both born in Ireland and were at one time fellow countrymen. They were again upon their arrival in America. After Georgia seceded from the Union (January 19, 1861); however, Williams became a citizen of the Confederacy thus severing national ties with McCarter. Ethnically, nothing had changed, yet with the cultural and political influences to which these men were exposed upon enlistment into the army, each man began to adopt a new identity.
==Conclusion==
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*[[Why Was Vicksburg “The Gibraltar of the Confederacy?”]]
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