The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865

On the eve of the Civil War, the Irish were one of America's largest ethnic groups, and approximately 150,000 fought for the Union. Analyzing letters and diaries written by soldiers and civilians; military, church, and diplomatic records; and community newspapers, Susannah Ural Bruce significantly expands the story of Irish-American Catholics in the Civil War, and reveals a complex picture of those who fought for the Union. While the population was diverse, many Irish Americans had dual loyalties to the U.S. and Ireland, which influenced their decisions to volunteer, fight, or end their military service. When the Union cause supported their interests in Ireland and America, large numbers of Irish Americans enlisted. However, as the war progressed, the Emancipation Proclamation, federal draft, and sharp rise in casualties caused Irish Americans to question—and sometimes abandon—the war effort because they viewed such changes as detrimental to their families and futures in America and Ireland. By recognizing these competing and often fluid loyalties, The Harp and the Eagle sheds new light on the relationship between Irish-American volunteers and the Union Army, and how the Irish made sense of both the Civil War and their loyalty to the United States.

Table of Contents:
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1 "An Irishman Will Not Get to Live in This Country": The Irish in America, 1700-18602 "Remember Your Country and Keep Up Its Credit": Volunteering for Ireland and America 3 "We Are Slaughtered Like Sheep, and No Result But Defeat": The Decline of Irish-American Support for the War in 1862 4 "The Irish Spirit for the War Is Dead! Absolutely Dead!": Battles Raging in the Field and at Home, 1862-1863 5 "Hordes of Celts and Rebel Sympathizers": The Decline and Consequence of Irish-American Support for the War 6 "Father Was a Soldier of the Union": Irish Veterans and the Creation of an Irish-American Identity Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

About the Author :
Susannah J. Ural is Associate Professor of History at the University of Southern Mississippi and a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of War and Society. She is the author of The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861-1865 (NYU Press, 2006).

Review :
"Anyone serious about their Irish-American history will have to get The Harp and the Eagle" --Irish Echo"Professor Susannah Ural Bruce's remarkable - and highly readable - study explores the complex political and historical motives that sent 150,000 Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. For the majority of Irish soldiers the cause of the union was inextricably linked to the cause of Irish independence and Bruce's wide ranging study paints a complex and evocative picture of the network of alliances and experiences that animated Irish participation in the war effort. Recommended." --Irish Voice "Bruce's well-researched first book offers the only broad study of Irish Catholic volunteers in the Union Army during the Civil War."-Choice "Growing acknowledgement of the transatlantic nature of the Irish in America and Ireland is the leitmotif of this well-documented and illuminating study of the Irish participation in the Union army during the American Civil War...This valuable book joins the increasing list of other studies that help set the record straight about the Irish in American historiography." -American Historical Review "Bruce explores with astute insight the complex web of political bonds and personal motivations that sent thousands of Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. Her smooth blending of social, religious, political, and military history makes clear that the comprehensive contribution of Irish Catholic Union soldiers in the Civil War deserves the broad and nuanced appreciation she presents." --Carol Reardon, author of Pickett's Charge in History and Memory"With remarkable sensitivity and acuity Bruce goes digging among the personal and public accounts of the Irish soldiers in the Union army and presents these soldiers, and their families and communities, on their own terms so that they emerge as real people conflicted and changed by the demands of war and the obligations of 'community.' The result is a book of immediate interest." --Randall M. Miller, author of Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments "Through wide-ranging research, Susannah Ural Bruce moves us closer than ever before to a full understanding of the real experiences, in all their glory and horror, of ordinary Irish immigrant soldiers and their transatlantic communities and families during the American Civil War." --Kerby A. Miller, author of Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America"A fine overview of the Irish participation in the Union War effort. Bruce describes how the Irish contested the memory of their participation in the conflict thereby highlighting the continued importance of the War to the Irish in the North far beyond 1865." --David T. Gleeson, author of The Irish in the South, 1815-1877