The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-10-20
Only Man Who was a Senator
from Three States.
VICTORY OVER SToNEWALL JACKSON
That Feat Alone Entities Him to
Everlasting Fame.

'In the early days Of the nineteenth
century (from 1906 to 1920, there
roamed on the hills~of Tyrone an Irish
lad-wild as any hare that ever skirt
ed them-born amid wars and rumors
of wars, with love of liberty innate
in the Irish. While yet a boy he left
the home of his forefathers to seek
freedom where it existed, in Ameri-
ca. Ten years later he was making
laws with Lincoln and Douglas in the
Legislature of Illinois. Ten years lat
er he was on the Supreme Bench of IL
linois. For another ten years he was
in Mexico with Scott, Taylor, Wool,
Quitman,, Worth and in the Senate of
the United States with Webster, Cal
houn, Clay, Benton and other giants,
and seventeen years later he met and
defeated Stonwall Jackson.
Thus was epitomized by Gen. T. f.
Meagher the life Of Gen. Shields, at
one of the gatherings of the Irish Bri-
gade shortly after the close of the
war.
These milestones by decades cover
the ground very roughly, and entice
ohe to closer and more detailed view
of a man who, exiled from his native
land, rose to such eminence in the civil
and military annals Of his adopted
country.
Hon. William f. Condor, of Chica-
go, has gathered and published the
chief incidents of his career in
large and handsome volume Of green
and gold, profusely illustrated.
The closer the view you get Of Gen.
Shields the more you admire and re-
spect and love him-wise statesman,
Christian philosopher, brave soldier
that he was.
He came to this country in his young
manhood, we'll grounded in Catholic
faith and practice, with taste for
good books and reverence for the
liberty and equality proclaimed by the
Constitution of the United States.
This last he had imbibed from an un-
Gle who had been in this country dur
ing the War of Independence, and
who had returned to Ireland with a
bullet in his leg from the Battle of
New Orleans. During this uncle's
two years stay in Ireland, recovering
from his wound, he was young James
schoolmaster, and laid the foundations
of his military career.
Young James Shields followed his
uncle to this country, and as a lieuten
ant in volunteer corps in the Flor.
ida war his name first appears in the
history Of America. The war ended
and following the star Of empire, we
next meet him in Illinois, where he
studied law and where his knowledge
of the French language, his wit and
geniality and uprightness made him
popular, so that in 1885 he was elected
to the Legislature, and thus became
a colleague of Abraham Lincoln and
0Lepnen "A. douglas.
When he left the Legislature it was
to fill the office of Auditor for two
terms, where his unparalleled success
as q financier raised him SO in the
public estimation that in 1843 he was
appointed Justice Of the Supreme
Court of Illinois. Still upward and
onward was his career. He resigned
from the Supreme bench to accept
from President Polk the Commission
er Generalship of the Land Office at
Washington. While in this position
ne conceived the idea of encouraging
Immigrants from Ireland to settle in
colonies for mutual help and protection
on the great fertile lands of the West
ern States and Territories An idea
which he never gave up, though he
was not able, through lack of coon
Grafton. to follow it up as he wished.
While he was Land Commissioner
In Washington the Mexican war broke
out. He resigned and went to Mexico
in 1916 as a brigadier general of the
Illinois regiments. On April 10, 1S47,
Gen. Winfield Scott telegraphed to
Washington the news of the great vic
tory of Vera Cruez, ending with:
Brig. Gen. Shields, a commander
of activity, zeal and talent is, fear,
II not dead, mortally wounded"
But his wound did not prove mortal.
Though cannon grapeshot, an inch
and third in diameter, went through
his right lung and out near his spine
Inc skill and care Of an Irish physi-