Irish Brigade ( U . S . ) The Irish Brigade was an infantry brigade , consisting predominantly of Irish Americans , that served in the Union Army in the American Civil War . The designation of the first regiment in the brigade , the 69th New York Infantry , or the " Fighting 69th " , continued in later wars . The Irish Brigade was known in part for its famous war cry , the " faugh a ballagh " , which is an anglicization of the Irish phrase , " fág an bealach " , meaning " clear the way " . According to Fox ' s " Regimental Losses " , of all Union army brigades , only the 1st Vermont Brigade and Iron Brigade suffered more combat dead than the Irish Brigade during America ' s Civil War . Formation and subordinate regiments . The formation of an Irish Brigade was authorized by the Secretary of War Simon Cameron in September 1861 . The brigade originally consisted of the 63rd New York Infantry , the 69th New York Infantry , and the 88th New York Infantry . The three New York regiments were soon joined by a predominately " Yankee " regiment from Massachusetts , the 29th Massachusetts . The 29th was never fond of being brigaded with three Irish " Fenian " regiments from New York and soon after the Battle of Antietam the 29th was replaced by the 28th Massachusetts Infantry regiment , made up mostly of Irish Immigrants . Soon after that , the City of Philadelphia offered a regiment to the brigade and soon after the 116th Pennsylvania was added to the brigade , bringing the total number of regiments in the Irish Brigade to five . There were two core regiments of the Irish Brigade , the 69th and the 63rd . The 69th New York Volunteers , was largely made up of the pre - war 69th New York Militia , a unit which first gained notoriety prior to the Civil War , when Colonel Michael Corcoran refused an order to parade the regiment for the Prince of Wales during the latter ' s visit to New York City . The 63rd New York Volunteers , known as the " Third Irish " was composed mainly of the Irish in " the Old 9th " New York Militia and several hundred Irish recruited in Boston . The 63rd was organized by Lt Col Patrick Daniel Kelly and later commanded by Major then Colonel Richard C . Enright . American Civil War . Col . Corcoran was in the process of being court - martial ed when the Civil War erupted . Needing as many men at arms as quickly as possible , the charges were dropped and the Army rushed the 69th to Virginia . At the First Battle of Bull Run ( First Manassas ) , the regiment served under the command of Colonel William T . Sherman , and was one of the few Union regiments to retain cohesion after the defeat , despite the wounding and capture of Col . Corcoran by Confederate forces . The 69th served as the Army of the Potomac ' s rear guard during the disorganized retreat to the defenses of Washington . After Bull Run , Thomas Francis Meagher , the Captain of Company K , applied to have the 69th New York Volunteer Militia reorganized into Federal service as the core unit of a larger brigade composed predominantly of Irish immigrants . Meagher was promoted to brigadier general and designated the brigade ' s commander . Before the war , he was a leading agitator for Irish independence from Britain . A visible participant in the failed Rebellion of 1848 , he was afterward tried and sentenced to death ( commuted to life imprisonment in Australia , but he escaped to San Francisco CA ) . Gen . Meagher ' s battle sword , made by Tiffany & Co , is now on permanent exhibit at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park . Leaders of the Federal Government were reluctant to form ethnically based brigades , which would undermine the notion of a Union . However , by mid - 1861 the formation of an ethnically based , Irish brigade served two purposes for the North . First of all , it warned Britain ( which appeared to be favoring the Confederacy , or at least openly deliberating its entry into the conflict on their behalf ) that there could be Union - supported consequences in Ireland if Britain intervened ( most of the brigade ' s leadership were known Irish revolutionaries ) . Secondly , it served to solidify Irish support for the Union . Many Irish were divided between supporting the Confederate States in their struggles for independence or to preserve the Union , which gave the Irish a set of rights and freedoms under the Constitution but which they had to struggle to obtain . There were also concerns by some Irish about a flood of freed slaves migrating north and competing for the lowly jobs for which they already had to scrabble . An ethnically based brigade would thus solidify the support of the largest Catholic minority for the Union cause . Several officers were permitted to purchase and carry non - regulation model 1850 Staff and Field officer ' s swords bearing a large four - leaf clover pierced into the hand guard . Having their own paid Catholic chaplains within the brigade implied a social acceptance for Irish Catholics which had eluded them in the antebellum period . Their head chaplain was Fr . William Corby , CSC , a Holy Cross priest and future president of the University of Notre Dame . He became famous for his giving absolution to the troops of the Irish Brigade before the Battle of Gettysburg . The Irish Brigade distinguished itself from the rest of the Army of the Potomac by Meagher ' s insistence on arming it with Model 1842 smoothbore muskets , an obsolete weapon that was largely phased out during 1862 , because he wanted his men to be able to fire buck - and - ball shot ( a . 69 caliber musket ball with four smaller balls ) , which produced a shotgun effect in close - range combat and could not be used with rifles . The four original regiments carried Model 1842 muskets all through the AoP ' s campaigns and battles in 1862 - 63 , using buck - and - ball shot with deadly effect at Gettysburg during Pickett ' s Charge . The 29th Massachusetts ( which joined in October 1862 ) had Enfield rifles and was normally detailed for skirmishing duty . Meagher assumed his brigade would perform most fighting at close range where smoothbores were effective , and his officers generally agreed . The majority of the soldiers continued to use their Model 1842s through the Overland Campaign until the depleted outfit was temporarily broken up in June 1864 . The 116th Pennsylvania was separated from its fellow regiments and finally got Model 1861 Springfield rifles . Ordnance records also indicate that the New York regiments received the newer weapons as well . In any case , by 1864 , officers had at last realized the power of rifles and firing was now typically being done from distances of up to 200 yards . There are relatively few complaints on record from the enlisted men about their outdated muskets , although one veteran of the 88th New York recalled that " we were sometimes at a disadvantage because of the short range " , and that he had to pick up a discarded rifle from the field at Antietam to deal with Confederate skirmishers . Before the full five regiments of a typical brigade could be raised , the unit was called to combat . In March 1862 the brigade , composed of the 63rd , 69th , and 88th New York regiments , was assigned to Major General Edwin V . Sumner ' s division in the Army of the Potomac as the 2nd Brigade and shipped to the Virginia Peninsula . While the Army of the Potomac crept slowly toward Richmond , a fourth regiment joined the brigade : the 29th Massachusetts , a regiment formed mainly of Puritan descendants . Massachusetts had pledged to provide an Irish regiment , intending to send the 28th Massachusetts , but that Irish regiment was not complete when the Army of the Potomac went into action . Instead , the next available unit , the 29th , was sent . Despite their divergent backgrounds , the 29th Massachusetts and the rest of the brigade fought well together , earning plaudits for hard campaigning during the Seven Days Battles ; most notably at Savage ' s Station , Glendale , and Malvern Hill . After Malvern Hill , the Army of the Potomac languished at Harrison ' s Landing on the Peninsula and Meagher gained permission to recruit in New York to replenish the brigade ' s losses . While other units were transferred to northern Virginia during the summer of 1862 to fight under Gen . John Pope , the Irish Brigade remained on the Peninsula with Gen . George B . McClellan . After Pope ' s defeat at Second Battle of Bull Run ( Second Manassas ) , Gen . Robert E . Lee took the offensive , moving into Maryland . McClellan and the remainder of Army of the Potomac were rushed north . The brigade ' s new recruits , approximately a tenth the number that Meagher had hoped to raise , joined the unit at Tennallytown , Maryland , in time to march in pursuit of the Confederates . On September 17 , 1862 , the Union and Confederate armies met at Sharpsburg , Maryland , in the Battle of Antietam . Command confusion led to the disjointed use of the II Corps , and instead of supporting renewed assaults on the Confederate left at the West Woods , the Irish Brigade found itself facing the center of the Confederate line , entrenched in an old sunken farm road . The brigade again acted conspicuously , assaulting the road , referred to after the battle as " Bloody Lane " . Although unsuccessful , the brigade ' s attack gave supporting troops enough time to flank and break the Confederate position , at the cost of 60 % casualties for the Irish Brigade . The brigade suffered its most severe casualties in December at the Battle of Fredericksburg where its fighting force was reduced from over 1600 to 256 . The brigade was involved in the northern battleground at Fredericksburg where they assaulted the sunken road in front of Marye ' s Heights . Coincidentally , one of the regiments manning the sunken road defenses was a predominantly Irish Regiment commanded by Brigadier General Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb . Knowing that Cobb ' s men manned the wall , and that both Cobb ' s and Meagher ' s units contained members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood , an organization dedicated to gaining military experience in the United States , then freeing Ireland from Britain after the Civil War , Lee ordered reserves sent to the position . He need not have worried . Cobb ' s men helped devastate the Irish Brigade before the reinforcements could settle in place . It was at Fredericksburg that Lee allegedly referred to Meagher ' s regiment as the " Fighting 69th " . After the Battle of Fredericksburg , Gen . Meagher again requested to recruit the brigade back to strength . This time the request was denied . In May 1863 , the brigade sustained further casualties at the Battle of Chancellorsville , Meagher repeated his request to recruit replacements , was denied , and resigned his commission in protest . Meagher was replaced by Colonel Patrick Kelly . Leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg , the brigade recovered several hundred of its injured from Fredericksburg and was able to field nearly 600 men - in reality , barely at regimental size . At Gettysburg , the brigade distinguished itself in the Wheatfield under the command of Col . Kelly as the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Division ( Brigadier General John C . Caldwell ) of the II Corps ( Major General Winfield S . Hancock ) . The brigade has a monument on the Loop on the Gettysburg Battlefield . While continuing to serve with distinction , casualties continued to increase and by June 1864 the Irish Brigade had been reduced to regimental size , and its commander Richard Byrne killed . The US Army disbanded it and incorporated the remaining elements of the brigade into the 3rd and 4th Brigades of the 1st Division , II Corps . A Second Irish Brigade was reformed from the old Irish Brigade of the 63rd , 69th , and 88th New York , 116th Pennsylvania , and 28th Massachusetts Regiments as well as the addition of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery ( later replaced by the 4th New York Heavy Artillery in early 1865 ) . Modern history . The lineage of the Irish Brigade has been officially assigned to " Fighting 69th " of the New York National Guard , which is the only currently active military unit that formed part of it . The " Fighting 69th " fought in World War I as part of the Rainbow Division . For bravery displayed in Lorraine , Champagne - Marne , and Meuse - Argonne , the Medal of Honor was awarded to regiment members , including William Joseph Donovan and Richard O ' Neill . By the time World War II came , the Irish influence in the regiment had diminished somewhat , but the regiment served with distinction in the Pacific Theater as part of the 27th " New York " Infantry Division . Since 1907 , the Fighting 69th has been a unit of the New York National Guard . 1st Battalion , 69th Infantry served with distinction in Iraq from 2004 - 2005 . The unit fought in and around Baghdad , most notably securing Route Irish and the surrounding area of Baghdad suburbs and companies from it have since served in Afghanistan