The immortal Irishman
Subtitle: the Irish revolutionary who became an American hero
By: Timothy Egan
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780544272880
Subjects: Irish Americans; Generals; Governors; Revolutionaries; Officers; United States; United States. Army of the Potomac. Irish Brigade; Heroes; United States. Army; Prisoners; Biography; History
Description: "A dashing young orator during the Great Famine of the 1840s, in which a million of his Irish countrymen died, Thomas Francis Meagher led a failed uprising against British rule, for which he was banished to a Tasmanian prison colony. He escaped and six months later was heralded in the streets of New York--the revolutionary hero, back from the dead, at the dawn of the great Irish immigration to America. Meagher's rebirth in America included his leading the newly formed Irish Brigade from New York in many of the fiercest battles of the Civil War--Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg. Twice shot from his horse while leading charges, left for dead in the Virginia mud, Meagher's dream was that Irish-American troops, seasoned by war, would return to Ireland and liberate their homeland from British rule."--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-352) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Last day, July 1, 1867; title: Part I: To be Irish in Ireland. Under the bootheel ; The becoming ; Poetry in action ; Pitchfork Paddies ; The meanest beggar in the world; title: Part II: To be Irish in the Penal Colony. Island of the damned ; The traitor of Tasmania ; Flight; title: Part III: To be Irish in America. Home and away ; Identity ; The fever ; War ; First blood ; The call, the fall ; Summer of slaughter ; Reasons to live and die ; The Green and the Blues ; A brigade no more ; A second banishment ; New Ireland ; The remains of a life ; River without end ; Inquest for Ireland.