Brigadier General Thomas F. Meagher

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By September 1862, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia were headed toward their historic clash at Antietam. On the bloodiest day in American history, Meagher, his aides and the regimental chaplains led the way as the Irish Brigade crossed Antietam Creek, then moved uphill. They calmly tore down a fence in the face of tremendous artillery fire. The Rebels retreated to a sunken road, where they poured fire into the Irish Brigade and the rest of II Corps. Meagher yelled, ‘Boys! Raise the colors and follow me!’

Five times, the men of the Irish Brigade charged the Confederate line at the so-called Bloody Lane, and five times they were repulsed. The color-bearers were easy targets, and eight men carrying the green flags were shot down at Antietam. In the face of withering fire, Meagher’s men halted on a little knoll 100 yards from the sunken road, with the Confederates directly in their line of fire. Running out of ammunition, the soldiers frantically searched the pockets of the dead and wounded for cartridges. One of Meagher’s aides was killed, and another had two horses shot from under him. In the thick of the battle, Meagher’s horse was also killed, and he was hurled to the ground unconscious. (At least one Federal officer claimed that Meagher was drunk and simply fell from his horse.) Although the general was not seriously hurt, early newspaper accounts of the battle reported that Meagher had been killed. Whatever the extent of his injuries, he had sufficiently recovered in time to arrange a truce with a Confederate officer the following day to retrieve the wounded.

The regiments were torn to pieces on the little knoll, and they finally went to the rear, the 500 men still on their feet marching proudly in formation. Divisional commander Maj. Gen. Israel Richardson saluted one regiment as it passed. ‘Bravo 88th, I shall never forget you!’ he cried.

After Antietam, President Abraham Lincoln again removed the highly popular McClellan from command of the Army of the Potomac. Legend has it that as McClellan passed in review of his troops, the impetuous Meagher ordered the famous green flags thrown down in front of the general in protest of McClellan’s dismissal. McClellan halted and somberly ordered the flags picked up before he would pass.

The 1,300 survivors of the Irish Brigade underwent their next trial by fire that December at Fredericksburg. En route, Meagher ordered his men to cross the Rappahannock and capture an isolated Confederate battery. The men of the Irish Brigade stormed across a ford in the river, routed the defenders and captured two guns within minutes. An admiring Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock remarked, ‘General Meagher, I have never seen anything so splendid.’

With Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside now in command, the Army of the Potomac endured weeks of cold and rain while the Confederates fortified their positions at Fredericksburg. Although an assault on the Confederate defenses seemed suicidal, Burnside persisted.

Three pontoon bridges were thrown across the river, and on December 12, 1862, the Irish Brigade and the rest of II Corps crossed the Rappahannock. Each man of the brigade wore an evergreen sprig in his cap as the brigade moved through the ruined town, clearing it of snipers.

From the Confederate position on Marye’s Heights, Maj. Gen. D.H. Hill muttered, ‘There are those damned green flags again.’ The green flags, in fact, were tattered beyond repair, all except for a new one carried by the 28th Massachusetts. (This flag was later found on the battlefield by a Confederate soldier of Irish ancestry. Shortly after the battle, the Confederate impulsively swam across the river to return the flag to Meagher.)

New green flags for the Irish Brigade had in fact been brought to Fredericksburg by several distinguished citizens from New York City. Wagonloads of food and drink had also been ordered for presentation with the flags, but the ensuing battle intervened.

On the morning of December 13, Meagher ordered the 69th New York to lead the brigade down Hanover Street toward the canal. The men anxiously watched as Maj. Gen. Samuel French’s division was cut down, and then it was their turn to face the fire. Under intense fire, they began pushing toward the very center of the Confederate defenses on Marye’s Heights. The Irish Brigade’s actions at Fredericksburg won its men the admiration of all who were present. Pushing uphill toward the center of the entrenched Confederate line, the brigade never wavered despite the murderous fire. The Confederates watching from the heights were particularly impressed. Lieutenant General James Longstreet thought the charge of the Irishmen ‘was the handsomest thing in the whole war.’ Robert E. Lee admiringly declared, ‘Never were men so brave.’ Pickett, who would make his own legendary charge within the year, thought ‘the brilliant assault….was beyond description….we forgot they were fighting us, and cheer after cheer at their fearlessness went up all along our line.’

Thomas F. Galwey, a Union soldier in French’s division, had a bird’s-eye view of the Irish Brigade’s charge: ‘They pass just to our left, poor fellows, poor, glorious fellows, shaking goodbye to us with their hats!’ Galwey saw the brigade ‘reach a point within a stone’s throw of the stone wall. No farther. They try to go beyond, but are slaughtered. Nothing could advance further and live. They lie down doggedly, determined to hold the ground they have already taken. There, away out in the fields to the front and left of us, we see them for an hour or so, lying in line close to that terrible stone wall.’ It was no use. The Confederate line was too strong, and little by little the Irishmen began crawling back down the hill.

The Irish Brigade had been shattered. By evening, only 250 men of the 1,300 who had charged up the hill were present and accounted for. Almost 500 men had been killed or wounded; one company was down to three men.

Despite the carnage, that night the new green flags were presented to the Irish Brigade. The survivors commandeered a shell-damaged building in Fredericksburg. Liquor flowed freely, large tables of food were set out, and Meagher topped the list of speakers. The party was so loud that Burnside’s headquarters heard the commotion on the far side of the river and ordered the festivities stopped before the Confederates resumed shelling.

Meagher’s reputation as a good host was further enhanced during March 1863, when he invited the new army commander, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, as well as his staff and most of the II Corps officers, to a gala St. Patrick’s Day banquet. Featured entertainment included a steeplechase, watched by 20,000 Federal soldiers, as well as footraces, wheelbarrow races, horse races, and a greased pig chase. One officer remembered that Meagher served ‘the strongest punch I ever tasted.’ Meagher himself overindulged and challenged his brigade surgeon to a duel, but their differences were apparently patched up by the next day.

Spring brought campaigning weather, and once again the Army of the Potomac, including the 520 surviving members of the Irish Brigade, crossed the Rappahannock and moved on Chancellorsville. On May 3, 1863, as Lee’s troops rolled up the Federal line, the Irish Brigade supported the 5th Maine Battery in trying to stem the Confederate advance. Thirty Rebel cannons pounded the six guns of the 5th Maine, destroying most of the caissons and killing the horses. Stubbornly retreating, the Irishmen saved the guns, dragging them backward by hand as their numbers were thinned even more.

A few days after the debacle at Chancellorsville, the impetuous Meagher made the worst mistake of his military career. Protesting the wasting away of what he called ‘this poor vestige of and relic of the Irish Brigade,’ Meagher resigned his command on May 6, 1863. He intended to return to New York and devote all of his time to raising a fresh brigade, even though his previous recruiting trips had been unsuccessful. He turned over command to Colonel Patrick Kelly and left the brigade on May 19.

Meagher returned to New York City, but his dream of raising a new unit was shattered by the July draft riots in the city, riots in which the Irish community played a conspicuous, disreputable part. With little else to do, Meagher lobbied for a new military command or the governorship of one of the new Western territories.

Eighteen long months passed before the Army found a place for Meagher. Finally, in the fall of 1864, he was sent south to the Department of the Cumberland, where he was handed the thankless task of making a fighting unit out of some 5,000 stragglers, convalescents and garrison troops. The general’s heart was not in his new command, however, and he did little to whip his men into shape. Meagher’s Provisional Division, described as ‘a mob of men in uniform,’ was shipped to New Bern, N.C., in January 1865. One witness described the men of the division as ‘ill treated and suffering, badly managed, shamefully deserted by drunken officers.’

It was at this point in his career that Meagher’s excessive drinking became so noticeable that the military could ignore it no longer. On February 5, 1865, Major Robert N. Scott delivered orders to Meagher and found the general so drunk that he could not understand them. Three weeks later Meagher was relieved of further duty, amid rumors of court-martial proceedings. As the Confederacy was driven to its knees, Meagher returned to New York. He resigned his commission on May 15, 1865.

In appreciation of his service in command of the Irish Brigade, the state of New York awarded Meagher a gold medal. His gaudy uniform abandoned in favor of civilian clothes, the disgraced Meagher walked in the Fourth of July parade in New York City along with the other members of the Irish Brigade.

With his military career ended in near disgrace, the silver-tongued Meagher began looking for civilian work, preferably a long way from New York. During his sojourn in New York City in 1863 and 1864, Meagher had managed to offend much of the local Irish community. He had implied that many Irish were involved in the deadly New York draft riots, and had accused the ‘obstinate herds’ of Irish Democrats of ‘gross stupidity’ and ‘the stoniest blindness.’ His military accomplishments were not enough to erase those harsh remarks.

Shortly after leaving the military, Meagher embarked on the last great adventure of his life. In response to a veritable flood of letters from the Irishman, President Andrew Johnson appointed Meagher to be the new secretary of Montana Territory.

Meagher, as usual, managed to involve himself in controversy almost from the beginning. He arrived in the raw gold-mining camps of Montana in September 1865 and immediately found himself the acting governor of Montana. For almost two years, the flamboyant Meagher cut a wide swath through Montana politics, alternately infuriating Democrats and Republicans alike.

True to form, Governor Meagher did his best to incite a war with the Sioux tribe. Seeking arms for the militia he had raised, Meagher traveled to Fort Benton to meet a Missouri River steamboat that was bringing cases of rifles. A friend, finding the general ill after several days’ travel, offered him a berth on board a docked steamboat.

Late that night, a watchman aboard the steamboat saw an indistinct white figure plummet from the upper decks of the boat. When he heard a splash in the water, he roused the crew. Searchers with lanterns checked both banks of the Missouri around Fort Benton, but no trace of the missing governor was ever found.

The incident that ended the life of the colorful, combative Irishman has been shrouded in mystery ever since. Some people theorized that Meagher had been drinking and had accidentally fallen off the boat. Others thought he had committed suicide, or that he had been murdered by his political enemies in Montana Territory. No matter, Thomas Francis Meagher had made his last exit from the world stage.

Despite a life of some accomplishment militarily and otherwise, Meagher never achieved the grand success he sought. One solid reminder of his achievements remains, however. On the front lawn of the Montana Capitol in Helena a bronzed statue of the fiery general sits on horseback, saber raised, ever ready to charge into battle.

This article was written by Gary Glynn and originally appeared in the March 2000 issue of America’s Civil War magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to America’s Civil War magazine today!

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