The officers and men of the Irish Brigade were among the most unusual in the Union Army. A surprisingly large number had combat experience in the papal Brigade of St. Patrick and Austrian and British services. Several won the Congressional Medal of Honor during the war. A single company contained seven lawyers as privates. Reporters George Townsend found Meagher’s gold-bedecked staff to be “fox hunters…a class of Irish exquisites…good for a fight, card party or a hurdle jumping ­ but entirely too Quixotic for the sober requirement of Yankee warfare.”

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In early December 1861 the New York regiments took up pleasant winter quarters at Camp California, near Alexandria, Virginia, where they were assigned to General Sumner’s division of the Army of the Potomac. Christmas was fondly remembered by those who survived the war. Little John Flaherty entertained on the violin while his father livened the festivities with Irish tunes played on the warpipes. The canteen, which hardly ever seemed to contain water, was eagerly passed around. Said Private Bill Dooley: “It is as well to keep up our spirits by pouring spirits down, for sure, there’s no knowing where we’ll be this night twelve months.”

When major General Israel B. (”Greasy Dick”) Richardson took command of the 1st Division, Captain Jack Gosson, one of Meagher’s aides, decided that the old veteran’s first review of the Irish Brigade should be a memorable occasion. Accordingly, he preceded the general along the drawn-up lines of Irishmen, informing the waiting soldiers, “An what do you think of the brave old fellow, but he has sent to our camp three barrels of whisky, a barrel for each regiment, to treat the boys of the brigade; we ought to give him a thundering cheer when he comes along.” That they did, startling both Richardson and the army. Gosson’s fine Irish hand was recognized when no liquor was subsequently found in camp.

The chaplains of the brigade were also rather unusual. Chaplain Dillon succeeded in getting a large number of the 63d N.Y. to take the pledge against the use of alcohol.

A medal was distributed to all who did so. During the Peninsula Campaign this led to much scrambling for the whisky rations of those who were abstainers. Chaplain Ouellet was probably the most colorful. Born in Canada, he had a French accent that amused the soldiers. He was credited with coining two army phrases during the Seven Days battles. It seems that some of the men preferred coffee and breakfast to divine service after a fight or a hard march. At church services one day he shouted, “The good came here this morning to thank God for their deliverance from death, and the rest…were coffee-coolers and skedaddlers during our retreat.”

The brigade received its first blooding in the Peninsula Campaign. The Columbia and Ocean Queen ” about which there was plenty of ocean but not much queen,” deposited them at Ship Point, Virginia in the spring of 1862. There they occupied some abandoned Confederate huts filled with “graybacks” thoughtfully provided by their former host. The muddy condition of the Virginia roads added to their discomfort. Then a day at the races, “The Chickahominy Steeple-Chase,” was rudely interrupted by the Battle of Fair Oaks. A fierce bayonet charge and a sweeping fire earned the brigade the praise of army commander McClellan that day. At Gaines’s Mill they supported the hard-pressed Fitz John Porter. A vicious hand-to-hand struggle at Savage Station was repeated at Mavern Hill.

The attrition due to battle and sickness prompted Meagher to secure McClellan’s permission to gain new recruits in New York after the Seven Day Campaign. While there he found it necessary to dispel rumors that the Irish regiments were being sacrificed by “Black Republicans.” Then the brigade was particularly saddened by the death from malaria of a popular young staff officer, Lieutenant Temple Emmet, grandnephew of one of Ireland’s greatest martyrs, Robert Emmet.

Antietam was the next battle honor garnered by the brigade. It was committed in the Union center and had the dubious distinction of attacking the Confederates in the “Sunken Road.” With Meagher at their head, the cheering Irish moved against the waiting enemy. A rail fence was quickly torn away under enemy fire. The re-aligned brigade continued the attack when all of their flags were suddenly downed at once. A chagrined aide informed the watching McClellan, “The day is lost, general–the Irish fly.” “No, no their flags are up, they are charging.” Was the happy rejoinder. Sure enough a captain of the 69th New York gathered a fallen green flag with the gold harp and followed Meagher. As division commander Brigadier General Winfield Hancock then reported it:

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