THE IRISH ELEMENT IN AMERICA.
BY MR. R. C. O’CONNOR OF SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
The Irish people have been coming to this country from the time of its earliest settlement. Many came involuntarily, having been deported hither by order of the Cromwell Government, and some historians assert that during the ten years succeeding the close of the Cromwellian war, in 1652, a hundred thousand young men and young women were shipped to the West Indies and to the colonies. Voluntary emigration, however, had not begun to any great extent before the opening of the 18th century. We have historical evidence, however, in support of the statement that the Irish came with the earliest settlers of the colonies.
Reverend William Elliott Griffis in his work, “Brave Little Holland and What She Taught Us,” says on page 208: “In the ‘Mayflower’ ... were one hundred and one men, women, boys and girls, as passengers, besides captain and crew. These were of English, Dutch, French and Irish ancestry and thus typical of our national stock.” We know from Hatten’s “Original Lists,” and other authorities, that Irish immigration to Virginia was in progress as far back as 1634–35. And Felt’s “Ecclesiastical History of New England” says that William Collins led a number of Irish refugees to Connecticut from the West Indies about the year 1640. Previous to the beginning of the 18th century Irish emigrants turned their faces towards Europe, where the young men entered the armies with the hope of some day returning to achieve the independence of their country. An idea can be formed of the extent of this emigration from a statement made by the Abbe Macgeoghan, who was chaplain to the Irish Brigade in France, who says that “the records of the War Office of France show that during the fifty years preceding the battle of Fontenoy, in 1745, over 450,000 Irishmen entered the service of that country alone.” When peace with England was declared in 1748 the Irish found, much to their disgust and contrary to their hopes and to the promises held out to them, that France had left them out of her reckoning and that their blood so lavishly shed for that country had been shed in vain, as far as any advantage to their native land was concerned. After that time the Irish ceased to emigrate to Europe to any great extent, and turned their faces to the great West, then opening up before the world, and since that time, now two hundred years ago, they have been coming in a steady stream to this country.
No statistics of the nationality of immigrants were kept by this Government until 1820, and we are kept in more or less doubt as to the exact number of our people who came here previous to that time. We have, however, historical evidence that this number was very large. Wilson in his “History of the American People,” speaking of the early years of the 18th century, says: “For several years after the first quarter of the new century had run out (that is, after 1725) immigration from the North of Ireland came crowding in twelve thousand strong to the year. In 1729 quite 5,000 of them entered Pennsylvania alone. From Pennsylvania they passed along the broad, inviting valley, southward, into the western part of Virginia.” Thomas Bond, British Consul at Philadelphia from 1787 to 1812, who is described as the most efficient of the British officials of the United States, writing to the Duke of Leeds, head of the English Foreign Office, in 1789, says: “The immigrants hither since the peace, my lord, that is since the conclusion of the war in 1783, have been much greater from Ireland than from all other parts of Europe. Of 25,716 passengers, redemptioners and servants imported since the peace into Pennsylvania, 1,893 only were Germans; the rest consisted of Irish and a very few Scotch. Of 2,167 already imported in the present year, 114 only were Germans; the rest were Irish.... I have not yet been able to obtain any account of the number of Irish passengers brought hither for any given series of years before the war, but from my own recollection I know the number was very great, and I have been told that in one year 6,000 landed at Philadelphia, Wilmington and Newcastle upon Delaware.”
Ramsay, the historian, writing in this same year (1789) says: “The colonies, which now form the United States, may be considered as Europe transplanted. Ireland, England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland and Italy furnished the original stock of the population, and have been supposed to contribute to it in the order named. For the last seventy or eighty years no nation has contributed so much to the population of America as Ireland.” [The emphasis is mine.]
This is significant and valuable testimony to our numbers in the years preceding the Revolution, and justifies the statements that have been made that the Irish element formed one-third of the population at the close of the colonial period. Doctor Lynch, Bishop of Charleston, South Carolina, says: “The Irish immigration almost took possession of the State. Irish family names abound in every rank and condition of life, and there are few natives of the State in whose veins there does not run more or less Irish blood.”
Sims’ “Life of General Marion” says: “The people of Williamsburg were sprung generally from Irish parentage. They inherited in common with all the descendants of the Irish in America a hearty detestation of the English name and authority. This feeling rendered them excellent patriots and daring soldiers wherever the British lion was the object of hostility.
“The most numerous name in the First Census of South Carolina is Murphy, there having been fifty distinct families of that name, although the forty-eight Kelly families gave them a close race. The Gill and McGill families run nip and tuck with the O’Neills and Nealls; there were thirty-four of the former to thirty-three of the latter. The O’Briens and O’Bryans ran the gauntlet of many changes. The Census enumerators failed to appreciate the significance of the regal prefix ‘O,’ so they wrote the name Obrient, Obriant, Bryan and Briant. There were fifty-three of these in South Carolina in 1790. The Celtic ‘Macs’ make a great showing. There are upwards of 1,000 of such families in all. When we consider that in 1790 the total number of free white males of 16 years of age and upward in South Carolina was only 35,766 we can readily understand that one thousand heads of families, with their wives and children, must have constituted a large percentage of the population. Among the ‘Macs’ are McCarts, McCarthys, McMahon, McClures, McMullens, McNeils, etc. Then there are forty-one distinct families of Bradleys, twenty-four Sullivans, twenty-eight Reynolds, twenty-three Connors and O’Connors, twenty-one Carrolls, etc.” (I have taken the foregoing from a very instructive article by Michael J. O’Brien in Vol. 8 of “The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society.”) The names are interesting as showing that the emigrants from Ireland to the colonies during the 18th century were not all from the North of Ireland, as is generally supposed.
But the Irish were even more distinguished, if not more numerous, in Virginia than in South Carolina. I will mention only a single family, that of John Preston, who was born in Ireland and came to Virginia in 1735. Dr. R. A. Brock in his “Virginia and Virginians” says: “Scarce another American family has numbered as many prominent and honored representatives as that of the yeoman founded Preston, with its collateral lines and alliances. It has furnished the national Government a Vice-President (Hon. John Cabell Breckenridge); has been represented in several of the executive departments and in both branches of Congress. It has given Virginia five governors—McDowell, Campbell, Preston and the two Floyds—and to Kentucky, Missouri and California, one each, in Governors Jacobs, B. Gratz Brown and Miller; Thomas Hart Benton, John J. Crittenden, William C. and William Ballard Preston, leading molders of public sentiment; the Breckenridges, Dr. Robert J. and William L., distinguished theologians of Kentucky; Professors Holmes, Venable and Cabell of the University of Virginia, besides other distinguished educators.” To this family also belonged Generals Wade Hampton, Albert Sydney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, John B. Floyd, John C. Breckenridge and John S. and William C. Preston.
The families of Charles Carroll of Maryland and John Sullivan of Massachusetts, with their collateral branches, became as distinguished, if not as numerous, as the Preston family.
I cannot dismiss this part of my subject without mentioning one other distinguished Irish immigrant, the renowned Dean of Derry, known later as Bishop Berkeley, the friend of Swift and the founder of the school of philosophy which bears his name. He was a native of Kilkenny. He came to America to found a college for the conversion and education of Indians. Before he returned to Ireland he gave his private library to Yale College, the most magnificent collection of books that had been brought to America down to that day. Our University Town across the Bay is named after him.
Let me now call attention briefly to the part which the Irish element played in the Revolution. Did they ally themselves with the patriots of the day and were their services in any degree commensurate with their numbers and their wealth? In regard to the numbers of Irish in the Revolutionary army, the following testimony should be considered conclusive:
In the British House of Commons’ report, fifth session, fourteenth Parliament, Vol. 13, page 303, the following report of an investigation of the causes of the defeat in the war with the colonies will be found. The investigation was held in 1779. Major General Robertson, who had served twenty-four years in America, was asked: “How are the Provincial Corps composed, mostly from native Americans or from emigrants from various nations from Europe?” He answered: “Some of the corps mostly of natives; others, I believe the greatest number, are enlisted from such people as can be got in the country and many of them may be emigrants. I remember General Lee telling me he believed half the rebel army were from Ireland.” In Vol. 13, British Commons’ Reports, page 431, Joseph Galloway, a native of Pennsylvania, speaker of the Assembly of the Colony for twelve years and a delegate to the first Continental Congress, who became a violent Tory in 1773, was examined for several days by members of the House of Commons. Among the questions asked was: “That part of the rebel army that enlisted in the service of Congress, were they chiefly composed of natives of America, or were the greater part of them English, Scotch, or Irish?” Galloway answered: “The names and places of their nativity being taken down I can answer the question with precision. There were scarcely one-fourth natives of America, one-half Irish, the other one-fourth English and Scotch.” So much for the rank and file.
Among those who distinguished themselves during the Revolution were: General John Sullivan, the son of an Irish teacher; O’Brien, who, with his sons, won the first naval battle of the Revolution, known as the “Lexington of the seas”; Montgomery, who, after capturing Fort St. John and Montreal, was killed at Quebec; General Knox, commander of the artillery in the American army, and who commanded the American troops when they marched into New York after the evacuation of the British; General Reed, Major General Stark, the hero of Bennington, General Walter Stewart, who was a colonel in the American army before he was 21; John Barry, “Father of the American Navy”; General Anthony Wayne, General George Clinton, General Stephen Moylan, General John Fitzgerald, General William Irvine, General Richard Butler, Generals Campbell, Cochran, McDowell, McCall, McCreary, Jasper, Graham, Pickens and many others. It has been officially ascertained that out of 131 of the most prominent officers in the war for American Independence twenty were of English ancestry, twenty-five of French, ten of German and Dutch, eight of Scotch, two of Polish, and eighty-four of Irish and Welsh.
But the Irish were not less conspicuous in commercial and industrial life during the Colonial period, and the assistance which they gave to Washington and his army during the darkest days of the long struggle for independence contributed materially to his final success. In 1780, when the finances of the nation were at their lowest ebb, when the patriot army encamped at Valley Forge had neither sufficient food nor clothing, when discontent among the troops, in consequence, almost bordered on mutiny, when Congress importuned by Washington was unable to comply with his repeated demands for supplies, the business men of Philadelphia raised 315,000 pounds sterling and gave it to Congress. Of this amount the “Friendly Sons of St. Patrick” contributed £103,000. This timely contribution saved the national cause from disaster.
Among the signers of the Declaration of Independence of Irish birth or blood were John Hancock, descended from a County Down family; James Smith, George Taylor, George Read, Thomas McKean, William Whipple, Edward Rutledge, Charles Carroll, Matthew Thornton, born in Ireland; Thomas Nelson, Thomas Lynch, Robert Treat Paine, whose real name was O’Neill, but his father, to save an estate, changed his name from O’Neill to Paine, his mother’s family name. Thomas Nelson was also descended from the O’Neills of Ulster. He succeeded Jefferson as Governor of Virginia, and commanded the State’s troops during Lafayette’s campaign against Cornwallis, down to the surrender of Yorktown.
From the foregoing it will be seen that the Irish element contributed their full share to the building of the nation, pledging their lives and their fortunes to the cause of liberty, standing faithfully by Washington in every crisis of the prolonged struggle until the promulgation of the Declaration of Independence heralded the birth of a new nation, which was sealed and confirmed by the glory of Yorktown.
After the independence of the country had been established the Irish still continued to come in ever increasing numbers. It was not, however, until the great famine of 1846–1848 that the Irish began to come to this country in large numbers. That fearful calamity, that within two years sent into famine graves over 1,250,000 of the population of Ireland, sent millions to seek a home in foreign countries. The great bulk of the emigration came to this country, and even of those who emigrated to Canada and other countries thousands subsequently found their way into the United States. Between the years 1821 and 1890 Ireland gave 3,781,253 emigrants to the United States, a number greater than the entire population of this country at the time of the Revolution. Ireland contributed more than two-fifths of all immigrants from 1821 to 1850, more than one-third from 1851 to 1860, and very nearly one-fifth from 1861 to 1870. From 1891 to 1900 it gave but little more than one-tenth. The wonder is that after the fearful drain of the previous half century any were left. So much for the original stock. Of the children born of foreign parents, according to the census of 1900, 4,981,047 were born of Irish fathers, and those born of Irish mothers, with fathers of other nationalities, numbered 236,627. The census of 1900 shows that Irishmen and their descendants in the first degree in that year numbered nearly 7,000,000 in round numbers. When you consider the figures which I have given, taken from the most reliable sources, is it an exaggeration to assert, as some do, that one-third of the population of the country is of Irish descent, especially when the fecundity of the race, which is not excelled by that of any other people, is taken into account. To write the history, therefore, of the Irish element in the United States is to write the history of the country. When we add to the Irish element the German element, which for the past twenty-five years has largely outnumbered the Irish, is it not amusing to hear certain Anglo-maniacs speak of this country as “Anglo-Saxon?”
The part which the Irish immigrants played in the war of 1812 and in the war of the rebellion was not less conspicuous than that which their countrymen played in the Revolution. They gave to the Union cause an army greater by many thousands than that by which Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Let me quote but two instances from many that could be given in which men of Irish blood rendered conspicuous services to the country.
For more than two years after the commencement of the rebellion the war was confined almost entirely to the Southern States. Soon after the opening of the campaign in 1863 Lee conceived the idea that he would change the theater of war by marching into Pennsylvania, defeat the Union army opposed to him, capture Washington and thus, perhaps, end the war and make secession an accomplished fact. The plan was cleverly thought out and to a man of Lee’s unquestioned military genius did not seem impossible of accomplishment. He therefore proceeded to put his plan into execution. With a force of 61,000 men he attacked Hooker, with an army of 105,000 men, at Chancellorsville and defeated him. Lincoln was in despair and preparations were made to evacuate Washington. Lee led his victorious army through the valley of Virginia, crossed the Potomac and entered Pennsylvania. The army of the Potomac retreated before him, keeping between the Confederates and the National Capital. On June 28 a new commander was given to the National army, Hooker was removed and General George G. Meade was appointed to succeed him. Meade was the grandson of George Meade, who was one of the founders of “The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick” in Philadelphia, twenty-seven of whom contributed £103,000 to Congress, to which I have already alluded. Three days after the armies came together again. On July 1, 1863, Lee attacked the Union forces on the heights of Gettysburg. For three days the awful conflict raged, each side knowing full well what the consequences of victory or defeat would be. After a battle almost unparalleled in human warfare, the army which Lee had whipped at Chancellorsville whipped him at Gettysburg, broke the back of the Confederacy, saved the National Capital and compelled Lee to recross the Potomac. Thus the descendant of an Irish emigrant saved the Nation from disaster, perhaps from dismemberment.
Once more, in 1864, Lee, hard pressed by the army under Grant, tried to create a diversion in favor of his army by sending General Jubal Early, the ablest of his cavalry generals, to surprise the national forces in camp at Cedar Creek, advance to the National Capital and thus compel the withdrawal of Grant’s army for the defense of Washington. With great quickness and secrecy he marched up the Shenandoah Valley, and on the morning of October 19th, under cover of a thick fog, which concealed his approach, he suddenly attacked the Union forces. Completely surprised, they hastily retreated and a great disaster threatened the army. The Eighth Corps was rolled up, the center gave way and soon the whole army was in rapid retreat. Sheridan had been in Washington, and was then in Winchester, twenty miles away, on his way to join his army, when he heard the firing. Rapidly riding toward the conflict, he found his army retreating in confusion. Raising his hat he shouted to his men, who were panic-stricken: “Face the other way, boys, face the other way; we are going back.” “Who is that?” a soldier asked of his comrade, for Sheridan is scarcely recognizable through the dust on his clothes and the foam on his black steed from hard riding. But there was no mistaking the manner of the man, and after closely scrutinizing the flying horseman, the comrade replies, “Little Phil, by G—!” and in his enthusiasm shouted, “Hurrah for Sheridan.” The enthusiasm spread, along the whole retreating line the shout went up, again and again repeated, and men who were flying in panic before the victorious army of Early, inspired with full confidence in that leader who had never lost a battle, reformed their lines and long before the close of that eventful day Sheridan was able to telegraph to Washington this characteristic despatch: “We have met the enemy under Early and have sent him whirling up the valley.”
Thus a second time was the National Capital saved by the genius and dash of the son of an Irishman.
Grant paid Sheridan the compliment of saying that he was the only man which the war developed capable of commanding a hundred thousand men under his own eye.
But it is not as soldiers alone that the Irish have won distinction; they have been conspicuous in every walk of life, in every department of human activity. They have filled with distinction the highest office in the gift of the American people, in giving to the Presidency such men as Andrew Jackson, who was the son of an Irish farmer; James Buchanan, the son of an Irish emigrant; James K. Polk, the grandson of Irish parents; Chester A. Arthur, the son of an Irish Episcopal clergyman; William McKinley, whose granduncle was executed by the British Government for participation in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Claims of Irish descent have also been made for Taylor, Johnson and Cleveland (see “The Puritan in Holland, England and America,” Vol. 2, p. 493). In the long roll of distinguished names of the Senate and House of Representatives none stand higher for eloquence and statesmanship than those who trace their ancestry to Ireland.
In journalism men of Irish blood have been among the leaders of those who have moulded public opinion. Hugh Gaine, a native of Ireland, began the publication of the “Mercury” in 1752; Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, a native of Wicklow, started the “Farmers’ Library” and later the “Fairhaven Gazette.” He was known as a “peppery, red-headed Irishman.” He was indicted by the United States Court for an article reflecting on President John Adams, and was fined $1,000 and imprisoned for three months. One of the most interesting characters in the early history of journalism in this country was John Burk, a native of Ireland, who published “The Time Piece” in New York. John Dunlap, a native of Strabane, was the first Congressional printer. I can only give the names of a few of those who were prominent as publishers during colonial times and in the early days of the Republic. John Binn, William B. Kenny, proprietor of the “New Jersey State Gazette,” the first daily paper in that State; Henry O’Reilly, editor of the “Patriot” and later of the “Rochester Daily Advertiser,” the first daily paper between the Hudson River and the Pacific Ocean. We have Fitz James O’Brien, Col. James Mulligan, Thomas Francis Meagher, soldier, orator and writer; Robert S. McKenzie, Thomas Kinsella of the “Brooklyn Eagle.” James Gordon Bennett, Scotch by birth, was the son of an Irish mother. The roster of employees on the staff of the “Herald” during his life reads like the roll call of a Fenian regiment. Horace Greeley, one of the greatest of newspapermen, was the son of Irish parents. He made the “Tribune” the most influential paper in the United States during the war, and for ten years thereafter was a power in National politics. I cannot close this brief mention of Irishmen in journalism without naming one whose writings stirred not only America but all Europe, J. A. MacGahan. He was largely instrumental in bringing about the Bulgarian war of 1875, which changed the geography of Europe. John Boyle O’Reilly, of the “Boston Pilot,” exercised a wide influence by his writings, as did also his successor, James Jeffrey Roche. Patrick Forde, of the “Irish World,” has been a power in journalism for more than a quarter of a century.
It is unnecessary to call attention to the part which the Irish have played in the ecclesiastical history of this country. We need only look around us to see what they are doing today. From the Prince of the Church, Cardinal Gibbons, down through a long line of illustrious Archbishops and Bishops, to the latest arrival from Carlow or All Hallows, all zealous workers in the vineyard of the Lord. And what a harvest they have gleaned! And what the Irish are doing today they have been doing from the beginning—zealous, eloquent, self-sacrificing, untiring in the discharge of their duty, giving ungrudgingly to God’s service the best that is in them.
We have no reason to hang our heads at the part which our people have played in the history of the United States. No element that enters into the cosmopolitan population of this country has contributed more in every quality that goes to make a great people than the Irish. We have given eloquence to the bar, dignity to the bench, learning and virtue to the pulpit, wisdom to the Senate, and glory to the sword. We were present at the birth of the Nation and sustained its infantile arms during the years of its struggle for liberty, sharing in the hardships of Valley Forge and in the glory of Yorktown. We fought with Jackson at New Orleans and with Perry in Lake Erie; stormed Chapultepec with Shields, rode from Winchester down the valley of Shenandoah with Sheridan; stormed Marye’s Heights with Meagher and his brigade, and later climbed the heights of San Juan with Buckey O’Neill and “Rafferty of ‘F’.” On every field the Irish marched to the battle-front side by side with the Puritan from New England, the Knickerbocker from New York, and the liberty-loving dweller of the rolling prairies of Iowa and Illinois. In the same deep grave they sleep “the silent sleep that knows no waking.” The snows of winter, like a winding sheet, lie coldly above them, and as each returning spring awakens into life and beauty the sleeping forces of nature, the green grass grows and the wild flowers bloom above their common grave.
I will close by quoting the following tributes to the Irish by men who were not of our race: Col. John Parke Custis, the adopted son of Washington, says: “Then honored be the old and good services of the sons of Erin in the war of Independence. Let the shamrock be entwined with the laurels of the Revolution; and truth and justice, guiding the pen of history, inscribe on the tablets of American remembrance: ‘Eternal gratitude to Irishmen.’”
Similar sentiments were expressed by the late Senator Bayard, in the Senate of the United States. “If,” said he, “the names of the men of Irish birth and of Irish blood who have dignified and decorated the annals of American history were to be erased from the record, how much of the glory of our country would be subtracted? In the list of American statesmen and patriots, theologians and poets, soldiers and sailors, priests and orators, what names shine with purer lustre or are mentioned with more respect than those of the men, past and present, we owe to Ireland. On that imperishable roll of honor, the Declaration of Independence, we find their names, and in the prolonged struggle that followed there was no battlefield from the St. Lawrence to the Savannah but was enriched with Irish blood shed in the cause of civil and religious liberty.”