Annapolis, Md. Aug. 1 1863.
Captain William O’Shea, 42d N. Y. Volunteers,
Sir—Having reported to the Board of Officers for examination, you are informed that orders from the War Department require that you remain in hospital.
You are hereby directed to report in person to the surgeon, B. A. Vanderkieft, U. S. A., in charge U. S. A. general hospital, Division No. 1, Annapolis, Md., for admission and treatment therein. You will comply with all rules and regulations, governing inmates of the hospital, and the instructions given you.
J. S. M’Parlin.
Surgeon, U. S. A.
On the envelope in which I find those two preceding communications I find indorsed the words: “Capt. Billy O’ was killed a month after he wrote this.—Rossa.”
A few nights after the burial of Mrs. Corcoran I was at an entertainment that was at Colonel Corcoran’s house; many priests were at it, and many officers were in town on leave and on duty. John O’Mahony told me that Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher was in town the day before, and fixed upon a day that he and I would go out to his home in the Orange Mountains of New York to have a talk about how affairs were in Ireland. We fixed upon a day; Meagher was to meet us with a coach at the railroad station in the Orange Mountains. The appointed day came. On the ferry boat to Jersey City we met Captain Jack Gosson going out to see Meagher too. He was one of Meagher’s aides in the war. When we got to the Orange Mountains, Meagher and Mrs. Meagher were at the railroad station before us. We got into the carriage; the general took the whip and drove us to the mansion of his father-in-law, Mr. Townsend. After partaking of some refreshments we walked out into the orchard; birds of all kinds seemed to have their homes there and in the surrounding wood. A little humming bird, little bigger than a big bee, seemed to have its home in every tree. Meagher would go around the blackberry trees and whenever he’d see a large gubolach of a blackberry, he’d pluck it and bring it to me; he and Captain Gosson all the time laughingly reminding each other of the many strange incidents of battles, and of camp life, and of the many queer things officers and men would do.
O’Mahony whispered to me to entertain Captain Gosson for awhile, as he and Meagher were going to walk up the wood-path to have a private talk. Coming to New York that evening, O’Mahony told me it was for the purpose of initiating General Meagher into the Fenian Brotherhood that he did this, and that he did initiate him.
Meagher was a handsome make of a man that day. Somewhere, I should say, about five feet nine, or five feet ten inches in height, firmly straight and stoutly strong in proportion. When I saw General George B. McClellan some years after, it appeared to me as if he was physically proportioned somewhat like Thomas Francis Meagher.
At the dinner table that evening Meagher and O’Mahony got talking of the draft riots that were in New York the week before. I said I saw some of the riots; that I saw the crowd that hanged Colonel O’Brien, and saw a man put the muzzle of a pistol to my face, threatening to blow my brains out for lifting from the ground a man who was thrown down by the rioters. “You had a pretty narrow escape,” said Meagher.