The credit due Ireland for them, as well as for many others who have distinguished themselves here in years gone by, has not always been given. Our duty, as members of the American-Irish Historical Society, will be to right this great wrong and never cease our efforts until the errors of latter day historians, so far as they relate to the Irish in America, are corrected. This expedition against the Six Nations is in itself a great illustration of the prominent part taken by men of Irish birth or parentage in the War for Independence and the establishment of the Republic. Of the five generals holding command, the leader, Major-General John Sullivan, and Brigade-Commander James Clinton were born here of Irish parentage. Two of the other three, namely: General Edward Hand and General Wm. Maxwell, were born in Ireland. The fifth, General Enoch Poor, was a native of New Hampshire.
That there were many of Irish blood in the ranks with muskets on their shoulders, the rosters of each regiment will doubtless show. Among them was Timothy Murphy, who was one of the few of Lieutenant Boyd’s scouting party escaping capture by the Indians. He was styled by Colonel Hubbley, commander of one of the Pennsylvania regiments, in his diary, as a noted marksman and a great soldier. On his authority Murphy killed, during the campaign, thirty-three Indians. His name is, in consequence, a household word in Pennsylvania and New York. Among those of Boyd’s party killed or tortured to death were Lieut. Thomas Boyd, Corp. Michael Parker, John Conroy, William Faughey, James McElroy, Benjamin Curtin and Corporal Calahawn. Col. Thomas Proctor, who commanded the Pennsylvania artillery regiment, and Col. William Butler, of the same brigade, were both born in Ireland.
As a native of Ireland I am proud of the record here spread forth of the deeds of Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen; and as an adopted son of New Hampshire, I glory in the spirit of independence displayed by the people of that state from the very first, and believe that it is largely due to the liberal strain of Irish blood running in the veins of her sons. Her men were with Johnson at Crown Point, as they were with Stark at Bunker Hill, and Sullivan at Newtown. They never failed to go where duty called, and their service in the Civil War showed no degeneration, for the official records of the Union and Confederate armies give the Fifth New Hampshire credit for losing more men in action than any other infantry regiment in the Union army. Territorially, as well as in population, she does not cut a large figure to-day, but less than a century and a half ago, she sent as many men to Crown Point as the province of New York, and contributed nearly one quarter of the troops for Sullivan’s expedition, besides furnishing its commander.
She contributed more than her quota of men to the Continental army, one hundred thousand dollars more than her proportion of money, and possessed within her borders fewer Tories than did any one of the original thirteen colonies. It has often and truthfully been said, “New Hampshire is a good state to hail from.” She gave you here in New York one of your most distinguished governors, Gen. John A. Dix, who, when the shadow of secession hung like a cloud all over the country, penned the memorable sentence, “If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.” She sent to Massachusetts the only man, Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, who dared to execute the order; only he thought shooting too honorable and hanged the man Mumford, who dared to disobey it. The record of her sons for bravery and honorable service has been second to none. One of her regimental commanders, Henry Dearborn, who was with Sullivan in his campaign, became afterwards commander-in-chief of the United States army. Another, Maj.-Gen. John G. Foster, was one of the defenders of Sumter, and a gallant soldier of the Civil War. Still another was Maj.-Gen. Fitz John Porter, who, like General Dix, became a resident of New York. The Kearsarge, built of New Hampshire timber and manned mainly by New Hampshire tars, met the Alabama, and under the direction of executive officer Capt. James S. Thornton, the grandson of New Hampshire’s Irish-born signer of the Declaration of Independence, in a fair, open fight, sent the British-built and British-armed privateer to the bottom of the ocean.
In civil affairs, also, her sons have distinguished themselves. She sent to Massachusetts, Henry Wilson; to Maine, William Pitt Fessenden; to Iowa, James W. Grimes; to Michigan, Zachariah Chandler; and to Ohio, Salmon P. Chase. The latter was secretary of the treasury, and the others chairmen, respectively, during the Civil War, of the senate committees on military affairs, on finance and appropriations, on District of Columbia, and on committee on commerce. To represent herself during the same period, she sent to the United States senate John P. Hale and Daniel Clark. The former was chairman of the committee on naval affairs, the latter chairman of the committee on claims.
She contributed to New York, in addition to those named, Horace Greeley and Charles A. Dana. Of those here mentioned, John P. Hale, Daniel Clark, James W. Grimes and Horace Greeley were of Irish descent. Hale was the son of Mary O’Brien. Her father was Wm. O’Brien, the younger of the historic O’Brien brothers of Maine. While acting as second in command under his brother, Capt. John O’Brien, on the Hibernia ship of war during the Revolution, he was mortally wounded in an engagement with an English vessel, and died of his wounds at the age of twenty-two.
The reader of history to-day, if conversant with the events occurring in British and French America from the first settlement down to the outbreak of the Revolution, can see the wisdom of securing the friendship of the Six Nations. For a century they stood as a bulwark between the English and their northern rivals. Without their aid and with their enmity the former could not have prospered as they had; and, as a consequence, would not have been in condition to resist the unjust exactions of the home government. For this reason the names of Colonel Thomas Dongan and of Sir William Johnson ought to be held forever in remembrance in New York and in New England for what they had done in bringing this about. The ways of Providence are mysterious, and to mortals often beyond comprehension.
This powerful confederacy, for so many years the terror of the French, as it was the hope of the English settlements, outlived its usefulness; and its downfall was finally brought about by the men or the children of the men with whom it had been for so many years in alliance. As in the first instance, the union between it and the English had been effected mainly through the influence of two men of Irish birth, so in the end it was broken forever by an army led by a man of Irish parentage.
If these conclusions are correct, Thomas Dongan, Wm. Johnson O’Neill, and John Sullivan ought to be assigned honorable positions among the pioneers and builders of the United States of America.
