“The Sixth Alabama had an Irish company, the ‘Montgomery Grays.’ This company carried to Virginia 103 men. It is declared that but eleven of this number returned after the war, and not one of these eleven returned unscathed. I am not familiar with the history of the Mississippi troops and never met many of the men from that state.
“Of Louisiana, I recall that Wheat’s Tigers, the First Regiment of Louisiana Regulars (Gen. Gladden’s regiment); the First Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers and the Fourteenth Regiment Louisiana Volunteers were almost entirely composed of Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen. Nearly every regiment from that state had a fair sprinkling of the same blood. Even the famous Louisiana Zouaves and St. Paul’s Chasseurs, generally supposed to be entirely French, were more than one-third Irish. It always astonished me to see how accurately these Celts could obey an order given in French, especially when that order was ‘En avant’—i. e., ‘Forward.’ And did these gallant battalions furnish heroic soldiers? My dear sir, I could write a column on the subject.
“Shall I pick out one and tell you of him? Then, without effort, I select ‘Mike Nolan’—Gen. Mike Nolan. When I was a little boy around New Orleans, I used to collect bills for sugar at a small grocery, right opposite the Charity hospital in that city. The owner of the store was a young, blue-eyed, light-haired Irishman, named Mike Nolan. Mild and polite and friendly in his manners; and I am sure it is no shame to my foresight that at that time I did not recognize in him the to be best, bravest and grandest soldier I ever met.
“Nolan left New Orleans as a sergeant in one of the companies of the First Louisiana Volunteers; he quickly rose to a lieutenancy, then captain, lieutenant-colonel and colonel. He commanded his regiment with great bravery and ability. He was wounded at Sharpsburg, where he assumed command of his brigade upon the death of General Stark, who was killed in that battle. General Nolan’s commission as brigadier had not reached him when he was killed at Gettysburg.
“Full, full of glory is the history of the Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen in Louisiana, in every branch of life, in the press, in the professions, in commerce, in the church and in deeds of valor upon the battlefields of Mexico and the South.”
Gen. Wm. B. Bate, the able and distinguished senator from Tennessee, has furnished me with an important contribution with regard to the loyalty and gallantry of such Irishmen and Irish-Americans as were connected with the Confederate army.
To give the military career of such men would require a volume. There were no more loyal and gallant men in the Confederate army, both as soldiers and officers, and none was truer to our cause and stood by our little flag with its stars and bars and cross of St. Andrew, from the beginning to the ending, with more fidelity, pride and patriotism than did the Irishmen and Irish-Americans who were enlisted in the Confederate army.
The Irishman who won the most distinction on the Confederate side and gained the highest rank was Major-General Patrick R. Cleburne. He was formerly a private in the English army and when his connection with it ceased he came to this country and at the time of the breaking out of the war was a practising lawyer in Helena, Arkansas. He assisted in raising a regiment of Arkansas troops and became its colonel. His regiment was united with the Army of Tennessee, was at Bowling Green, Ky., in General Hardee’s command, under Gen. Albert Sidney Johnson, and went with it to Shiloh.
General Cleburne commanded a brigade that day composed principally of Tennesseeans, which fought in Hardee’s corps and which composed the front line of battle. General Bate’s regiment, the Second Tennessee Infantry, C. S. A., composed its extreme left. He was from that time on identified with the Army of Tennessee and its campaigns and battles. He was subsequently promoted and commanded what is known as Cleburne’s Division, was an active and efficient factor in the Army of Tennessee until he was killed in the charge on the Federal breastworks at Franklin, November 30, 1864.
Next to him in our army was Brigadier-General R. C. Tyler, an Irishman by birth and an American by adoption. Gen. Tyler was living in Memphis as a levee contractor when the war broke out and enlisted as a private, became quartermaster of his regiment, went with it into the battle of Belmont, its first engagement, and so distinguished himself that it was but a short time until he was made colonel, and on its consolidation with the Thirty-seventh he became colonel commanding the consolidation. The regiment was assigned to General Bate’s original brigade and Tyler was a part of it as colonel until after the battle of Chickamauga, in which he again distinguished himself and under the recommendation of General Bate he was made brigadier-general and put in command of his old brigade, Bate having been in the meanwhile promoted to a major-generalship.