The Story of the Harp and Lion: fighting for the Red White and Blue

The story of the United States is a story of its people, from Hawaii to Maine to Puerta Rico. It is also a country of immigrants. One of its accomplishments that makes the US unique is its history of being a nation that immigrants founded. Yet it is undeniable that some groups were better received than others, given the title of citizenship easier than others, and those negative chapters of US history are repeated or forgotten only to be remembered when a holiday suits them. Immigration is defined as “the process of coming to live permanently in a different country from the one a person or group was born in.”1 In contrast, citizenship is defined as, a “membership in a community or the quality of an individual's response to membership in a community.”2 In the United States, these two words are synonymous with its identity and history, from its indigenous peoples to religious and political outcasts to downtrodden folk from all over the world trying to make a new life for themselves or at least try to rebuild what they lost in their home country. As the United States entered the 19th century, it became a powerhouse of economic development -- from cotton, rice, indigo in the South, textiles, timber and luxuries in the North and East, and gold and silver in the West. This drew millions to the country to make their fortune or to help others increase their fortunes. In the 1800’s, no two groups were more at the center of the mass migration as Irish- and African-Americans. The events of 19th century would define both for years to come because, during this time, their rights to be called American citizens would encounter some of the greatest challenges. In this paper, I compare the histories of 1 Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary staff, Immigration, Oxford University Press, 2021. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/immigration 2 Merriam Webster staff, Citizenship, Merriam Webster,2021, https://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/citizenship Kenyon 3 the African-American and Irish American communities from the 1840s through the 1860s. I demonstrate important parallels, namely their respective struggles such as Nat Turner's Rebellion, the Potato Famine and the Civil War. As well as their treatment as clearly unequal and discriminated-against members of this nation. The progress made by both African and Irish Americans was spearheaded by highly visible national leaders -- Frederick Douglas and Archbishop John Hughes -- who articulated hopeful visions and clear demands for their rights and equity of their communities. That would result in huge gains for both in regards to becoming US citizens. During the US Civil War, both African Americans and Irish Americans were able to demonstrate their commitment and loyalty as Americans and subsequently leverage their contributions on the battlefield to position their communities as deserving of equal rights as Americans. Some believe that nothing was changed from their actions in The Civil War, but that’s simply not true. Given the horror of the Jim Crow Era and stubborn disdain for immigrants, especially for Catholics, that followed the war, it is understandable to believe that little progress was made, to discount their contributions for a Union victory in The Civil War. For African Americans, their story starts well before the founding of their country; in the year 1619, the first Africans arrived in what is today the state of Virginia as slaves to work the fields for the soon-to-be-explosive tobacco and cotton industries. This prosperity would only continue to boom after the American Revolution. Unlike the Irish or any other group in the United States, discrimination against Africans was both socially practiced and codified in law. One of the earliest examples was the “Three-Fifths Compromise,” by which each Black person would count as three-fifths of a white person when “determining congressional representation for each state by population. As each state’s number of Kenyon 4 electors in the Electoral College was equal to its number of representatives in Congress.” 3 This was not intended to help Africans at all; it was a way for Southern states to get and maintain more seats in the House of Representatives. Counting African Americans, free or enslaved, as sixty percent of a white person was only for political gain, not for any altruistic reasons. The next piece of slave legislation, “The 1807 Act,” was meant “to prohibit the importation of slaves in any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States, from and after the first day of January [1808]."4 This law did not end slavery or even slow it down, as one might have hoped. Smuggling slaves as well as breeding them became more profitable, all to keep up with ever-growing demand for cotton, rice, indigo and tobacco in the southern United States. Slavery was there to stay in southern states, but several key events in the next few decades would turn the practice of slavery into a key political and military issue. While that was happening, another group was in the process of making its presence felt for all of America to feel: the arrival of Irish immigrants. To begin, the Irish had been immigrating to the US since the country was still a British colony, though it is important to note which kind of Irish. Ireland has two main religious groups. Most Irish are Roman Catholic, and a smaller number are Protestant (mostly Anglicans and Presbyterians). However, the Protestants who shared the same region as the King of England were mostly from the northern province of Ulster. They were given land and more rights than the 3Pruitt, Sarah, The History of the Electoral College Debate, History Channel, 2020. https://www.history.com/news/the-history-of-the-electoral-college-debate 4Act of Prohibiting Slaves 1807, 1807, General Records of the United States Government https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/act-prohibit-importation-slaves Kenyon 5 Irish Catholics. This was repeated in the colonies. Most if not all land-owning Irish colonists were Protestant, especially in the southern United States. Most Irish Catholics settled in New York and Boston. These differences would sleepwalk for years because of the small number of Irish Immigrants. It was not until the great Irish Migration of the 1850’s where this centuries of tensions between Protestants and Catholics found their way into United States cities and verbal attacks often led to full-on battles in the streets with sometimes the military being needed to quell the violence. Anti-Catholicism was not an American invention; it had been brought over from England. Most of this disdain is explained in this fashion: “Central to this form of anti-Catholicism was a perception of the Catholic Church as an extra-territorial power aiming to achieve worldwide political supremacy, both as an end in itself, and as a means to the achievement of its ultimate religious ends. Such ambitions were sometimes attributed more particularly to specific forces within the church, especially the papacy and the Jesuits.” 5 Though this seems like a wedge between Catholics and the Catholic Church, it would not be realized as divisive, as the Irish were heavily dependent on the church for organization, education and leadership. As the United States grew in population, it began to attract more people with varied ideas about who they were as individuals and who they were as members of the United States. Some gained freedom by simply walking off a ship while some had to fight and run to attain that status or die trying. As an example, on Sunday, August 21, 1831, Nat Turner met in the woods right outside his former master’s plantation with a small band of co-conspirators and made plans to kill slave 5 Wolffe, John “A Comparative Historical Categorization of Anti- Catholicism.” Journal of Religious History 39, . 2015, 183. https://web-p-ebscohost-com.libproxy.uccs.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=c6b3090f-8172- 4a0a-806e-9e7b641d35ce%40redis Kenyon 6 owners, seize weapons, and make a new home for themselves in the state of Virginia. Although brief, this rebellion was extremely violent, so much so that it sent shock waves throughout the country, mostly the South. What made the brief rebellion so violent was that Turner’s aim to kill every white plantation family in his way, although a “Few indeed, were those who escaped their work of death. But fortunate for society, the hand of retributive justice has overtaken them; and not one that was known to be concerned has escaped.”6 The violence recounted by survivors was so shocking that in two days, a militia of over 200 men suppressed the rebellion. In the months that followed the uprising, many slaves and freed people were beaten and or killed for suspicion of complicity in the rebellion. The purpose was clear: to strike fear into the African American community and declare that if they tried to rise up, they all would be punished. After the rebellion, laws were passed from various parts of the South to legislatively prevent other uprisings or even escape. One piece of legislation was the Act Concerning Slaves and Free Persons of Color, General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, 1831-32, which declared “(T)here shall not be lawful under any pretense for any slave, or free person of color to preach or exhort in public or in any manner to officiate as a preacher or teacher in any prayer meeting, or other association for worship where slaves of different families are collected together.” 7 Its legacy for slaves, anti-abolitionists and slave owners were felt all over and would cause repercussions for slaves legally and socially until the start of The Civil War: “The Turner Revolt was just a drop of water that overflows a cup or a dried-up pond, so the significance of 6 GRAY, THOMAS R, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER, THE LEADER OF THE LATEINSURRECTION IN SOUTHAMPTON, VA.: Electronic Edition. Lucas & Deaver, print, 1831, 20.https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/turner/turner.html 7 An Act Concerning Slaves and Free Persons of Color, General Assembly of the State of North Carolina, 1831- 32 REVISED CODE—No. 105. https://www.natturnerproject.org/north-carolina-gen-assemb-1831-32 Kenyon 7 the revolt would have been very slight if it had not been true that it came at the end of the decade of depression and some five or six years of intensive agitation among the slavers in this hemisphere.”8 Yet despite the South’s efforts to subdue the African American community, many would continue to defy these laws from small acts to the greatest, which was hitching a ride on the most expansive “rail network” of that time -- The Underground Railroad. In the recess of darkly lit rooms and under floors of houses would rise one of the greatest acts of humanitarianism in US History. The Underground Railroad, although small prior to the 1860s, would prove to be one of the most necessary tools in fighting slavery and the Confederacy. It is noted that, “The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to escaped enslaved people from the South.”9 The Underground Railroad would run from the southern United States to safer cities like Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and on to other countries like Canada and even Mexico (when escaping from Texas). It would also give rise to some of the most influential figures and voices in African American civil rights history. A handful of Quakers and freed slaves founded The Underground Railroad, but as time went on, others soon joined either for religious reasons and or empathy. Out of The Underground Railroad emerged two very important members of the abolitionist movement, major leaders within the African American community, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Fredrick Douglas was born a slave but escaped by relying on an illegally obtained selftaught education to escape to freedom. After settling into his new home, Douglas joined the 8 Aptheker, Herbert. Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion: Including the 1831 "Confessions". United States: Dover Publications, 2012, 7. 9 History Channel staff, Underground Railroad, History channel, 2021. https://www.history.com/topics/blackhistory/underground-railroad Kenyon 8 Anti-Slavery Society, became a well-received speaker despite not having a formal education. He was smart and was also known as the speaker who was a “graduate from an institution whose diploma was written upon his back.”10 Douglas’s involvement only deepened as the years went on, so much so that he earned the attention and respect of a prominent ally, Abraham Lincoln. While Fredrick Douglas campaigned through the northern states and Europe and Ireland for a brief time, there was a person who took a more hands-on approach in fighting the issue of slavery, past words into action that would give her the nickname “Moses.” Harriet Tubman, a former slave born in Maryland who escaped to freedom by the time she was a young teenager, joined the abolitionist movement, and in her own words, "I was conductor of The Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say – I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."11 Even as the years wore on and the stakes grew for both escaping slaves and the conductors and station chiefs hiding and supplying them, they did not stop. In 1868 Thomas Garrett, a white ally on the UGRR, wrote to Sarah Bradford about his and Harriet Tubman’s conversations about her work on the UGRR. He recalls that Tubman, “declared to me that she felt no more fear of being arrested by her former master, or any other person . . . for she said she never ventured only where God sent her, and her faith in a Supreme Power truly was great.” 12This reliance would prove valuable in the 1860’s, when their cause of freedom would play center stage in the execution of the American Civil War. 10 Kinealy, C. Frederick Douglass and Ireland: In His Own Words, 2018, p37. https://doiorg.libproxy.uccs.edu/10.4324/9781351211109 11 Harriet Tubman, PBS: Black Culture Connection, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 2019. https://www.pbs.org/black-culture/explore/harriet-tubman// 12 Thomas Garrett to Sarah Bradford, June 1868, “Harriet Tubman and the Fight for Freedom: A Brief History with Documents” (New York: Bedford, 2013), 140–141. Kenyon 9 The Railroad only operated with the blessings of the law during The Civil War. Yet the work continued despite being illegal for many reasons, one of which was the reality that, “The Underground Railroad was significant not only for the individuals it helped to freedom, but perhaps even more for the struggle it represented against the complicity of free states in the trade in human flesh.”13 This railroad-in-name-only did get people to where they wanted to go -- to freedom and a land where they could be seen as full citizens of the United States. Most aimed for the City of Brotherly Love, but Philadelphia had been seen as a sad joke at times in history. One of those ironic events was in the year of 1844, where Irish Catholics and mostly protestant Nativists battled in the streets in what is now known as the Nativist Riots of 1844. The violence of 1844 was nothing new in the decade prior; riots along political and ethnic lines were common. Before the potato famine, which caused a huge exodus of Irish refugees in the late 1840’s and early 1850’s, many Irish had come to the US for a better life and started having families. Surprisingly, the Philadelphia riots were not started by same old xenophobia; it was mixed in with politics, religion and what would be taught in schools. In Philadelphia’s public schools, children learned Protestant hymns and read from the King James Bible. This was not popular with the Irish Catholics. In February of 1844, Hugh Clark (1796-1862), a Catholic school director, suggested suspending Bible reading until the school board could devise a policy acceptable to Catholics and Protestants alike. Nativists saw this as a threat to their liberty, as a chance to mobilize voters also, and they rallied by the thousands in Independence Square. Although the rally at Independence Square did not attract any real attention, a rally at Kensington sparked anger 13 Griffler, Keith P. and Project Muse. 2010. Front Line of Freedom: African Americans and the Forging of the Underground Railroad in the Ohio Valley. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 7. Kenyon 10 among certain residents and resulted in violent riots that killed one and wounded two others. Four weeks later, violence broke out again, this time it ended with dozens dead and hundreds more wounded from clashes between Catholic and Protestant rioters and the state militia. This was along with the burning of homes and of several churches -- St. Michael’s Church, The School House, lately occupied by the Sisters of Charity and St. Augustine’s Church. One witness described the riots: “From the persecuting violence of such a cruel mob. Who style themselves Republicans, and despite the laws of God, they have brought their loaded cannons, and placed them on the Green, to blow up that holy edifice which God has plainly seen.” 14 The riots would leave a scar in the minds of many Irish; however, they would also be used as a rallying cry for the Catholic church and the Irish to protect each other and demand that their government do the same. Many more riots and violence would follow in the decades to come, but gazing upon the ashes, Archbishop John J. Hughes would emerge in a speech in 1852, when he warned the mayor that "if a single Catholic Church were burned in New York, the city would become a second Moscow."15 (Note: The city of Moscow was burned to the ground by its own citizens to prevent Napoleon from using the city as winter quarters for his army.) Whether Hughes meant what he said or not will never be known. His threat was taken seriously enough for city leaders to force the rioters to cancel their rally. After these battles, Hughes became "the best known, if not exactly the best loved Catholic bishop in the country."16 This would give him another reason to be bestowed the nickname, “Daggers John. “Although this incident would 14 Candid Writers in Poetry and Prose, “Reflections on the Late Riots.” The Historical Society of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, 1844, 2. https://www.hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/reflectiospoemforstudents.pdf 15 Sam, Roberts, “Don’t Mess With Dagger John,” New York Times, March 7, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/nyregion/dont-mess-with-dagger-john.html 16 Candid Writers “Reflections on the Late Riots by Candid Writers in Poetry and Prose. Philadelphia: 1844”. 1844. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania. https://hsp.org/sites/default/files/attachments/reflectiospoemforstudents.pdf Kenyon 11 define stronger Irish Catholic bonds, the violence was only just beginning as a more Irish immigrants flocked to US fleeing The Potato Famine. The Irish Potato Famine was one of the worst tragedies in Irish history, where millions would die and millions more would flee Ireland mostly for the US: “In the Irish countryside, ‘packs of feral dogs dug up the graves of famine dead. In the cites, shoeless pauper women, with dead infants in their arms, stood on street corners begging.’”17 The worst part was that mismanagement, either by hate or a complete lack of understanding of how food networks function, was due to the malfeasance of the British government. From 1845-1851, the horrors that the Irish endured would have a lasting impact, even as many settled down in their new home in the US. To get to the United States, the Irish refugees had to endure one last hurdle before finally making it to the US or even Canada: “An estimated 5,000 ships made the crossings, which could last up to two months. Many were cargo vessels hastily outfitted with makeshift passenger accommodations. Tens of thousands of starving, disease-weakened immigrants died in the dark holds of what came to be known as ‘coffin ships.’” 18 Many cities to which Irish immigrated had abysmal living conditions; none was worse than the Five Points neighborhood, located in New York City. As Charles Dickens puts it, “Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep, underground chambers, where they dance and game; the walls bedecked with rough designs of ships, and forts, and flags, and American eagles out of number: ruined houses, open to the street, whence, through wide gaps in the walls, 17 Kelly, John. The Graves Are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People. United States: Henry Holt and Company, 2012,1. 18 Holan, Mark, Ireland’s Famine Children “Born at Sea” National Archives, Vol. 49, no. 4, 2018. https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2017/winter/irish-births Kenyon 12 other ruins loom upon the eye, as though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show: hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder: all that is loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.” 19 Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish made up forty percent of all immigrants to the United States. More specifically, “In the 1840s, they comprised nearly half of all immigrants to this nation. Interestingly, pre-famine immigrants from Ireland were predominately male, while in the famine years and their aftermath, entire families left the country. In later years, the majority of Irish immigrants were women,” 20 showing a dramatic shift in the demographics of persons coming to US. The jobs that most Irish took were in mining, dock work, textiles, and the like, mostly hard dangerous jobs, which included the military. Though by the end of mass immigration and the end of the US Civil War, “Most of the Irish who came to the US many accumulated significant savings—primarily through employment niches, self-employment, retail success, or moving west (sometimes no further than New Jersey) where opportunities for real estate ownership and other forms of socioeconomic advancement were more plentiful. The unskilled actually saved more than most artisans—perhaps because they were more willing than tradesmen to try their luck at other, potentially more lucrative lines of employment.”21 Even though there was a potentially bright future for the Irish, there was one group who were going to try to push the Irish back by any means necessary -- the activists known as the Know-Nothings. 19 Bowery Boys staff, Charles Dickens Guide to New York City low life, Bowery Boys: New York City History, August 21, 2008. https://www.boweryboyshistory.com/2008/08/charles-dickens-guide-to-new-york-city.html 20 Library of Congress staff, Irish-Catholic Immigration to America, Library of Congress, 2021.https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/irish/irish-catholic-immigration-to-america/ 21 Anbinder, Tyler, Cormac Ó Gráda, and Simone A. Wegge. 2019. “Networks and Opportunities: A Digital History of Ireland’s Great Famine Refugees in New York.” American Historical Review 124 (5): 1597. Kenyon 13 The Know-Nothing Party, which was founded in 1840’s, “was a prominent United States political party during the late 1840s and the early 1850s.”22 The Know-Nothings rose to prominence after winning a few elections but slowly disintegrated after the loss of their presidential pick, Millard Fillmore, in the election of 1856 and the divide over the issue of the abolition of slavery. Although, after those elections, the Nativist ideals and anger remained especially after the continued mass immigration of Irish immigrants. Although seen as a footnote in American history, the anti-Irish immigrant group’s ideals had a huge impact on the politics of the time and their views have echoed throughout US immigration history, even in today’s contentious debates. Yet there were other fronts in the citizenship wars. The Dred Scott Decision of 1857, seen today as one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases in US history, would provide the impetus for what would become the underlying cause of The Civil War. Secondary sources take center stage on this subject because it was more about the implications of the case than the event and people who caused it: “When the Supreme Court finally issued their decision in the case of Scott v. Sandford on March 6, 1857, the resulting effect seemed to have been increased tension between the North and South. The outcry over the Dred Scott decision spurred Northerners to overwhelmingly vote Republican, to represent their stance against slavery, by electing Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860 are not at all abashed or dismayed; on the contrary they accept this repulse as another blow in the work of imparting compactness and strength to their organization, and from the fire that consumes Dred Scott, they appear to anticipate a conflagration which will again set the popular sentiment of the North in a 22 Know-Nothings: Topics in Chronicling America, Library of Congress, 2021. https://guides.loc.gov/chroniclingamerica-know-nothings Kenyon 14 blaze of indignation."23 The Dred Scott decision ultimately seemed to seal the fate of the US on a path towards a war that would drag on for four years, cost over 750,000 American lives, and devastate the uncertain futures for both Irish and African Americans. It is essential to look at what has happened for both groups in the previous twenty years. The events of the 1840’s and 50’s proved to be very eventful for both the African and Irish Americans, who were yet to be seen as anything less than cogs in an ever-modernizing machine: some of their experiences are similar, some are totally different, but it is important to observe how they came, the influence of their respective rebellions, care networks, relations toward each, but most importantly this truth: while were they both seen as the bottom-dwellers of the social ladder, they formed no universal alliance. Both Irish and Africans arrived by boats that packed them into their hulls in inhumane condition, where a fair amount would die of disease and be thrown overboard never to see the land of their birth or the new one toward which they headed. The Irish were going to a new land because of persecution or starvation or in search of better job opportunities; for many Irish, these reasons were indistinguishable. For the Africans, though, there was only one reason for their forced migration: slavery, where a person is broken down to an object, no different than a gun or a bag of cornmeal. This difference was animated best in the words of Frederick Douglass, a self-taught freed man with sympathy toward the Irish borne of their help, especially that of Irish children, in his learning to read and write during his childhood years in Baltimore. He said, “The Irish man is poor, but he 23 Alix Oswald “The Reaction to the Dred Scott Decision” vol 4, Article 9. Chapman University. 2018, 24. Kenyon 15 is not a slave. He may be in rags, but he is not a slave. He is still the master of his body.”24 The Irish were never enslaved as a whole; yes, they may have been more likely to be sent to a penal colony, but this was not practice implemented on the Irish as a whole, even along religious lines. The second similarity lies briefly among armed conflicts, like Ned Turner’s slave rebellion and the Young Ireland Rebellion, both of which were crushed and caused many of their people not involved in either rebellion to endure punishments. Although these rebellions tragically failed, they gave the groups like abolitionists soldiers and ways to increase sympathy to their causes, such as a strident opposition to slavery’s expansion and Irish pride and hope for returning to Ireland to liberate the country. Since the founding of the United States, there have been many ethnic enclaves that formed in various cities in the US, mainly the Northeastern part of the country. In various cities and in neighborhoods, African and Irish communities sprung up to give these groups protection, unity, a place where they could be themselves, but in the 1840’s and 50’s, they would come to have even greater purposes: building their people up by creating networks. The networks and process of building them came in a variety of forms from the allpowerful Catholic church to safe havens on The Underground Railroad that would help escaped slaves blend into the Northern states. These safe havens were called Vigilance Committees. The Catholic Church is the most powerful church in the world, stretching all over the world yet in the 1840’s and 50’s, the church’s presence grew even larger because of the mass immigration hitting the US of mainly Irish people. Riding that wave was a fiery immigrant named John Hughes., who was “born in Ireland [and] immigrated to the United States as a young 24 Aine McCormack, Frederick Douglass Found His Voice in Ireland, Celtic Junction Arts Center, 2021.https://celticjunction.org/cjac/arts-review/issue-13-samhain-2020/frederick-douglass-found-freedom-inireland/ Kenyon 16 man. Harassed by Protestants in his native country, he looked to the Unites States as a bastion of religious freedom. But he discovered that freedom had its limits. Ordained into the priesthood in Philadelphia, Hughes rose swiftly through the ranks, and by 1850 he was appointed Archbishop of New York.”25 Hughes had a temper and was not one to back down from anyone. Protestant mobs, the government, not even Mother Church could stop him from his mission, which was building the Irish up from the bottom rung of society through means of hard work but also education, and if anyone got in his way, nothing short of divine intervention could stop him. It is observed that, “Hughes threw his energies into building a Catholic school system that would educate Catholic children the way he thought they should be educated. No need was more urgent, in his view. He did not believe that a society hostile to the Irish and certain they were incapable of accomplishment would produce schoolteachers and administrators interested in and good at teaching Irish children. ’We shall have to build the schoolhouse first and the church afterward,’ he said. ’In our age the question of education is the question of the church.’” 26 By the end of his reign as the first Irish Archbishop in the US, he had established more than sixty-one new parishes and parochial schools in the city of New York. Along with education, the Catholic parishes provided food, clothing, and spiritual guidance. This enabled them to help many Irish move out of the poverty-stricken streets of the Five Points and find better opportunities even if it were in different areas of New York City. Yet while the Irish had the right to vote, that did not mean that African Americans didn’t have “Angels looking after them.” 25 PBS staff, People & Ideas: John Hughes, PBS: FRONTLINE and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, October 11, 2010, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/godinamerica/people/john-hughes.html 26 William J. Stern, How Dagger John Saved New York’s Irish, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Inc., Spring 1997,https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-dagger-john-saved-new-york%E2%80%99s-irish-11934.html Kenyon 17 The Underground Railroad was the Abolitionist movement’s greatest invention: a way to covertly undermine the institution of slavery while using the information from escaped slaves like Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglass to bring the issue front and center to those in the North to which the horrors of slavery would otherwise have gone unknown. When most escaped slaves made it across the Mason-Dixon line, “an imaginary line that separates North from South,” many of the escapees would find themselves under the protection of Vigilance Committees (sometimes called Vigilant Committees) which were created, “to protect fugitives and potential kidnap victims. After black abolitionist David Ruggles (1810-49) formed the first such organization in New York City in 1835, Robert Purvis (1810-98) convinced his Philadelphia associates to do the same in 1837. Citizens in rural counties soon followed suit, and Vigilance Committees began to appear throughout the region.” 27 The vigilance committees provided food, clothing, shelter, legal assistance, medical care and information. Some escapees from slavery who left on their own would seek out Black churches for their connections too if they wanted to stay and seek employment in a northern city or the Vigilance Committees if they wanted to keep heading farther north. Not all abolitionists favored encouraging fugitive slaves, but it is noted, “still, even those who were not enthusiastic about the Underground Railroad were almost always willing to help when they encountered a fugitive. This impulse to help was heightened by the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850. Now white abolitionists and the white population in general saw runaways struggle to escape police and slave catchers. Due to this climate more turned to aiding 27 Beverly C. Tomek, Vigilance Committees, Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, 2021, https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/vigilance-committees/ Kenyon 18 runaways.”28 These committees would become a hope to many, and even after The Civil War began, they allowed many freed slaves the chance at a new life in either the US or Canada. Although the committees were helpful in liberating African Americans and giving rise to some of their greatest faces like Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglass, they were nothing compared to the resources of the Catholic church and the stubborn fact that the Irish were white and could vote yet rarely agreed on anything, especially the most divisive of issues in US history: slavery. The issue of slavery was a hugely divisive issue among white Americans while it seems obvious how Africans felt about it. It was not so cut-and-dried with whites, especially the Irish; even the “Catholic Church was not very forthcoming about slavery, not wanting to make enemies on any side of the issue. The Church’s basic stance, which Hughes espoused, was that so long as slavery was legal in the South, owning slaves was not a sin, though mistreating them was. Also, he was Irish, head of an Irish flock, and the Irish had decided to be on the antiabolitionist side of the issue.”29 With the Church turning a blind eye to slavery, many Irish Catholics who were the majority of Irish in America took it on a person-by-person basis . In 1861, the Irish priest Daniel W. Cahill wrote that “‘The negro slaves are far happier than the poor Irish, [and] who will therefore deny [that] the poor Irish cottier, with his life and death firmly in the hands of the cruel landlord, is not in a worse condition and is really a more degraded slave than the negroes of 28 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN AMERICAN HISTORY, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Accessed November 15, 2021, 24. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/upload/UndergroundRailroad.pdf 29Daniel Downer, Fighting for Lincoln? Irish attitudes to slavery during the American Civil War, History of Ireland, 2021. https://www.historyireland.com/18th-19th-century-history/fighting-for-lincoln-irish-attitudes-to-slaveryduring-the-american-civil-war/ Kenyon 19 North America?’ Without suggesting that the Irish immigrant viewed African American slaves with envy, they harbored no illusions that their lot was any worse than their own.” 30 Many ask what led to this hatred that would boil over occasionally into all-out violence between Irish and African Americans -- the answer is the same economic opportunity. Both were competing for the same low-level jobs, and although the Irish were not subjected to laws restricting education and employment, they were still seen as scum, easily replaceable. Issues were made worse with the ever-growing population of freed or escaped slaves coming north. Many Irish saw themselves as the losers in that migration. This subject also divided the Irish enemies like the Know-Nothings, whose antiimmigrant ideals fell into the background against slavery. But as the election of Lincoln came, so did the defining war for both that would launch Irish and Africans to fight on the same side for the right to be called and live as Americans in their involvement in the United States Civil War. Although the American Civil War began in 1861with shots on South Carolina’s Fort Sumter, the tensions and cause of the war had brewed for quite some time. As it is noted, “The conflict was the costliest and deadliest war ever fought on American soil, with more than 620,000 of 2.4 million soldiers killed, millions more wounded or injured and much of the South left in ruin.”31 At its beginning, though, both sides believed that it would be quick and painless. The Battle of Bull Run (Manassas) decimated those illusions. Both sides learned that this new type of war would last longer, and for the Union, that meant one thing: it needed soldiers by the thousands. 30 Ibid 31 History Staff, “Civil War,” History.com, January 13, 2021. https://www.history.com/topics/american-civilwar/american-civil-war-history Kenyon 20 Recruiting soldiers is essential to every army; the Union Army at the time was both a drafted and volunteer force. They came from all over, from California to Maine, even from Southern states, but many came or were from other countries or seen that way: “One in every four members of the Union armed forces was an immigrant, some 543,000 of the more than 2 million Union soldiers by recent estimates. Another 18% had at least one foreign - born parent. Together, immigrants and the sons of immigrants made up about 43% of the U.S. armed forces.”32 For the Irish, a mix of all the examples of recruitment posters lured them; the most shining is a recruitment poster found in the book, The Irish in the American Civil War, that reads, “The Irish Soldier his history and present duty -- his obligations to the American Republic – The National cause. Its justice, security, and gravure.”33 This shows how The Union specifically used national pride to recruit Irish soldiers. Religion was not as great a recruitment tool. Archbishop Hughes, who tried to stay neutral, did side with the Union but kept aiming for peace. In an article written in 1861 in response to Bishop Lyngh of South Carolina, Archbishop Hughes writes, “Instead of this partisan hostility, wise patriots should rival each other in restoring or preserving the Union as one nation, its prosperity, and protection and happiness of its entire population in all their legislative rights.”34 It is important to note that although Archbishop Heughs was not an abolitionist, his words side with the Union but continue to hope for peace and unity. The 32 DON H. DOYLE, ZOCALO PUBLIC SQUARE, The Civil War Was Won by Immigrant Soldiers, Time.com, DECEMBER 23, 2019. https://time.com/3940428/civil-war-immigrant-soldiers/ 33 Shiels, Damian. The Irish in the American Civil War. Ireland: History Press, 2013, The Irish brigade for the American Union. 34 ARCHBISHOP HUGHES ON THE WAR.: Interesting and Important Letter from ... New York Times (1857- 1922); Sep 4,1861;https://www.proquest.com/docview/91541256?parentSessionId=NHtXmmkndX1GslnYF3tTkimrA9nFdrkF 7Z0M6K05V7A%3D&pq-origsite=summon&accountid=25388 Kenyon 21 Catholic Church shared Archbishop Hughes’s sentiment in staying relatively neutral but trying to unite the country again. In 1863 Pope Pius IX said in a letter to Archbishop Hughes that, “(W)e are not influenced by no political reasons, no earthly considerations but impelled solely by parenteral clarity, to exhort them to charity and peace.”35 Most Irish fought wherever they could, but in the areas of high Irish concentration, they formed their own units, such as the famed Irish Brigade commanded by Thomas Francis Meagher, an Irish revolutionary who was sent to Tasmania in 1849 following an unsuccessful attempt at establishing an independent Irish country. In 1851, he and his wife and a few others escaped to the US where they were given a warm welcome from New York’s heavily Irish population. Although Meagher was not an abolitionist, he, like many Irish, had sympathies with the South, which had an Irish population of its own. But through some unwise actions, like the South’s seeking support from England, and the reality that economic opportunity that came from enlisting in the Union forces, which was dependable work, Meagher found aloyalty to their new home in the hopes that their service would put an end to anti-Irish discrimination. Most importantly, in Meagher’s words, “The Republic, that gave us an asylum… — that is the mainstay of human freedom the world over – is threatened with disruption. It is the duty of every liberty-loving citizen to prevent such a calamity at all hazards. Above all is it the duty of us Irish citizens, who aspire to establish a similar form of government in our native land. It is not only our duty to America, but also to Ireland. We could not hope to succeed in our effort to make Ireland a Republic without the moral and material aid of the liberty-loving citizens of these 35 A Catholic View of our Troubles.: LITTER FROM THE POPE TO ARCHBISHOP ... New York Times (1857- 1922); Aug 3,1863.https://www.proquest.com/docview/91735712?parentSessionId=ECGEunSr65crKuSIZbP0R5lDFzdWiIBFk ehTzjGgo28%3D&pq-origsite=summon&accountid=25388 Kenyon 22 United States.”36 These words attracted hundreds of thousands of Irishmen to the Union over the course of the war. In September of 1861, Meagher formed the Irish brigade and by December of that year, President Lincoln authorized for Meagher to not only recruit Irishmen from other states but also soldiers in Ireland to persuade the Irish to train for an Irish revolution. Meagher was promoted to brigadier general for this new Irish Brigade. Although it was not one singular factor that united pro-Union Irish soldiers, it was the fact that they did it together and that the war inspired a new wave of patriotism from foreign-born and domestic-born Irish people in the US. Though for others, it was a matter more concrete. From the moment the Civil War started, African Americans were ready to fight for the Union but the real battle lay in allowing them to. For Black Americans, it was long road to being able to wear Union colors. With the constant lobbying from Fredrick Douglass and the observations made by several Union generals on the usefulness of escaped and freed slave fighting for the Union, Lincoln finally agreed to letting African Americans fight for their country: “The first official authorization to employ African Americans in federal service was the Second Confiscation and Militia Act of July 17, 1862. This act allowed President Abraham Lincoln to receive into the military service persons of African descent and gave permission to use them for any purpose ‘he may judge best for the public welfare.’" However, the President did not authorize use of African Americans in combat until issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863: "And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, 36Patrick, Young, Why Did the Irish Fight When They Were So Despised?, Long Island Wins, June 24, 2011. https://longislandwins.com/news/national/why-did-the-irish-fight-when-they-were-so-despised-2/ Kenyon 23 positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.” 37 . This gave freed men the long-awaited chance to prove themselves in battle. Recruiting Africans was easy: the promise of protection from slave masters, the ability to be paid for their work, and the prospect of freeing their people from slavery were more than enough. By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10% of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the U.S. Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy.38 For Africans and Irish soldiers, their status was a mix of volunteer and drafted for many reasons, but both found pride and purpose in their work on and off the battlefield, where both would earn their rights on blood-drenched battlefields: “To prove themselves worthy of calling themselves Americans and being seen by their government and neighbors and citizens both the Irish and African soldiers would have to put words to lead. Although most are familiar with the heroic assault on Fort Wagner 1863 by the men of 54th Massachusetts regiment, very few are familiar with the battle that occurred on October 29, 1862. The first African American regiment, the 1st Kansas' actions near Island Mound, Mo., where the 1st Kansas fought off more than 450 Confederate guerrillas attack. The fighting although brief compared to other battles was only won after a long day of fighting that ended up with both sides going hand to hand. At the end of the war General Blunt, its department commander in Kansas, paid the unit a compliment that speaks volumes: ‘I never saw such fighting as was done by the Negro regiment…they make better soldiers in every respect than any troops I have ever had 37 Budge Weidman, Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, September 1, 2017, https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war 38 Ibid Kenyon 24 under my command.’”39 This kind of devotion to the Union would earn the African Americans praise from all over and would be repeated through the war. Even from some surprising places. Although Fredrick Douglass was a major speaker, recruiter and advocate for black soldiers, Harriet Tubman, also known as Moses, a name given to her for her work as a conductor on The Underground Railroad, took a more hands-on approach. After working as a conductor before The Civil War, Tubman volunteered as both a nurse (for both whites and black) and a spy for the Union Army. When finally able to officially enlist in the Union Army in 1863 with the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, she expanded her network of spies and scouts who helped her recruit more soldiers for the Union and cripple the local Confederate economy in South Carolina where she was based. Her most famous contribution was, “The Combahee River Raid in June 1863, Union troops— including a regiment of former slaves— under Col. James Montgomery and guided by Tubman succeeded in destroying several plantations and their stockpiles of cotton. More importantly, the expedition liberated over 700 slaves.” 40 Unable to read or write, nothing stopped Tubman nor anyone else she fought beside. In 1868, Frederick Douglass wrote to her that, “These actions earned African units and their leaders heavy praise and respect from all over.” The African American Units would see more action as the war wound up in the years of 1864-65. An impressed United States government, “In June 1864. . . granted equal pay to the U.S. Colored Troops and made the action retroactive. Black soldiers 39 The 1st Kansas Colored Infantry was the first black regiment to strike a personal blow for ending slavery. By: Lutz, Stephen D., America's Civil War, 10462899, Mar2003, Vol. 16, Issue 1. https://web-p-ebscohostcom.libproxy.uccs.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=1&sid=7f568193-b299-4aef-889d880899372278%40redis&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#AN=8960495&db=aph 40 Frank, Lisa Tendrich. An Encyclopedia of American Women at War : From the Home Front to the Battlefields, edited by Lisa Tendrich Frank, ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uccs/detail.action?docID=1122575. Kenyon 25 received the same rations and supplies. In addition, they received comparable medical care.”41 The battlefield was the stage on which freed men were able to fight the actual system of their oppression, and they did so with a brave ferocity that could only be matched by the Irish and, more specifically, the Irish Brigade. The brigade consisted of the 63rd New York Infantry, the 69th New York Infantry, and the 88th New York Infantry regiments. Led by newly promoted Brigadier-General Thomas Francis Meagher, their first battles were in the Peninsular campaign of 1862, but their most famous battles came after that. One of those was Fredericksburg, where “On December 13, before the battle, Meagher visited each regiment within the brigade individually. Meagher instructed them to place sprigs of boxwood on their hats to symbolize their shared Irish heritage.” 42 This was right before the movement up Mary’s Heights, where the brigade charged heavily defended positions. Although a defeat, it earned respect from allies and foes alike. Private McCarter published a detailed account of the battle as seen through only his eyes. In the entirety of his memoirs, he never once mentioned the Irish ethnicity of the enemy. He spoke of both his fellow Union soldiers and those of the Confederacy as men who fought for “their country.” At the Battle of Antietam, the Irish Brigade charged into battle head-on, though this time with a huge degree of success as described by Jerome Deadly of the Second Artillery: “Seldom were more daring deeds done by any troops….The Brigade took possession of that position, which was deemed most impregnable, as the rebels lay in rifle-pits and on the bed of a rivulet, 41 Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War, The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, September 1, 2017. https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war 42 “Thomas Francis Meagher,” American Battlefield Trust, last modified, 2021, https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/thomas-francis-meagher Kenyon 26 firing with buckshot and ball, and mowing the corn down as if it were cut with reaping hooks. Still our gallant General (Meagher) with his brigade swept over the field, and completely routed the enemy, capturing flags to the number of fifteen.” 43 Away from the battlefield, for Archbishop Hughes, if he were not preaching support for the Union and caring for the people of New York City, he was doing something as equally important. Being a diplomat for the US. In 1861, he was dispatched by William H. Seward, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, to convince other countries not to support The Confederacy. While in France, he was told to, “confer with Mr. Dayton upon the subject, and explain to him verbally my views in desiring the fullest attainable knowledge of the dispositions of the French Government, whether friendly or otherwise, and especially its views on the several questions set forth in my dispatch. At the same time, you will be expected to do this in the most confidential manner, deferring in all cases to Mr. Dayton's judgment, and acting as auxiliary to him only at his cheerful request, and only to the extent that he thinks your relations and associations in Paris and in Europe may enable you to be useful to him.” 44 Hughes managed to convince every country he visited during that trip not to side with the South, helping to isolate the Confederacy. After that trip, though, Hughes returned to looking after his people in New York City. The year of 1863 was a mixed year for the Irish, given Meagher’s departure as head of the Irish Brigade, which continued to prove itself in battle. While the Irish who were on the frontlines had to deal with the constant reminder of war, the New York Draft Riots of 1863 43 JEROME, DEADY, THE WAR IN AMERICA, Cork Examiner, April 15th, 1863,Irish in the American Civil War, Accessed November 15, 2021. https://irishamericancivilwar.com/resources/letters-from-america-american-civilwar-correspondence-in-irish-newspapers/the-war-in-america-cork-examiner-15th-april-1863/ 44 Bill, Thayer, ARCHBISHOP JOHN HUGHES American Envoy to France (1861), Dunwoodie Archives. Accessed November 15, 2021. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/CHR/3/3/Archbishop_Hughes*.html#ref6 Kenyon 27 would bring the war to the home front in a blaze of violence. The Riot that started with the military draft soon snowballed into a full-scale riot where most of lower Manhattan burned. Mostly Irish gangs fought each other, with nativists, the police, and even the military with African Americans being caught in the crossfire. This is important because of the causes and legacy of the riots as they pertain to the relationship between Irish and African Americans: “In January, St. Patrick’s Cathedral held a high mass for the dead of the Irish Brigade. The sorrow echoed in camp as an Irish soldier lamented, ‘All is dark, and lonesome, and sorrow hangs as a shroud over us all.’”45 Many Irish were killed during the war partially because they served in every major battle of the war, which garnered them a lot of respect but also resulted in one of the highest casualty rates of any brigade during the war. This issue of high casualties was front and center for the Irish, along with the draft which targeted poorer Americans than middle and rich ones. The Irish were some of poorest in their areas and were thus more likely to be drafted: “The conscription act of 1863 called for registration of all males between the ages of 20 and 45, including aliens with the intention of becoming citizens, by April 1. Exemptions from the draft could be bought for $300 or by finding a substitute draftee.” 46 Racial tensions played a role as well with many African Americans becoming victims and targets of the riot. In one of his last acts as Archbishop John Hughes rallied to stop the riot , as he declared,”I will appeal not only to them, but to all 45 Bruce and Susannah Ural, “Summer of Irish Rage.” HistoryNet, 2009. https://www.historynet.com/summer-irishrage.htm#:~:text=July%20was%20the%20common%20marching,Civil%20War%2C%20and%20would%20again. 46 History.com Staff, “Congress passes Civil War Conscription Act,” HISTORY, March 2, 2021, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/congress-passes-civil-war-conscription-act Kenyon 28 persons who love God and revere the holy Catholic religion which they profess, to respect I also the laws of man and the peace of society, to retire to their homes with as little delay as possible, and disconnect themselves from the seemingly deliberate intention to disturb the peace and social rights of the citizens of New York.”47 This piece in the New York Herald helped stop the violence, though it took a few more sermons to quell the fighting. Archbishop John Hughess died on January 3, 1864. Although his death came at an inopportune time, his work was continued by his sister, a nun, and the Irish American community he had helped build in the US. The year of 1865 would be a year of great triumph for both African and Irish American soldiers and civilians. After years of fighting, they had finally won their right to citizenship, though it came sadly as the nation dealt with the brutal assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Both African and Irish Americans felt Lincoln’s death hard, as did the rest of the country. They both pressed on in legacy and in the people they inspired. Harriet Tubman went on to fight for women’s suffrage and took care of her community. She also received her military pension with full benefits which was in fact a fight of itself. Frederick Douglass once wrote to her that, “I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have. Much that you have done would seem improbable to those who do not know you as I know you. It is to me a great pleasure and a great privilege to bear testimony for your character and your works, and to say to those to whom you may come, that I regard you in every way truthful and trustworthy.” 48 By the end of the war, Fredrick Douglass, who had gone from slave to one of Abraham Lincoln’s most trusted advisors, helped raise African 47 The New York herald. (New York, NY), Jul. 16 1863. https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83030313/1863-07-16/ed-1/. 48 Fredrick Douglas, “LETTER FROM FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO HARRIET.” BLACK PAST, August 29, 1868,https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1868-letter-from-frederick-douglass-toharriet-tubman/ Kenyon 29 Americans out of slavery and into the military, gained them much respect from their white counterparts, and even earned the right to vote. He said, "Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship."49 This, however, was challenged especially by the horrible acts after Reconstruction involving the Jim Crow laws and its widespread voter suppression. To this day, some see the gains of the Civil War as minor. Yet the Civil War has taught Americans that the common good will always triumph over oppression and evil; people must stand together. As President Obama has since said, “The arc of the universe may not bend towards justice but it doesn’t bend on its own.”50 It comes down to individuals to shape policy and society. For the Irish, their story was better. Although Archbishop Hughes died in early 1864, his work bettered the lives of so many, and his legacy thrives in New York City as well as in educational system he fought so hard to change. Thomas Francis Meagher, although he lost control of the Irish Brigade, which later was absorbed into other units, still held strong to his Irish roots. Meagher’s legacy was that of the patriotism and pride he instilled in the Irish citizens in the United States. The words of Union Soldier and author Charles Graham Halpine, show how far they came as he said, amazed of “(T)he thought that the [Irish American soldiers] was thus 49 Jim Percoco The United States Colored Troops, American Battlefield Trust, 2021. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/united-states-colored-troops 50Zeke J Miller, In Commemorative MLK Speech, President Obama Recalls His Own 2008 Dream,” TIME Magazine, August 28, 2013, https://swampland.time.com/2013/08/28/in-commemorative-mlk-speech-president-obama-recallshis-own-2008-dream/ Kenyon 30 earning a title, which thereafter no foul tongue or black heart would dare dispute, to the full equality and fraternity of an American citizen.” 51 After the war, the Irish Americans still struggled to pull themselves out of poverty, but through their vote, involvement in gold rushes and hard work, their whiteness they managed to pull themselves to the highest strata of American society: “By 1890 some 30 percent of New York City’s teachers were Irish women, and the Irish literacy rate exceeded 90 percent. In 1871 reformer ‘Honest’ John Kelly became the leader of Tammany Hall, and with the election in 1880 of shipping magnate William Grace as mayor, the Irish assumed control of city politics.”52 Having two Irish Catholic presidents voted into office and many more as justices and senators and congressmen, the Irish broke forever the social ostracization that Protestant English oppression brought. The events and personalities outlined here are interwoven in the American fabric; two groups with few commonalities on their surface took up an opportunity to prove their selves as legitimate in the eyes of groups who had previously chose to see them as invisible, at best, undeserving at worst. Yet their devotion and commitment to be seen as equals thru the actions and words of both soldiers and leaders, truly define what some call American Exceptionalism. Their example inspires millions of immigrants today: all they want is the opportunity to show that they belong. It is a handsome legacy for African Americans and Irish Americans alike.