Nonetheless when Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers that April, Meagher was not tempted to rush at once to the Prince Street headquarters of the 69th New York Militia. With his brother-in-law Samuel Barlow, he probably hoped for a quick military settlement. In a season in which there was much petulance, he had a brief quarrel with his father-in-law, telling him, ‘You cannot call eight millions of white freemen rebels, Sir;—you may call them revolutionists if you will.’ Peter Townsend was distressed and disoriented, though the Sterling Ironworks would ultimately and naturally do well from the coming conflict.
In his office in Ann Street, now sharing space with the new Fenian organisation, Meagher was for some days dubious about the war. But he confided in a friend, Michael Cavanagh, a former Young Irelander, Fenian and scholarly light of the Ossianic Society, a group devoted to the preservation of the Irish language, that he believed he should fight for the maintenance of the republic which had given him asylum. Soldiers, he said, would perform a double service, American and Irish. ‘I hold it that if only one in ten come back when this war is over, the military experience gained by that one will be of more service in the fight for Ireland’s freedom than would be that of the entire ten as they are now.’ Meagher thought that in speaking of one in ten potential survivors he was talking in exaggerations. The realities of America’s imminent war had yet to convert hyperbole into fact.
Meagher did not view his decision to fight as an approach to a new career. Aside from motives of idealism, however, he had now a way of reestablishing his civil credit and of escaping the role of spectator. Three thousand Irishmen (D’Arcy McGee’s brother James amongst them) had in the two and a half weeks after Sumter offered themselves for the 69th New York Militia led by the young fire chief, Colonel Michael Corcoran. The 69th and Corcoran had already achieved glory in the eyes of the New York Irish, since the colonel had refused a command to parade the regiment in honour of the Prince of Wales on his visit to New York the year before. But Corcoran could accept only a thousand men, with the officers and the band making in all 1,130 men.
Meagher went over to the 69th’s headquarters and saw Corcoran, and on 17 April, three days after the firing on Fort Sumter, placed in the New York Daily Tribune the following advertisement: ‘One hundred young Irishmen—healthy, intelligent and active—are wanted to form a company of Irish Zouaves—under the command of Thomas Francis Meagher to be attached to the 69th Regiment, NYSM.’ Applications were to be made at 36 Beekman Street between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. The cost of ornate uniforms for the members of Meagher’s company was to be met by the committee of influential Irishmen who supported the 69th.
A huge crowd lined Broadway on 4 May to see the first detachment of the 69th march to embark for Washington, 5,000 spectators crowding outside the headquarters in narrow Prince Street itself. Watched by Meagher, who was still raising his own company, the regiment had at first to force its way uptown to broader Great Jones Street and form up there. Having managed to advance to the Battery, the companies departed, well-liquored by generous friends, on the steamer James Adjer. To his wife’s chagrin, Judge Charles Daly, on leave from the Court of Common Pleas, marched with the 69th as a civilian, and would do a few weeks’ stint of sentry duty guarding the ramparts of Arlington Heights under the regiment’s green battle flag, which had been presented by Mrs Daly.
The influx of recruits for Meagher’s company was quick. The same night of the 69th’s departure, the new Zouave company, in the manner of units rushing to the colours North and South, held a meeting to elect officers, in this case in militia Captain Phelan’s saloon at the corner of 10th Street and Broadway. It was a mere formality that Meagher would be elected captain.
Libby Meagher may have had ephemeral reservations about her husband, a man of more than thirty-five years, recently bent on Central American glory, so martially committing himself. But he seemed for now to have a saving awareness that he knew too little to hold high rank. At the time he placed the Tribune advertisement he had already been offered command of a regiment and refused it for lack of experience. He had also refused to join the Scott Life Guard as its adjutant. Soldier or not, he did want his hundred men. To his oratorical mind the figure had both completeness and intimacy.
By mid-May the 69th, as yet with no Meagher Zouaves, were in place across the Potomac at Arlington Heights in a muddy encampment named Fort Corcoran. The Irish American proudly reported: ‘That even the veteran General Scott was impressed by the physique and morale of the 69th is shown by his assigning them the post of honour (and of danger) in advance of the Federal position and detailing ten out of the forty-three West Point Cadets in Washington to assist in perfecting them in military tactics.’ It would not be until early June that Meagher’s green company was ordered off to join the rest of the 69th here. The 100 splendidly attired men made an enthusiastic short New York progress from Beekman Street to the pier, led by Meagher and Libby riding side by side. Aboard the steamer, the Union’s fresh-minted captain kissed his Libby farewell. Joining the rest of the regiment after a few days’ pitching at sea, and a train trip from Baltimore, the Meagher Zouaves were put straight to work to raise the great muddy ramparts of Fort Corcoran. Air was humid, rations and pay were irregular. Corcoran told Daly, now returned to New York, that at the 4 July celebrations on the ramparts ‘one man facetiously remarked to Captain T. F. Meagher that he would place his dinner on exhibition in Barnum’s Museum.’ Similar whimsies and complaints arose along the line as the intense sun of Virginia drained all the sweetness out of dressing as soldiers. But Meagher was discovering what would soon become obvious to others—he had a pronounced taste for the bivouac.
In early July, the end of the three months’ term for which most of the 69th had joined was in sight. Already the Irish support groups in New York were planning a reception for the return of the 69th. But the War Department had made it clear that the three months undertaken by Lincoln’s volunteers dated not from the time of their enlistment but from the time the regiment was mustered into service. Since the muster date of the 69th was technically 9 May, they would have to serve at least until 9 August. When the news came from General McDowell’s headquarters, men resented its legalism, and Corcoran asked the renowned orator Meagher to address and calm the regiment. The Irish American said that Captain Meagher’s speech featured jokes about how the Union commissary should have issued them parasols for the blistering Virginian sun.
The men’s spirits rose when in mid-July they were told that knapsacks, chests and trunks had to be packed and labelled to be stored in Alexandria. Each soldier was given sixty rounds of buck-and-ball cartridge, and field rations were issued. Meagher wrote to Barlow: ‘Hundreds were sending to their wives and families through Father O’Brien, their beloved chaplain, the greater portion of their two months pay, which they had just received.’ He estimated that a total of $25,000 was sent to New York by the regiment. Delay followed, but on 15 July the regiment was paraded and Corcoran read the special orders for moving off the following morning. Throughout the camp that evening, Meagher heard ‘snatches of songs—mostly those that Davis wrote for us.’ At first light the regiment marched out in the direction of Fairfax, Virginia. The leading company were the engineers in their reddish-grey flannel blouses—they needed to cut down roadblocks the Rebels laid in their path. Behind them came four elderly fifers and ten drummer boys, the youngest of whom was eight years old, followed by the regimental staff—Colonel Corcoran, Lieutenant-Colonel James Haggarty, a former carpenter, and Captain (Acting Major) Tom Meagher, wearing a conventional uniform as Corcoran’s aide for the campaign. In northern Virginia’s smiling farmlands Meagher found the regimental music ‘Old Dan Tuckerish.’ ‘Garryowen’ was the most recurrent tune, and became the regiment’s musical trademark.
They advanced as part of Colonel Sherman’s brigade. Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman, whom Meagher called ‘a rude and inveterate martinet,’ an obscure, red-headed, acting brigadier-general, West Point graduate and form
er commandant of a Louisiana military institute, was the same man who in 1864 would march through the South. But even a man of such potential repute could not manage the civilian soldiers. Meagher and others recorded that the relationship between privates and officers was so democratic or lax that men in the ranks did not hesitate to pull out of line and pick blackberries.
At Vienna, in fields to the west of that village, the 69th mounted fences to advance across fields on a mass of 1,000 to 1,500 Confederates, drawn up to protect that flank of the Confederate army. Meagher, Haggarty and Corcoran simply rode ahead of their men pointing the way with their swords. Ayer’s Irish battery rattled up and fired canister and grapeshot shells into the woods just behind Vienna. The rebels withdrew from their well-established earthworks before the Irish got close, and this success for the 69th made war seem healthier than the accidental nature of civilian life.
After Vienna, the advance continued with an ease which would leave the men unprepared when the real war began. ‘At 12.00,’ wrote Meagher, ‘the Green Flag was planted on the deserted ramparts of the Confederates at Germantown, the Stars and Stripes were lifted opposite to it at a distance of fifteen paces, and between the two beautiful and inspiring symbols, the Sixty-Ninth passed in triumph, hats and caps waving on bayonet points.’ Beyond, they were innocently appalled to see their first burning farmhouse, a sight associated for most of them with oppression or famine.
After their first serious hike of the war, the 69th New York of Sherman’s brigade passed through Centreville, a ‘dingy, aged, miserable little handful of houses,’ on 18 July. By noon that day, the Confederate General Beaureguard had organised his troops in a line behind a shallow stream called Bull Run (‘run’ being the local equivalent of creek). Ahead of Sherman’s brigade and its 69th New York, a Union brigade under the command of a veteran officer called Israel ‘Dick’ Richardson crossed at Blackburn’s Ford and advanced up the green summery hill to throw themselves against the Confederate regiments drawn up on top. Meagher was astonished by the way the 69th so calmly ate their hard tack and canned beef even while the racket of artillery showed that Richardson had run into the Confederates.
It was four o’clock before Sherman’s brigade was ordered down towards the ford to relieve Richardson. Corcoran, his deputy Haggarty and Meagher turned in their saddles to encourage the men. On the way down, they encountered several of the 12th New York Volunteers ‘hurrying from the bloody arena … some of them dragging dead or bleeding comrades along with them.’ The confusion of Union and Confederate uniforms at this stage of the war has been frequently canvassed by historians. As the Union regiment named the 13th Rochester retreated, the 69th New York mistook them for Confederates, and Meagher and Haggarty had to go along the line striking the men’s bayonets upward with their swords. The disliked Sherman rode up and told Corcoran to make the 69th lie down for cover in some woods near the ford. Officers dismounted, but made a point of standing upright during the bombardment. Meagher, apparently with a kind of exaltation, waited through the bombardment, which struck shells deep into the earth and threw soil wide, ‘knocking over the Wisconsin men who were drawn up in line across the road.’ Occasionally, Colonel Sherman would ride up, giving way to ‘a private and exclusive snarl.’ The engagement at Blackburn’s Ford came to nothing, however. General McDowell realised the Irish were uselessly exposed in sparse foliage and ordered their withdrawal up the road to Centreville.
Meagher cried out whimsical exhortations to the men as they left unaesthetic Centreville again on the afternoon of 20 July. After some miles the 69th struck into fields a little to the east of the Warrenton turnpike, stacked their arms and bivouacked for the night, but with a pervasive sense that tomorrow would be the day. Father Cass, brother of an officer in an Irish militia regiment from Massachusetts, came across and heard confessions. Meagher, savouring the absolute moment, made his confession to a priest at the foot of a bare tree over which ‘the boys had erected a green awning.’
Corcoran was aware that despite the Celtic mythology invoked by expressive Captain Meagher, the large, modern battle about to occur would be the first one in history to involve a railroad as a target, in this case the railroad at Manassas Junction, where the Richmond line joined the one from the Shenandoah Valley. If that were achieved, the road to Richmond would be opened, the war concluded. And perhaps by autumn most of the 69th would be engaged in the liberation of Ireland.
The soldiers were roused in the small hours and by 3.30 in the morning were on the turnpike making for the north bank of Bull Run. In early light they were deployed in a field near the stone bridge that spanned the run. In General McDowell’s mind they were part of the force that was to hold in place the Confederate centre, across the stone bridge, while other Union troops crossed by a ford, Sudley Springs, far to the west and began a flanking movement. The withering Virginia day set in, and little happened until ten o’clock, so that in their field Corcoran, Haggarty and Meagher could enjoy a soldiers’ breakfast of hardtack, bacon and coffee. They could all see, beyond Bull Run, the hill which must be taken, with its brow and clumps of trees, and at mid-morning a Rebel regiment was sighted withdrawing in a hurry from its position and rushing westward at the double. To the 69th, this meant the Union flanking movement from the west was in play. The men were anxious to be launched at the diminished ranks on the far side of the stream, but it was noon before Sherman got the order, and his brigade, with the 69th ahead, waded across Bull Run. On the far side they climbed up a steep, protective bluff, and formed ranks at the top of that, facing the gradual top of the hill. Here Meagher enjoyed for the last time the idea that war was an innocent pursuit. Forming up in their shoulder-to-shoulder infantry lines, the 69th saw enemy soldiers falling back to join the main body amidst clumps of trees and around a white dwelling, soon to be famous as the Henry House. Lieutenant-Colonel Haggarty noticed a Confederate straggler, raised his sword and galloped to cut the man down. The straggler turned, raised his gun, and blew Haggarty’s head off. The 69th uttered a scream of rage, and directed an entire volley at the straggler. Immediately Confederates up the slope ahead of them opened fire, killing two of the 69th instantly. Sherman came up berating the regiment for their disorganised fire, and told them to hold off until the Union flanking column actually appeared from Sudley Springs. Haggarty’s body was retrieved and carried back to the regimental ambulance.
In a short while, the awaited troops were seen advancing along low hilltops from the west. Confederate field guns, however, dug in around the Henry House, began tearing sections of the Union line apart, and Sherman’s regiments were ordered to capture them. Meagher watched the 2nd Wisconsin go up the slope first. They still wore grey uniforms, and would believe after their two attempts to take the field guns that they had attracted the fire of their own side. Sherman next ordered the 79th New York forward. They found the enemy well protected by small copses of pine trees, and carried their dying colonel back with them. Stripped to their shirt sleeves because of the heat, and many of them shoeless, the 69th was now ordered in. They ran in with what Meagher called a banshee shriek, and cries of Erin Go Bragh! (Ireland Forever!). Nearing the top of the hill, said an observer, Meagher turned in his saddle and yelled to them, ‘Come on, boys, here’s your chance at last!’
The boys Meagher called on, political and economic exiles, now came under the fire of field guns capable of causing mass death and injury as never imagined by any of these civilians from New York, and of infantry massed in the clumps of trees around the Henry House. Near Corcoran and Meagher in that first charge, the colour-bearer, with intense and irrelevant determination, refused to lower and wrap the green flag and was immediately shot through the heart. Colonel Corcoran recognised the new reality. ‘Lower that flag. It’s drawing their fire.’ Another Irishman, however, ran forward to take the thing, but was killed before he could raise it. After more brave folly, Mrs Daly’s green banner was riddled. Corcoran called his men back down the hill to re-gather their lines and
try again. Irish dead and wounded were strewn about the brow of the hill with the bodies of other New Yorkers and Wisconsin men.
The 69th were ordered back three times, and went confidently by all accounts. Around the clumps of trees there was close combat. Meagher wrote with some justice, ‘We beat their men—their batteries beat us. That is the story of the day.’ While coming down the hill on one of these retreats, Meagher felt a huge wave of air and iron, as a canister shell tore his horse to bloody sections. He was thrown to the ground and concussed. From what was recounted by other officers of Meagher’s rescue, and Meagher’s detailed, published account, it seems this happened on the final, most confused retreat. A trooper of the 2nd US Dragoons, who had been a student of the Jesuits at St Francis Xavier College around the corner from Peter Townsend’s house in Fifth Avenue, was himself in final retreat when he saw the renowned orator and neighbour of the Jesuits spreadeagled on the hillside. According to the young man he leaned over, seized the dazed Meagher by the back of the collar and helped him into the saddle. All around, the Union army was either in retreat or breaking up. Corcoran himself believed Meagher had been killed on the retreat downhill. In trying to cover the Union withdrawal near the ford below the fatal hill, Corcoran was captured by the rebels, along with two officers and nine men. On the north bank of Bull Run, Sherman was discussing a renewal of the attack with his staff when the ranks around him thinned and the rush to Washington began.