Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood by Catherine V. Bateson (review)

Reviewed by: Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood by Catherine V. Bateson David T. Gleeson (bio) Irish American Civil War Songs: Identity, Loyalty, and Nationhood. By Catherine V. Bateson. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022. Pp. 320. Cloth, 45. 00. ) As the most "sung about group of any" in the Civil War (2), the Irish— specifically 150 ballads by or about the Irish during or after the Civil War— constitute the topic of Catherine Bateson's new monograph. Bateson provides fascinating insights into what it meant to be Irish American in mid-nineteenth-century America. Focusing on lyrics, with the occasional nod to the music, she leads the reader through the various types of songs "to reveal how Irish identity had become American very quickly in the mid-nineteenth century" (218). This new interpretation challenges traditional views of the Irish as exiles in America, obsessed with the country they had left to the detriment of their integration into the United States. Bateson begins with the profound influence the Irish musical tradition had on antebellum America. Irish Melodies (1807–34), for example, by the internationally famous Irish composer and lyricist Thomas Moore (1779–1852), was ubiquitous in American parlors. Irish music was popular. The Irish thus had an advantage in getting their songs published and distributed to the American public. It was not surprising, then, that Irish boosters in America, when the Civil War began, "used balladry to aid their adoption of a collective patriotic character" (2). This effort began almost immediately with songs about the Irish-dominated Sixty-Ninth New York Infantry and their action at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. The Sixty-Ninth gained attention because, as a New York militia unit, its Irish members—and its Irish commander, Colonel Michael Corcoran (originally from County Sligo) —refused in 1860 to parade for the Prince of Wales. Corcoran faced court-martial, but the outbreak of war meant he could End Page 128 now be a hero, fully loyal to the United States. "To the Glorious 69th!" and "The Gallant Sons of Erin" appeared in quick succession after the first major land battle, promoting the bravery of the Irish soldier, embodied by Corcoran. In what was an infamous defeat for Union forces, "The Gallant Sons of Erin" narrated, "Brave Corcoran, wounded on the plain, called to his men to charge again" (71). Corcoran's ensuing capture only enhanced his, and his unit's, perceived patriotism among all pro-Union Americans. From these beginnings, songs about the Irish in the army continued to focus on so-called green-flag (explicitly Irish units with well-known Irish commanders like Corcoran or Thomas Francis Meagher) regiments, usually from New York City. New York had by far the largest Irish population in the United States and was a center for publishing. It is unsurprising, then, that the city and its famous Sixty-Ninth Regiment featured prominently in songs about Irish American soldiers. Despite this concentration, Bateson does examine the phenomenon in other places, including the Confederate side. Though Irish Confederate songs were much rarer, the examples Bateson found followed some of the same patterns as pro-Union songs. Irish Confederate ballads, such as "Erin's Dixie, " about the "Madison 'Tips'" (Tipperarys), an artillery unit from Madison Parish, Louisiana, displayed similar sentiments to those expressed in "The Gallant Sons of Erin. " "The Irish blood is high and red, / It always flowed where Freedom bled, " the song went, and in victory or defeat their blood streamed on "each battle-field in Dixie" (97–98). Irish Confederate songsters used Irish history to inspire Irish soldiers, but also to explain to natives why Irish immigrants fought for an adopted cause. Lyrics about "dastard Yankees" who, like English Cromwellians, hated the Catholic Irish, prevailed (124). Union lyricists countered that the Irish cause and that of an undivided United States were inextricably linked. Bateson devotes a chapter to Irish nationalist sentiment in songs that connected victory in America with a future victory in Ireland. One 1863 composition, for example, "The Irish Brigade, " included such lines as, "It was the cursed landlords' tyranny that forced them from their home, / To cross the fierce Atlantic. . .