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Retired journalist
James Gannon spent more than three years researching and
writing the story of men whose valor and sacrifice in battle
have never received the attention he feels they deserve.
The men are the
Irish Catholic soldiers who fought on the front lines in
the Civil War, as the 6th Louisiana Volunteers in the Army
of Northern Virginia. "I approached this as looking at the
soldier and his experiences in war," Gannon said. "I wasn't
examining the cause per se, and I don't certainly
align myself with the cause the South was fighting for. But,
one can't help but be impressed, even rather awed by the
courage, sacrifice and endurance of the individual soldier,
whether he was on the Confederate side or the Union side."
Irish Catholics
ended up in the South as part of the big wave of immigration
that brought more than a million people from Ireland to the
United States between the mid-1840s and the mid-1850s, forced
from their homeland by the potato famine. Most landed in
Northern cities, but New Orleans, "in 1860 was home to nearly
25,000 immigrants from Ireland, more than any other place
in the South," said the author. Gannon's ancestors were in
that group. He wanted to do a Civil War novel based on the
life of his Irish-born great-grandfather and his younger
brother both of whom fought for the Confederacy. The younger
brother returned to New Orleans and died there in 1917 at
the Confederate Soldiers Home. Gannon says digging into the
family history led him to research and write a nonfiction
book.
He visited battlefields
at Gettysburg, Antietam, and Fredericksburg, and mined Civil
War materials including the official records, first-person
journals, diaries, and newspaper accounts. "I began to feel
a personal connection to them. I had traveled to their battlefields,
I walked around on the ground they fought, and found places
where some of them died." The regiment was sent to Virginia
with 900 men in 1861 and over four years fought in 25 battles.
Only 55 men were left when they surrendered at Appomattox
Court House on April 9, 1865. "Many of them wrote very good
descriptions in their letters home. You know they wanted
to let their families know exactly what was going on and
what it was like for them. Many of them wrote long, detailed
letters."
Gannon also managed
to find the diaries of the regiment's chaplain, Father James
B. Sheeran of New Orleans. Sheeran says they were a rowdy
bunch--and he sometimes had to take away their liquor. He
goes on to describe Eastern Sunday Mass in 1863. That morning,
Father Sheeran woke up to find snow on the ground. In spite
of the cold, every man showed up for Easter mass and kneeled
in the snow. Father Sheeran was impressed by the men's faith
despite the snow and the multitude of hardships which the
war, weather, and the physical deprivations of campaigning
brought to them.
Much has been written
about the importance of religion during this era, and the Catholics
were no different. For both North and South, "religion was an
important part of their whole outlook; they risked their lives
constantly, knowing that the next day they might be meeting their
God."
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