Were the Irish Recruited Straight Off the Boat ala "Gangs of New York"

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Featured Book Reviewer
Joined
Jan 7, 2013
Location
Long Island, NY
gangs 2.PNG


The new soldiers who have been in the U.S. for minutes
 
Thanks for the link Pat. I printed it out and added it to my collection of such materials.

I never did think the scene in Gangs was accurate even regarding the recruitment of Irishmen. It certainly wasn't regarding the equipping of new recruits. Even then, the process of clothing, equipping, and training new recruits was considerably more complicated than just handing them stuff right after they signed papers and marching them off.

I suppose this ties in with the thread about historical fiction. I'd have preferred more accuracy but the scene did portray the general concept graphically and maybe for most viewers that's good enough. It delivered the message. In the scenes depicting the draft riots there were a number of errors, the main one I now remember was that the town was shelled by ship's cannon.

Anyway, one way or another lots of Irish ended up in the army.
 
Considering that so much seen in Civil War films didn't happen as presented in the movies, I guess it's no surprise that this isn't true, either. But the problem with it to me is that it's a very dangerous lie.

Years ago, I remember reading someone's online comments about this movie. After seeing all of the filth and violence of the big northern city, this person said, "Now I know the south was right to attempt to secede from the north!" To a person like that, this "factual" scene of the cycle of Irish immigrants coming off the boat alive and then dead basically says young men are duped into serving a hopeless cause and dying for absolutely nothing. Never mind that it didn't happen that way. And how funny that the scene shows these men too stupid to even notice the coffins being taken off the ship.

But it is nice to see one thing that they got right. The soldiers are wearing the correct New York state-issue jacket as opposed to the overused four-button sack coat.
 
Last edited:
Considering that so much seen in Civil War films didn't happen as presented in the movies, I guess it's no surprise that this isn't true, either. But the problem with it to me is that it's a very dangerous lie.

Years ago, I remember reading someone's online comments about this movie. After seeing all of the filth and violence of the big northern city, this person said, "Now I know the south was right to attempt to secede from the north!" To a person like that, this "factual" scene of the cycle of Irish immigrants coming off the boat alive and then dead basically says young men are duped into serving a hopeless cause and dying for absolutely nothing. Never mind that it didn't happen that way. And how funny that the scene shows these men too stupid to even notice the coffins being taken off the ship.

But at least one thing is nice to see that they got right. The soldiers are wearing the correct New York state-issue jacket as opposed to the overused, four-button sack coat.

I see your point Corp. Bryan and agree - to a degree. I guess I just can see that something is clearly a work of fiction - although based on real events - and so don't look at it as an educational documentary. Upon reflection after reading your comments, though, I can see that many might not differentiate. The same could be said for the movie Lincoln I think as it wasn't entirely accurate either, although it still delivered an effective story based on reality.
 
Thanks for the link Pat. I printed it out and added it to my collection of such materials.

I never did think the scene in Gangs was accurate even regarding the recruitment of Irishmen. It certainly wasn't regarding the equipping of new recruits. Even then, the process of clothing, equipping, and training new recruits was considerably more complicated than just handing them stuff right after they signed papers and marching them off.

I suppose this ties in with the thread about historical fiction. I'd have preferred more accuracy but the scene did portray the general concept graphically and maybe for most viewers that's good enough. It delivered the message. In the scenes depicting the draft riots there were a number of errors, the main one I now remember was that the town was shelled by ship's cannon.

Anyway, one way or another lots of Irish ended up in the army.
You are welcome. I hear this scene in Gangs referred to quite a bit, so I was very interested in Damian's take on it.
 
View attachment 43104
The new soldiers who have been in the U.S. for minutes
I understand all Five Point hookers looked like Cameron Diaz, too.


A ship carrying coffins back from the front is used to carry Irish recruits to replace the dead.
View attachment 43105

I always wanted to ask the writers of that movie one thing. Where did the Union and Confederacy fight a battle close enough to the ocean where the bodies could be sent home by ocean-going ship?
 
But the problem with it to me is that it's a very dangerous lie.

It's a problem because it reinforces the idea, dating back to the war itself, that the Union army was composed of "Hessians" and "Lincoln's hirelings" -- German, Irish and other immigrants actively recruited in Europe to be cannon fodder for the northern armies. It's true that about a quarter of the Union army was composed of men not born in this country, but that's also true of the population of the northern states as a whole.
 
I see your point Corp. Bryan and agree - to a degree. I guess I just can see that something is clearly a work of fiction - although based on real events - and so don't look at it as an educational documentary. Upon reflection after reading your comments, though, I can see that many might not differentiate. The same could be said for the movie Lincoln I think as it wasn't entirely accurate either, although it still delivered an effective story based on reality.

All of these movies are entertainment first and most war movies are actually anti-war statements. But it has been talked about quite a bit that more people will watch a movie like Gangs of New York than read a book about immigration during the Civil War Era or the New York City Draft Riots... and many will tend to believe the things they see in these movies.

The recruiting scene does have kernels of truth to it. All of these things happened, just not so systematically as the movie portrays. As Gary Gallagher has written about it, it's just another negative, post-Vietnam/Watergate depiction of the Union Army.
 
All of these movies are entertainment first and most war movies are actually anti-war statements. But it has been talked about quite a bit that more people will watch a movie like Gangs of New York than read a book about immigration during the Civil War Era or the New York City Draft Riots... and many will tend to believe the things they see in these movies.

The recruiting scene does have kernels of truth to it. All of these things happened, just not so systematically as the movie portrays. As Gary Gallagher has written about it, it's just another negative, post-Vietnam/Watergate depiction of the Union Army.
Agreed that it does have kernels of truth to it.

Were I a penniless immigrant at the time, a job, any job, would be appealing. (The bounty offered didn't hurt.) And, if I were a recruiter, the shiploads of penniless immigrants would be a fertile field to plow.
 
Two issues raised here. Were immigrants recruited right off the boats as on the docks? I do recall reading that during the Mexican War they were so recruited as related in a magazine article (American Heritage?) in a story on the San Patricio Battalion (sad story) and it came back to haunt the USA once the Irish Catholics found themselves killing fellow Mexican Catholics and thinking twice about serving in the army of a country that did not much like Catholics. If the article was accurate the practice may have been continued in the Civil War.

About the coffins for immigrant soldiers. In 1863, the year of the movie, it is not likely Irish immigrant soldiers were going to have their bodies shipped anywhere. Most likely they would have been buried in graves, single plots if lucky, mass if necessary. That scene reminds me of the one in the Ben Affleck movie, Pearl Harbor where at the end the bodies of the Doolittle raid army airmen are brought home, a la Vietnam, in metal caskets. How in heaven's name could those bodies have been returned from Japanese occupied China in 1942?

That movie, Gangs of NY, also had naval cannon of the War of 1812 vintage shelling downtown Manhattan. It may have been entertaining but I would not cite it for anything except gratuitous violence.
 
Off the boat? The Confederacy believed they had evidence that the Union was recruiting them in Ireland. This topic along with recruiting in Prussian and other European nations are covered in Foreign Recruitment for Union Forces, by Robert L. Peterson and John A. Hudson, Civil War History, June 1961 vol. 7 no. 2.

"Other Confederate representatives abroad who mentioned the question in the correspondence with the Confederate State Department were J. E. MacFarland, L. Q. C. Lamar, and James Mason. MacFarland merely reported that the subject had been discussed in the House of Commons and he passed along some comments made in the debate." p. 183.

"On November 23, 1863, Hotze sent to the Confederate State Department copies of some legal evidence of Federal recruiting in Ireland, but he asked that the documents not be published until there was time to present the case properly." p. 182.

The Union policy was: "Immigration was to be encouraged, though this object was to be pursued in a legal manner. However, there is evidence that unofficially, some actual recruiting of foreign troops did take place." p. 184.
 
It's a scene in a movie.....Sure, in reality, recruiters were on the docks, but new immigrants were NOT immediately uniformed (even by their own choice), already knew how to march and sent to the front.....IF I just arrived somewhere and NEEDED A JOB, I'd HAVE to think about looking for a job BEFORE I seriously considered joining an army that was already at war.....*Just my "Two-Cents"*....This is why I hate historical fiction.....**** like this keeps me from reading a decent historical novel or seeing historical movies.....I now confine myself to reading legitimate works of factual, scholarly research....I hate to spend money on a crappy movie or book that is unbelievable.....
 
Back
Top