Laborers Present.....

[figgycopperpot]

Hello All,
I having been chasing down my 3x great grandfather - Edward Quinn - for over a year now. He was originally from Ireland, and served in H1st US ART during the Civil War, and was in and out the Army after the war. I am lucky enough to live close-ish to DC and I have been to NARA several times and pulled his pension application, muster rolls etc. I am still trying to fill in the gaps. I have nothing about him prior to May 1861 when he enlisted at Ft. Hamilton NY.
On his enlistment into one of the units he served with after the war has a curious notation. It says:
"Mark on forearm E. Quinn Jacksonville Ft. Sumter"

I am currently trying to track this down. H1 WAS at Ft Sumter when the bombardment happened, however I know my Ed. Quinn was not there in a military capacity as the bombardment happened prior to his enlistment.
I recently contacted Ft. Sumter and they were able to locate an Edward Quinn listed in "Reminiscences of Fts. Sumter and Moultire 1860-1861" by Abner Doubleday (captain of H1). He was listed on p 181 in the Appendix under Laborers. I am unable to ascertain if this is the person I am looking for or not. I did email them back and asked some follow up questions about another laborer at the same time, and in the same list, Patrick Quinn but I do not believe they are related.
The person helping me suggested I try to find information about federal workers that were there as laborers during this time, many from Baltimore, but they didn't know where I should begin searching. From what they were telling me (and I have to read the above mentioned book - ordered from Amazon, as well as the book by Gustavus Fox - cap of the Steamer Baltic that evacuated H1 from Charleston to NY) it seems that the laborers mentioned in Doubledays book were assisting when the fighting broke out and some of them were evacuated with the soldiers and some enlisted in NY, and perhaps this is what happened with my ancestor
So, I am trying here. Does anyone know either from their own researching, or know where I should look for information about the construction laborers at the Fort, or the federal workers? As I said previously, I can get to NARA in DC easily.

.

 

[RedRover]

There were apparently about 55 engineer laborers at Sumter in 1861 with Major Anderson and the artillery company.

Major Anderson, as his rations gave out, intended to send the laborers ashore to the mainland, but the Confederates would not allow it...

However Doubleday noted that most of the laborers were subsequently sent off, except for those determined to aid the garrison and share its fate...

Doubleday's book can be read online here...

Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61

www.google.com

He lists the volunteer laborers present during the bombardment, including Edward Quinn, as follows...

Doubleday mentions that the laborers were principally hired from the vicinity of Charleston. And that the Baltimore Masons were not generally approving of the Union cause...

...

So in April, 1861 it was noted that on the Baltic's return to New York it deposited the recruits on board at Governor's Island, including several of the laborers lately present at Fort Sumter... (NY Times, 4-19-1861):

The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, April 19, 1861, MORNING EDITION, Page 4, Image 4

The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, April 19, 1861, MORNING EDITION, Page 4, Image 4, brought to you by Library of Congress, Washington, DC, and the National Digital Newspaper Program.

chroniclingamerica.loc.gov

I would imagine SOMEWHERE in the records of perhaps the army's records would be payrolls for laborers employed in the forts.

 

[figgycopperpot]

This is great! Thank you!
Did you happen to have all of this, or did you look it up?
Either way, I am grateful. Thank you again.
Thats kind of what I was thinking about there being possibly records tucked away somewhere. In my experience, NARA doesn't have time to track down anything nonspecific so I really didnt know what I was asking them for, which was why I came here.
I am really looking to complete his life. Anything about his immigration and prior, but I am coming up at loose ends.
I was hoping there would be something in his pension application that states definitively, however even his own accounting of where in Ireland he was from is inconsistent, his stated ages dont point to a common year. Everytime I decide to give up and look into another branch of the tree, I randomly run across something new for Edward.
This information does open the possibilty that perhaps he immigrated farther south than the expected New York or Boston.
Anyway, I think this is helpful. I am beginning to question how likely it will be to track down about his tattoo and am wondering how relevant it is, just a bit of a rabbit hole, maybe.
I still need to compare the muster rolls to his military service record and see when he was hospitalized and what battles he himself was involved in and what he missed. His horse was shot and landed on him, he was shot in the hand and he had every major communicable disease that was floating around the camps. He missed months of time while he was laid up in the various hospitals he was passed around from. At one point they lose track of him, marked him as deserted and put a bounty out on him. He was in the hospital in Ft Schulyer as it turned out.

 

[joanndalycarr]

The Library of Congress has a listing of the laborers who were present at Fort Sumter during the bombardment (see
List of officers, men, mechanics and employees in Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861. http://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.173011000) Both Edward and Patrick Quinn are listed.

Foster, the chief engineer in Charleston Harbor, brought approximately 150 laborers from Baltimore to Charleston in November 1860 as he could not find skilled workers in Charleston. These workers were allocated among Fort Moultrie, Fort Sumter, and Castle Pinckney. The laborers at Fort Moultrie assisted in moving the garrison and their supplies from Moultrie to Sumter on the night of December 26. There they encountered a force of laborers, many of whom protested the garrison's move and were subsequently sent north to New York on the Marion (See "Interesting Statement of Fort Hall of the Army," New York Herald, January 19, 1861, 8.)

Most of the laborers at Castle Pinckney were sent north when Pinckney was captured, however four of them went to Fort Sumter with Lt. Meade.

As noted above, Foster did try to send the laborers away in early April but the Confederate government refused to allow then to leave Fort Sumter. During the bombardment the laborers were first assigned to making cartridge bags out of anything they could find (including Major Anderson's socks) but some of the laborers became a fourth artillery crew after observing Doubleday's soldiers.

The laborers, possibly including your ancestor, were thus not only present during the bombardment but contributed to the Union defense. The garrison and the laborers sailed to New York on the Baltic, arriving in New York harbor on April 19. After dropping Anderson and some other officers at the Whitehall pier, the soldiers who had been part of the reinforcement/rescue mission were taken to Governor's Island and the laborers were taken by barge to the Battery. The rest of the garrison did not arrive at Fort Hamilton where the families of the enlisted were waiting until the next day.

I regard the laborers at Fort Sumter as among the first combat volunteers for the Union Cause, however, they did not receive the enlistment incentives, the pay, or the pension of those who volunteered after Lincoln's call for troops and, very probably lost most if not all of their possessions to the fires that consumed Fort Sumter. Although the soldiers did receive a bit of compensation for their losses, ($10-20) I have not found any record of any compensation being provided to the laborers.

I have been researching Fort Sumter for about six years and have read numerous first hand accounts from other garrison members but have not found any direct references to Edward Quinn.

 

[bmckevlin]

Have you tried using the web site "FOLD3"? There is a charge for it, but they usually will give you a free trial of 1 week to research to see if you like it. Be sure you cancel before your week is up. It is for looking up service personnel. Put in your ancestors name, Union or Confederate, which service he belonged to or state and Civil War. If he was in the service, it will find him. Included would be his muster papers showing where he signed up, if injured, etc. If nothing comes up try eliminating things or adding, don't give up. I have Irish ancestors I located this way. The Irish were fighters, and I have some hero's on the Confederate and Union sides. One was a Medal of Honor winner from Wisconsin.

 

[wilber6150]

The laborers were part of the original construction crew building the fort when Anderson moved his command over.The fort was still being constructed even during the siege.But, at a certain point, they and other civilians were not allowed to leave and used as tools to use up the forts supplies to force Anderson to surrender

 

[Rhea Cole]

My question is how / why did Anderson / U.S. Army justify the expense of transporting Irish laborers to South Carolina? We have discussed the advertisement for "Irish N++gers" laborers in Northern newspapers here on CWT several times.

Work that was too dangerous to risk valuable slaves on was done by white laborers. An example was the construction of the 2,200 foot RR tunnel through Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee.

Everyone has heard the folk song "John Henry, the Steel Driving Man." Highly skilled work gangs used hammers & iron rod drills to drive holes into rock for blasting. As if the tunneling was not impressive enough, every few hundred yards a vertical ventilation shaft was driven upward to the surface of the mountain. Not just anybody could do that kind of work.

A ten man rock drilling work gang was worth (+/-) $ 15,000 in 1860. That is (+/-) $ 750,000 in 2026 dollars. To put that into perspective, an Irish laborer was paid (+/-) $ .60 / day. The math is compelling. Risk to benefit of $ 750,000 VS $ 6.00 / day for a 10 man gang needs no explanation.

After the skilled rock drilling work gang had prepared the rock face, they were withdrawn. Blasting occurred at the end of the work day. That was when a gang of Irish workmen came to the rock face & tamped black powder charges into the holes. Wadding was tapped into place to confine the blast & hold the fuse in place. At a respectful distance, the fuse was lit. Needless to say, a lot of deadly accidents were associated with tamping black powder into holes where flint was common. $ .60 / day Irishmen were plentiful during the Potato Famine.

If you hike the extensive trails on Monteagle today, in the late afternoon you will hear the ghostly wail of a siren rising from below your feet. As you stand there with a "Whaaat?" look on your face a "Whooooomph" & ground shaking vibration will follow. The limestone mine inside the mountain dances to the same rhythm as did the tunnel gangs in the 1840's.

My point here is that the Irish laborers were imported for a reason. Ordinarily, gangs of slaves would have been rented as was common & ordinary to do construction work. In fact, families of skilled craftsmen were a feature of construction in slaveholding states. The citations includes "… Fort Sumpter was under construction…" as the rationale for a considerable number of civilian laborers besieged. What were they doing?

I ask this question because knowing that a gang of Irish masons, for example, were transported form New York City would provide a possible angle for identifying an individual laborer. It would also be a potential post war tread to follow.

Answering the question of why the Irish were in South Carolina might shine a light on the individual in question.

Note: In the bizarro world of 19th Century racial theory, there were 20 something races in Europe. In England, whether or not native Irish were a "White Race" was a serious debate topic. After all, the whole point of all that dancing on the head of the racial pin head was to justify God's gift of the right to steal them blind in exchange for eternal life.

That "Irish N++ger" thing sounds preposterous to us, but it had a seriously evil contemporary meaning.

 

[wilber6150]

Interesting question, it was a federal contract and a lot of Irish were involved with stone and mason work in the NYC, so it was probably good money for them and with tensions building in the area for years with local, it might have been thought prudent to bring in outside help

 

[wilber6150]

My question is how / why did Anderson / U.S. Army justify the expense of transporting Irish laborers to South Carolina? We have discussed the advertisement for "Irish N++gers" laborers in Northern newspapers here on CWT several times.

Work that was too dangerous to risk valuable slaves on was done by white laborers. An example was the construction of the 2,200 foot RR tunnel through Monteagle Mountain in Tennessee.

Everyone has heard the folk song "John Henry, the Steel Driving Man." Highly skilled work gangs used hammers & iron rod drills to drive holes into rock for blasting. As if the tunneling was not impressive enough, every few hundred yards a vertical ventilation shaft was driven upward to the surface of the mountain. Not just anybody could do that kind of work.

A ten man rock drilling work gang was worth (+/-) $ 15,000 in 1860. That is (+/-) $ 750,000 in 2026 dollars. To put that into perspective, an Irish laborer was paid (+/-) $ .60 / day. The math is compelling. Risk to benefit of $ 750,000 VS $ 6.00 / day for a 10 man gang needs no explanation.

After the skilled rock drilling work gang had prepared the rock face, they were withdrawn. Blasting occurred at the end of the work day. That was when a gang of Irish workmen came to the rock face & tamped black powder charges into the holes. Wadding was tapped into place to confine the blast & hold the fuse in place. At a respectful distance, the fuse was lit. Needless to say, a lot of deadly accidents were associated with tamping black powder into holes where flint was common. $ .60 / day Irishmen were plentiful during the Potato Famine.

If you hike the extensive trails on Monteagle today, in the late afternoon you will hear the ghostly wail of a siren rising from below your feet. As you stand there with a "Whaaat?" look on your face a "Whooooomph" & ground shaking vibration will follow. The limestone mine inside the mountain dances to the same rhythm as did the tunnel gangs in the 1840's.

My point here is that the Irish laborers were imported for a reason. Ordinarily, gangs of slaves would have been rented as was common & ordinary to do construction work. In fact, families of skilled craftsmen were a feature of construction in slaveholding states. The citations includes "… Fort Sumpter was under construction…" as the rationale for a considerable number of civilian laborers besieged. What were they doing?

I ask this question because knowing that a gang of Irish masons, for example, were transported form New York City would provide a possible angle for identifying an individual laborer. It would also be a potential post war tread to follow.

Answering the question of why the Irish were in South Carolina might shine a light on the individual in question.

Note: In the bizarro world of 19th Century racial theory, there were 20 something races in Europe. In England, whether or not native Irish were a "White Race" was a serious debate topic. After all, the whole point of all that dancing on the head of the racial pin head was to justify God's gift of the right to steal them blind in exchange for eternal life.

That "Irish N++ger" thing sounds preposterous to us, but it had a seriously evil contemporary meaning.

I have come across lists of names of these cilvian contractors before in relation to the seige, but sources escape me now, but that information is out there