Lt. Col. James F. O'Brien, 48th Mass.

John Hartwell

Lt. Colonel
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A week before his 27 May 1863 death before Port Hudson, the County Tipperary man wrote:

“We are fighting a desperate foe, a foe inspired with that desperation of purpose, which, whether in a right or wrong cause, always inspires an invaded people. They are united too, their hopes are fostered by the demonstrations of the copperhead cowards of the north, and also by perfidious England, who, while she holds out one hand to us in friendship, with the other tosses gold and shot and shell to our adversary. But, notwithstanding treason at home and deception abroad, I have no fears of the result. The struggle must end in the death of this rebellion and with it must die the cause which produced it. The time has come to speak plain and act resolutely. I say that the crime of rebellion which has caused thousands of our citizens to fill bloody graves is but partially atoned for in the sweeping away of the noxious institution of slavery.”

More at Ron Coddington's Faces of War: https://www.flickr.com/photos/8026096@N04/8688878232/in/photostream/
Also sketched in Ron's book Faces of the Civil War [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0801878764/?tag=civilwartalkc-20].
 

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It is interesting that by 1863 it was more and more common for Irish Union soldiers to express antagonism to slavery.
 
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