The real story of the Irish who fought with the Confederate Army is only just starting to be told

And that's assuming every border state Irish immigrant was pro-Confederate. I just finished reading James Love's letters to his fiancé. He's a Irish born immigrant living in Missouri and he and his friends are pro-Union.

I'm sure that lots of Irish immigrants in the South supported the Confederacy for very similar reasons as other Southerners. But 40,000 is simply too big a fraction of a relatively small group.

I agree.

Ryan
 
I had posted this elsewhere, and I think that it deserves to be reposted. This is a comment I made last year:

As Al Smith would often say in the face of nonsense "Let's look at the record."

From David Gleeson:

"In 1860, the eleven states that would become the Confederacy contained about 85,000 Irish residents. In the three border states lived about 95,000 more Irish, giving a total of about 180,000. This total represented about 11 percent of the 1.6 million Irish living" in the United States.
Gleeson, David T.. The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America (Civil War America) (p. 7). The University of North Carolina Press. Kindle Edition.


Think about the number he puts forward from the Census. In 1860, there were 1.6 million Irish in the United States. Here is the breakdown for where these Irish-born immigrants lived:

Confederate States: 5.3% of total Irish Immigrant Population
Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland: 5.9% of total Irish Immigrant Population
Northern States (including Delaware): 89% of Total Irish Immigrant Population


Think about the problem with Tucker's 40,000 Irish-born Confederate soldiers. If there were 85,000 Irish living in the Confederacy, there were no more than 45,000 males. Of these, at least a quarter would have been too young to serve. This leaves us with fewer than 35,000 adult male Irish in the Confederacy. Some would have been too old for service in the army and others were disabled. The 20,000 Irish immigrants in the Confederate army that is usually given is much more likely than Tucker's exagerrated number.

Even the 20,000 estimate may be high. The white population of the Confederacy was 5.4 million and the upper estimate of the size of the Confederate army was 1 million, or 18% to 19% of the total population. If the same ratio held for Irish in the South, the number of Irish immigrants in the army would be 15,000 to 16,000.
 
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I had posted this elsewhere, and I think that it deserves to be reposted. This is a comment I made last year:

As Al Smith would often say in the face of nonsense "Let's look at the record."

From David Gleeson:

"In 1860, the eleven states that would become the Confederacy contained about 85,000 Irish residents. In the three border states lived about 95,000 more Irish, giving a total of about 180,000. This total represented about 11 percent of the 1.6 million Irish living" in the United States.
Gleeson, David T.. The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America (Civil War America) (p. 7). The University of North Carolina Press. Kindle Edition.


Think about the number he puts forward from the Census. In 1860, there were 1.6 million Irish in the United States. Here is the breakdown for where these Irish-born immigrants lived:

Confederate States: 5.3% of total Irish Immigrant Population
Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland: 5.9% of total Irish Immigrant Population
Northern States (including Delaware): 89% of Total Irish Immigrant Population


Think about the problem with Tucker's 40,000 Irish-born Confederate soldiers. If there were 85,000 Irish living in the Confederacy, there were no more than 45,000 males. Of these, at least a quarter would have been too young to serve. This leaves us with fewer than 35,000 adult male Irish in the Confederacy. Some would have been too old for service in the army and others were disabled. The 20,000 Irish immigrants in the Confederate army that is usually given is much more likely than Tucker's exagerrated number.

Even the 20,000 estimate may be high. The white population of the Confederacy was 5.5 million and the upper estimate of the size of the Confederate army was 1 million, or 18% of the total population. If the same ratio held for Irish in the South, the number in the army would be 15,000 to 16,000.
Pure speculation.
 
One factor that often gets ignored in these discussions of Irish in the Confederacy is location. Irish immigrants tended to settle in a small number of state, primarily in urban areas in the South. Here is the breakdown from the 1860 Census:

census irish.JPG

Source Gleeson p. 8

As you can see, Louisiana accounts for a thrid of all Irish immigrants in the South. These lived primarily in or near New Orleans. Gleeson says about 70% of Louisiana Irish lived in NOLA. This community was essentially out of the Confederacy by the end of the first year of fighting when that city was captured. Of course, some may have joined in the Confederate retreat from the city, but the most important center of Irish population in the South was out of the Confederacy early in 1862.

By contrast, in 1860, New York City alone had roughly 200,000 Irish immigrants living in it.
 
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