Product Description

THE CIVIL WAR CONTINUES TO FASCINATE HISTORIANS AND GENERAL READERS.

Contemporary Civil War scholarship has brought to light the important roles certain ethnic groups played during that tumultuous time in our nation’s history. Two new books, focusing on the participation of Irish immigrants in both the Union and Confederate armies, add to this growing area of knowledge.

While the famed fighting prowess of the Irish Brigade at Antietam and Gettysburg is well known, in God Help the Irish! historian Phillip T. Tucker emphasizes the lives and experiences of the individual Irish soldiers fighting in the ranks of the Brigade, supplying a better understanding of the Irish Brigade and why it became one of the elite combat units of the Civil War.

The axiom that the winners of wars write the histories is especially valid in regard to the story of the Irish who fought for the Confederacy from 1861-1865. Throughout the course of the Civil War, Irish Confederates made invaluable contributions to all aspects of the war effort. Yet, the Irish have largely been the forgotten soldiers of the South. In Irish Confederates: The Civil War’s Forgotten Soldiers, Tucker illuminates these overlooked participants.

Together, the two books provide a full picture of the roles Irish soldiers played in the Civil War.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #548147 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Curled Up with a Good Book
"4 stars. . . . very readable . . . This book is highly recommended to Civil War enthusiasts and those interested in Irish American history or culture."

The Rebel Rouser
"a free-flowing history . . . easy reading as well as informational."

About the Author
PHILLIP THOMAS TUCKER, winner of the Douglas Southall Freeman Award in 1993, has written fifteen books on Civil War, Irish, and African American history. He is an historian for the United States Air Force in Washington, D.C., and lives in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.

Customer Reviews

Eye opener!
This is a long overdue pen-picture of those from the Irish diaspora who found themselves, as always, involved (by choice) in other people's wars. The Mitchel family is an example of what I mean. Tucker does a good job and I look forward to reading his "God Help the Irish". I have heard it said of that expression (God help the Irish), that if He doesn't, we help ourselves anyway - and thank Him afterward!.

A welcome and much needed addition to Irish-American history and reference shelves.
Historian Phillip Thomas Tucker presents Irish Confederates: The Civil War's Forgotten Soldiers, an examination of some of the South's most overlooked fighting men. Chapters focus upon the Irish-Americans in specific regiments and brigades, such as the Irishmen who served in the First Missouri Confederate Brigade at the Battle of Champion Hill, and the Celtic-Gaelic rebels of the Tenth Tennessee Infantry Regiment of Volunteers. Black-and-white photographs, a bibliography, and an index round out this brief but illuminating collection of true stories of Irish Confederate ferocity and battlefield valor. A welcome and much needed addition to Irish-American history and reference shelves.

Dixie Gaels
This slim volume (about 100 pages of text) is best described as an inexpensive brief introduction to Irishmen who fought for the Confederacy. About a third of the book gives an overview of Irish in the South, their participation in the war and their motivations, and how some other Southerners viewed them. The balance consists of 8 brief chapters, each about various units with large numbers of Irishmen enrolled, usually describing an action in which they fought, and including some brief information on a few individuals in the unit.

A fair amount of the book's ink is spent arguing that, despite their outstanding war record, the CS Irish have been swept under the rug and are just now being recognized. While the publisher claims it's due to the tired old cliche about Northern control of publishing houses, thankfully Mr. Tucker himself does not, attributing it instead largely to a low rate of literacy among surviving Irish vets. Tucker's contention has some validity, but the main reason this occurred is Lost Cause-ism, which attempted to portray Confederates as the "real" (read WASP) Americans fighting against immigrant hordes forced to fight for the "stay-at-home Yankee cowards". Once this claim was made, it would not do to have Irish seen around the CSA pantheon, so the Lost Cause advocates airbrushed them out of the picture. Although Ella Lonn demolished this almost 70 years ago, myths die hard.

All in all, the book is okay for the casual student; there's just not a lot of meat if you're something more. It's not the in-depth study I'm hoping for, but to be fair I doubt Mr. Tucker was trying to produce one here. A lot of the units and personalities he describes are covered in greater detail in other works, including some of his own. If you're really interested in Irish in the ACW, I'd opt for them instead.