Gen. Lee shares thoughts on Irishmen in the Civil War

Editor’s Note: The Rev. George W. Pep­per, a for­mer pas­tor of the Methodist-Episcopal Church in Belle­vue in the 1870s to early 1880s had an oppor­tu­nity in his career to inter­view Robert E. Lee. Part of that inter­view follows.

(Con­tin­ued from last week)

Our next topic of con­ver­sa­tion was the for­eign ele­ment in the armies. Speak­ing of the Irish, he declared with much feel­ing that the South could not rec­on­cile with their notions of con­sis­tency and honor how North­ern Irish­men, who were so des­per­ately and vio­lently opposed to the thrall­dom of Britain — the wrongs of Ire­land being mos­quito bites beside the enor­mous injuries which had been inflicted by the North upon the South — how lib­erty lov­ing Irish­men could fight against South­ern­ers con­tend­ing for inde­pen­dence and equal­ity of rights.

I sug­gested that the sol­diers of Irish ori­gin in our armies were really bewil­dered to know how Irish­men who for cen­turies had gal­lantly con­tended for free­dom of the Celts, could be so incon­sis­tent and recre­ant to every sense of right as to be engaged in a war for a gov­ern­ment whose cor­ner­stone was slav­ery. Besides that, though Irish­men were rev­o­lu­tion­ists at home, they were con­ser­v­a­tives in the United States, and there was a great dif­fer­ence between a war in the inter­est of a down­trod­den race and that in favor of the prop­a­ga­tion of slavery.

Advert­ing to the char­ac­ter of the Irish sol­diers, the gen­eral was very enthu­si­as­tic, say­ing that they played a promi­nent part in the wars of the world for the last three cen­turies, now on one side, now on the other.

“The Irish sol­dier fights not so much for lucre as from a reck­less love of adven­ture, and, more­over, with a chival­rous devo­tion to the cause he espouses for the time being. Cle­burne, on our side, inher­ited the intre­pid­ity of his race. On a field of bat­tle he shone like a meteor on a clouded sky! As a dash­ing mil­i­tary man he was all virtue; a sin­gle vice does not stain him as a war­rior. His gen­eros­ity and benev­o­lence had no lim­its. The care which he took of the for­tunes of his offi­cers and sol­diers, from the great­est to the least, was inces­sant. His integrity was prover­bial, and his mod­esty was an equally con­spic­u­ous trait in his character.”

“Meagher on your side, though not Cleburne’s equal in mil­i­tary genius, rivaled him in brav­ery and in the affec­tions of his sol­diers. The gal­lant stand which his bold brigade made on the heights of Fred­er­icks­burg is well known. Never were men so brave. They enno­bled their race by their splen­did gal­lantry on that occa­sion. Thought totally routed, they reaped har­vests of glory! Their bril­liant though hope­less assaults upon our lines excited the hearty applause of my offi­cers and sol­diers, and Gen­eral Hill exclaimed, ‘There are those damned green flags again!’”

Refer­ring to the great loss sus­tained by the Con­fed­er­acy in the death of Stonewall Jack­son, Gen­eral Lee remarked: “In sur­prises, marches, and in the art of cre­at­ing the resources of war, Jack­son has sur­passed the level of his age, and risen to a com­par­i­son with Han­ni­bal and Napoleon, the two great­est com­man­ders of ancient and mod­ern times. In every rela­tion of pri­vate and pub­lic life his char­ac­ter was per­fect. The South has pro­duced some abler sol­diers, and a few in point of mil­i­tary tal­ent were his equals; but it can not and never could boast of one more beloved; not by per­sonal friends alone, but by every sol­dier and offi­cer that served under him. His dis­patches, even when announc­ing the grand­est suc­cesses, were brief state­ments of fact, unvar­nished. Many such state­ments as this would occur: ‘We are about to open the cam­paign. I have prayed earnestly to God that he will enable me to pass through it in his fear, know­ing no greater earthly bless­ing than to have a con­science at ease in the dis­charge of duty.’”

I left the pres­ence of this dis­tin­guished gen­tle­man with the con­scious­ness that pride, hatred, revenge, had no place in his noble nature, and that, hav­ing low­ered his col­ors and sheathed his sword, he was fully enti­tled to the con­sid­er­a­tion and respect of the gal­lant sol­dier to whom he surrendered.

It is need­less for me to say that, in my opin­ion, had he lived, he would fully have upheld in the most dis­tin­guished man­ner the Union of the states, the rec­on­cil­i­a­tion of all classes, and the pros­per­ity and hap­pi­ness of the whole country.

Fore­most amongst the Con­fed­er­ates, and first in peace, Gen. Robert E. Lee was not only a chival­rous gen­tle­man, but he was emi­nently a Chris­t­ian. In all his acts he was gifted with so rare a kind­li­ness of demeanor that he never made a quar­rel with any­one. His brief though bril­liant expe­ri­ence as instruc­tor of the young men of the South after the war closed, gave the strongest evi­dence of his loy­alty and good­ness of heart, and clearly pre­saged the glory which would have crowned his career had his life been spared.

———

Belle­vue His­to­rian Bill Oddo writes a weekly col­umn for The Belle­vue Gazette.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Dec 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.