The Irish in the Civil War and Reconstruction

The Civil War era marked a major transition for the Irish in America. Many Famine migrants who had come in such large numbers in the 1840s and 1850s sought to exploit the opportunities presented by the Civil War to prove their loyalty to their new American home. Irish Americans joined both armed forces in the respective sections; however, because most Irish lived in the northern states, nearly ten times as many served on the Union side. They received the support of Irish civilians on the home front. As the war progressed, however, Irish attitudes changed. On the Confederate side, most Irish accepted defeat with ease. On the Union side, opposition to military conscription and President Abraham Lincoln’s embrace of the emancipation of enslaved people in 1863 led to violent opposition to the war effort, most spectacularly in the New York City Draft Riots. As a result, at war’s end, the status of Irish-American integration was still not clear. Despite both main political parties courting Irish-American votes during Reconstruction, the Irish continued overwhelmingly to support the “white man’s party,” the Democrats. Therefore, they were still exposed to nativist opposition angry at their active partisanship and involvement in early labor organizing. Labor unions, as they had before the Civil War, remained an important focus for Irish Americans entering the Gilded Age.