‘He said he was an Irishman also’: Irish-American Union and Confederate Encounter Stories in the American Civil War

One September 1864 night, Daniel Crowley, a young Union Army Irish-American soldier, conversed with a Confederate picket-guard across an entrenchment during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia, in the American Civil War’s final months. The Confederate, like Crowley, ‘said he was an Irishman’. Crowley’s encounter with his fellow-Irish—yet also enemy—brethren is one of several moments depicted in letters, memoirs, songs, and cultural productions during and after the conflict. Reference to such encounters reveal much about the fellow-feeling and patriotic admiration Irish-Americans had towards each other on opposite sites, while also pointing towards post-war reconciliation to bring about Ireland’s independence. This chapter assesses enemy encounters in both real and fictional stories about Irish-American Confederates and Union Irish soldiers, how they exposed desires for common purpose connected to a larger Irish nationalist fight, how identity was reinforced through finding common empathy amongst ethnic combatants, and how national connections were articulated in a variety of front-line, home-front, and prisoner-of-war settings. The manner in which fictional encounters were recorded indicated a perception that the ‘enemy’ was still the opposition, despite momentary alliances in specific and quieter American Civil War circumstances.