|
Dromo's Den
|
|
[Up] [Dromo's Den] Thomas Meagher Biography MEAGHER,
Thomas Francis (I823-67). An Irish-American soldier. He was born at
Waterford, Ireland, Aug. 3, 1823, and was educated at the Jesuit College of
Clongowes Wood, County Kildare, and at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England.
On the outbreak of the, French revolution of 1848 he was sent to Paris by the
Irish Confederation to congratulate the republican leaders. On his return he was
arrested on a charge of sedition and was later tried for high treason, found
guilty, and sentenced to death, but subsequently the sentence was changed to
banishment for life to Tasmania. Transported thither, he escaped in 1852 and
succeeded in reaching New York. Subsequent to 1855 he practiced law in New York,
and in 1856 became editor of the Irish News. At the beginning of the
Civil War in 1861 he organized a company of zouaves, joined the Sixty-ninth New
York Volunteers, was acting major at the first battle of Bull Run, and after
serving the three months of the first call, returned to New York and organized
the Irish brigade, being commissioned brigadier general on Feb. 3, 1862. He
served in the latter part of the Peninsular campaign and participated in the
second battle of Bull Run and in the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg, in
the last of which he was seriously wounded while leading a charge on Marye's
Heights. After Chancellorsville he resigned because little was left of his
brigade, but he was recommissioned in 1864 and for some time was in command of
the District of Etowah. He was appointed secretary of Montana Territory in 1865,
and in 1866 served as Governor pro tempore. On July 1, 1867, he fell from the
deck of a steamer, at Fort Benton, on the upper Missouri, and was drowned. He
published Speeches on the Legislative Independence of Ireland (1852) and Last
Days of the Sixty-Ninth in Virginia (18,61). Consult M. Cavanagh, Memoirs
of General Thomas Francis Meagher, with Selections from his Speeches, Lectures,
etc. (Worcester, Mass., 1892). The New International
Encyclopaedia, Vol. XV
(New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920)
296.
|