Missed my stop...

A deleted scene from the movie “Gods and Generals”.  More than 100,000 Irish immigrants fought in the American Civil War, with estimates ranging from 20 to 40 thousand who fought for the Confederacy.  Some fought voluntarily defending what they saw as their adopted homeland, while others defended what they believed were the natural rights of all men. Many, newly immigrated to this country, were conscripted to fight and die against an enemy they had no quarrel with.

One amusing anecdote about two Irish immigrants circulated during the war.  Facing each other on picket duty across a river, they hailed one another as sons of Erin. 

• Song of the Rebel Irish

Oh, not now for songs of a nation’s wrongs,
not the groans of starving labor;
Let the rifle ring and the bullet sing
to the clash of the flashing sabre!
There are Irish ranks on the tented banks
of Columbia’s guarded ocean;
And an iron clank from flank to flank
tells of armed men in motion.

And frank souls there clear true and bare
To all, as the steel beside them,
Can love or hate withe the strength of Fate,
Till the grave of the valiant hide them.
Each seems to be mailed Ard Righ,
whose sword’s avenging glory
Must light the fight and smite for Right,
Like Brian’s in olden story!

With pale affright and panic flight
Shall dastard Yankees base and hollow,
Hear a Celtic race, from their battle place,
Charge to the shout of “Faugh-a-ballaugh!”
By the sould above, by the land we love
Her tears bleeding patience
The sledge is wrought that shall smash to naught
The brazen liar of nations.

The Irish green shall again be seen
as our Irish fathers bore it,
A burning wind from the South behind,
and the Yankee rout before it!
O’Neil’s red hand shall purge the land-
Rain a fire on men and cattle,
Till the Lincoln snakes in their own cold lakes
Plunge from the blaze of battle.

The knaves that rest on Columbia’s breast,
and the voice of true men stifle;
we’ll exorcise from the rescued prize-
Our talisman, the rifle;
For a tyrant’s life a bowie knife!-
Of Union knot dissolvers,
The best we ken are stalwart men,
Columbiads and revolvers!

Whoe’er shall march by triumphal arch
Whoe’er may swell the slaughter,
Our drums shall roll from the Capitol
O’er Potomac’s fateful water!
Rise, bleeding ghosts, to the Lord of Hosts
For judgement final and solemn;
Your fanatic horde to the edge of the sword
Is doomed line, square, and column!