“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially,
are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” - Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Rory was shot and killed in the Battle of Antietam.
He was 1 immigrant among 23,000 other casualties, ~¼ of whom were also immigrants.
50,000 total people fought in the bloodiest day in US history.
The Civil War was a major turning point in United States history. It was a time of
great perseverance and loss when moral discontent took on affluence and a superiority
complex. The US lost more people in the Civil War (~780,000) than it had in its past 20 conflicts
combined, including the Mexican-American War, the War of 1812, and the Revolutionary War.
On September 17, 1862, the 44th completed their trek to Sharpsburg, Maryland. They were
immediately met by a blur of gray confederate soldiers. The fog lifted, and shooting began.
Rory watched his fellow infantry fall beside him. He saw other Irishmen, Germans, Scandinavians,
and blacks. Of course, Rory couldn’t tell from the color of their skin, but he felt a mindset of longing
and separation. He also heard several different languages, but that’s not as poetic.
“We'll fight them, sir, 'til hell freezes over, and then, sir, we will
fight them on the ice.” - Shelby Foote, author, The Civil War
Rory was tired of the same old; besides, the recruiter had such intense fervor for
his country and cause that he, in addition to the morals on which the war was built,
had convinced him to join. And so it was settled: Rory McGlinchy would join the 44th
NY Infantry Regiment, the People's Ellsworth Regiment.
Some 15 years had passed. Rory had followed work wherever it took him.
He’d worked at various steel mills, and even had a brief spell in construction - he’d spent a
few months in the midwest laying railroad tracks. Unfortunately, a recent influx of low-skilled
workers didn’t leave him much opportunity in the midwest. He took a three day trip on the
newly built railway back to NY.
Rory knew the drill by now. Upon arrival, he bought two nights stay at a local inn. During
this time he found an inexpensive apartment with a tolerant landowner. He searched for simple
jobs to pay the bills. He saw the usual stuff - factory jobs, ship unloaders, etc. To his interest,
however, he noticed dozens of military recruiters, all with programs that said, in bold letters, “Join the
UNION ARMY. Fight to preserve the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”
Of course, Rory had heard about the War of Rebellion, later known as the Civil War. Word had
spread west after a short time, but it wasn’t the same experience as the hotbed of opinions and
passion that was New England.
Rory managed to find work at a mid-sized textile mill. The pay was modest,
but enough for living expenses in his small Irish community on the outskirts of
Manhattan. Early on, they had discovered that the systemic racism within the states was
impossible to bear without support. The need for an environment free of prejudice produced
many of these small “ghettos” of immigrants within larger cities.
He noticed that most of his fellow factory workers were other immigrants and women.
They came and went relatively frequently, and Rory worried that his stay here was
limited.
Right off the boat, Rory understood that getting a job was crucial.
He didn’t speak English, and knew that job opportunities would be very
different from those at his rural home. There were countless employers at
the dock. It seemed that most were for factory jobs or ship loaders on the dock,
but he noticed something peculiar…
To his confusion, a few corporations bluntly turned Rory away as he approached.
They all had signs that read, “No Irish need apply.” During the American Temperance movement,
nativists that were anti-Catholic and, by extension, anti-Irish, decided to brand these
groups as “drunks.” This fostered an entire anti-alcohol movement throughout the United States
and fueled the anti-immigrant sentiment that remains prominent to this day.
Furthermore, immigrants were willing to take low-skilled jobs for much less
pay than American-born citizens; this instilled in Americans the idea that immigrants
were stealing their jobs, thus the refusal to hire Irish workers.
“Hundreds of poor people, men, women and children of all ages, from the driveling
idiot of ninety to the babe just born, huddled together without air, wallowing in
filth and breathing a fetid atmosphere, sick in body, dispirited in heart . . . dying
without voice of spiritual consolation, and buried in the deep without the rites of the
church.” - Stephen E. De Vere, a public-spirited Irish landlord.
In the fall of 1847, Rory McGlinchy boarded a Canadian timber ship
to the New World along with 604,000 other Irish immigrants over 1846 - 1851.
The conditions on the 40 day journey were less than ideal, but everyone had a
familiar sense of longing and hopefulness that eased each other's anxiety.
Virtually nobody was immune, including Rory McGlinchy; Rory was a small, Catholic, self
sustaining potato farmer from Loughrea, Ireland, and he felt the unfortunate financial
burdens of ecological disaster. For two strenuous years, he held out hope that the famine would subside. It was made clear to him that he would not be relieved of his hardships in Ireland.
He took a path of fortuity about which all immigrants contemplate deeply.
The Irish Potato Famine (Great Hunger) began in 1845.
A fungus-like organism called Phytophthora infestans spread swiftly and violently
throughout agricultural Ireland. The infestation ruined about half of
all potato crop in it’s first year, and nearly three fourths of all Irish
potatoes over the next seven.