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IRISH COWBOYS & SOLDIERS
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21-06-2010 12:34am#1Very few people know that Fossets Circus has a connection with Buffalo Bills (William Codys) Wild West Show that toured Europe in the Mid 1880s.
But many Cowboys were Irish and in between gold rushes and railroad building they were soldiers.
The most infamous are the St Patricios who fought for Mexico and their story is here as well as a list of the Irish Killed at Little Big HornTRAGIC STORY OF THE SAN PATRICIO BATTALIONNe’er-do-wells and deserters, these soldiers lived hard, fought hard— and died when they saw a flag go up
By FAIRFAX DOWNEY
In the 5th U.S. Infantry, stationed with General Zachary Taylor’s army on the Mexican border in 1846, Sergeant John Riley was rated a good soldier. Before his present duty he had served as a drillmaster for the Corps of Cadets at West Point which demanded high competence. Such was Riley’s ability that he was in line for a lieutenant’s commission, and rising from the ranks was rare at that period. He hail only one apparent fault, a grave one. He could enforce discipline but found it hard to take.
Soon after a reprimand from his captain for disobedience of orders, the smoldering Riley asked for a pass to attend Mass. He never reported back. The American Army had lost an able infantry sergeant. Mexico and General Santa Anna would gain a top artillery commander.
Riley joined the stream of deserters crossing over to the Mexicans, defections causing Zach Taylor considerable concern. They included others of the numerous foreign-born, many of them recent immigrants, who wore the blue—Irish, German, English, French, Polish. The Mexican Government had assiduously been urging all of doubtful loyalty or otherwise disaffected “to abandon their unholy cause and become peaceful Mexican citizens.” Bounties and land grants of 320 acres, rising with the deserter’s rank, were promised rewards. Impetus was added by harsh discipline in units of the U.S. Army where flogging was legal. Riley, like many other Irishmen, may well have been irked by the strong anti-Irish sentiment then prevalent in the United States.
But he and others who deserted before and alter the commencement of hostilities also met with contemptuous treatment in Mexico at first. This was wartime, and “peaceful Mexican citizens” were not desired. It was when the former sergeant organized his fellow turncoats into the San Patricio Battalion, ready to fight for their adopted country, that they began to win respect.
The San Patricios also were called the Colorados or “Red Company” because many of them were redheaded. Though they carried a banner blazoned on one side with a figure of St. Patrick and on the other with a harp and the arms of Mexico, only a proportion was Irish or Roman Catholic. They were composed of half a do/en nationalities, besides native Americans, and came from every branch of the service: infantry, cavalry, and artillery.
The last was Riley’s choice for the San Patricios. Equipped by Santa Anna’s order with heavy fieldpieces, he and the veteran artillerymen among the deserters trained the rest into crack gun crews.
The San Patricios manned Mexican guns in the stubborn defense of Monterrey whose storming cost the Americans heavy casualties. When the city yielded after a three-day battle, and the garrison marched out under the terms of capitulation, the deserters were recognized by former comrades and jeered and hissed. Silent and sullen, Riley and his men glared back. They would soon find an opportunity to take revenge for the scorn heaped upon them.
At Buena Vista on February 23, 1847, the San Patricios again stood prepared for action. Their 18and 24-pounders, emplaced to rake the plateau, formed part of General Santa Anna’s imposing array: other ready batteries, deep columns of infantry, long ranks of splendid lancers. General Taylor in nondescript civilian clothes lounged in the saddle of Old Whitey and watched out the spectacle before he gave the order to attack.
From the high ground the guns of the San Patricios opened, and battle flamed across the plateau. Lieutenant John Paul Jones O’Brien of Captain John M. Washington’s light battery—“D,” 4th Artillery—kept his “Bulldogs,” as he called his guns, barking. They hurled roundshot, then shifted to grape and canister to blast back charges by the Mexican lancers. Riley’s expert gunners retaliated by cutting up a squadron of the First Dragoons. The advantage of position and weight of metal lay with the Mexican guns, and the San Patricios, inflicting bloody losses on their former comrades, beat back the blue waves and concentrated on O’Brien. Most of his crews down around the smoking pieces, his horses killed, he stood and fought it out unsupported. His “Bulldogs” hung on until advancing enemy drove back survivors of the battery and captured its two guns not disabled.
Braxton Bragg’s flying battery, whirling up into action at a headlong gallop, began the turning of the tide. Obeying Zach Taylor’s command, “Double-shot your guns and give ‘em hell!” (let the shade of Old Rough and Ready stand absolved of the traditional, mild “A little more grape, Captain Bragg"), the artilleryman directed a hot and rapid fire that routed the Mexicans. Victory swept across the field. In Santa Anna’s retreat, the San Patricio Battalion carried off O’Brien’s two bronze 6-pounders.
After General Winfield Scott bombarded Vera Cruz into surrender and pushed on into the interior, Colonel Ethan Alien Hitchcock recruited a counterforce to the San Patricios. At Puebla he found a weaver named Manuel Dominguez who, robbed by a Mexican officer, had left his trade to become a bandit chief. Hitchcock organized Dominguez and his band as the Spy Company, officered by Americans. Raffishly uniformed in green cavalry jackets and pantaloons, trimmed with red, and straw sombreros with red streamers, they proved extremely useful as scouts and in carrying messages through the lines and were often assigned to secret missions out of uniform. Paid $25 a month and furnished arms, rations, and clothing, they were guaranteed safe passage with their families to the United States or a neutral country after the war. As Scott’s army fought its way toward the capital, the Spy Company rode with it.
It was on the second day of the Battle of Padierna or Contreras, August 20, 1847, that the Americans again met O’Brien’s “Bulldogs.” After the costly repulse of an attempt to cross the lava bed on the 19th, a brilliant flanking movement around the enemy left brought a blue brigade, supported by Captain Simon Drum’s battery, 4th Artillery, down on the Mexican rear in an overwhelming attack. In a close-up duel with Mexican artillerymen, stubbornly standing to their guns, Drum recognized their two bronze pieces as O’Brien’s. Instantly he limbered up and signaled the gallop for a stirring, hell-for-leather charge. A volley of grapeshot swept the color-bearer out of his saddle, but the flag was caught as it fell by Lieutenant Calvin Benjamin. As the head of the column crashed into the position, Drum vaulted from his saddle to lay hands on the trophies.
Although the ensuing rout of the Mexican Army reached the proportions of a panic, a hard core of veterans rallied and at Churubusco later the same day barred the American advance. There the San Patricio made its last stand.
Churubusco, derived from an Aztec word meaning Place of the War God, justified its name that day. Riley’s gunners, mainstay of the defense of the bridgehead to the massive-walled Convent of San Pablo, served their pieces with verve and fury. Their cannon smashed back assault after assault and they only yielded the bridge and retired to the convent when infantry crossed the river to outflank them and artillery enfiladed their position. To the deadly fire of the deserters, who took particular satisfaction in spotting and picking off their former officers, was attributed a large part of the considerable American losses: 137 killed, 879 wounded and 40 missing.
During the storming of the convent, which Santa Anna ordered held to the last to cover his retreat, the San Patricios fought with the utmost desperation. There was no thought of surrender among men who could feel the hangman’s noose around their necks. At last Riley and his remaining men, their ammunition exhausted, were overpowered. Seventy-five survived out of a battalion of 260; the rest, except for some who escaped, lay dead in the uniform of Mexico.
The Mexican Government would angrily term their punishment an act of Gringo barbarism, “a cruel death or horrible torments, improper in a civilized age, and for a people who aspire to the title of illustrious and humane.” Yet they were tried with scrupulous fairness, though feeling against them ran hot, and their sentences were strictly in accordance with the rules of war and the enormity of their offense. Some were acquitted as having been legitimately captured and forced into the ranks but refusing to fight. Riley and others, who had deserted before the commencement of hostilities, were sentenced to lashing and branding. Fifty were condemned to be hanged as deserters in time of war.
Ex-Sergeant John Riley, bound to a post, took his fifty lashes without a moan. But when he was branded with a “D” for deserter on the cheek bone, according to regulations “near the eye but without jeopardizing the sight,” he cried out under the agony of the redhot iron, for he suffered it twice. Since the letter was seared on upside down the first time, it was righted in a second branding.
Riley would labor as a convict as long as the army remained in Mexico. Then, head shaven, buttons stripped from the uniform he had once worn with honor, he would be drummed out of camp to the derisive fifing of “The Rogue’s March.”
Meanwhile he was forced to dig graves for the comrades who were to be executed. One group, hands pinioned and nooses around their necks, were placed in carts, driven out from under long gallows at San Angel. High drama featured the carrying out of the death sentence for the remainder. At Mixcoac they were stationed on a scaffold affording a view of the final assault on Mexico City. As American troops stormed the ramparts, the deserters watched the eagle and snake banner of Mexico lowered from its staff on Chapultepec Castle and the Stars and Stripes rise in its place. Just before the traps were sprung, with their last breath in a shout that was heard across the valley they cheered the flag they had betrayed.
For an epilogue the story of Deserters vs. Spies offers an example of national ingratitude and an instance of supreme gall.
Manuel Dominguez, leader of the Spy Company, was moved to New Orleans with his family after the war, as promised. But there, unpensioned, his services forgotten, he was left to eke out a miserable existence. The presumptuous Riley, however, dared bring suit against the United States in Cincinnati in 1849 to recompense him for damages received in his flogging and branding. The jury ruled against him.
Combat officer in two wars, and author of numerous books, Fairfax Downey contributed “Yankee Gunners at Louisbourg” to the February, 1955, issue of AMERICAN HERITAGE.
And the Irish who died with General Custer at Little Bighorn
Here are the names of the Irish men who fought and died either during or shortly after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Their details are displayed in the following format:
NAME - AGE - RANK - COMPANY - COUNTY - OCCUP - PERSONAL DETAILS
Atcheson, Thomas 41 Private F Antrim Unknown 5' 5¼" in height, hazel eyes, dark hair
Barry, John 27 Private I Waterford Laborer 5'7¾" in height, grey eyes, dark hair, ruddy complexion
Boyle, Owen 33 Private E Waterford Soldier 5'6" in height, grey eyes, dark hair, fair complexion
Bruce, Patrick 31 Private F Cork Unknown 5'7" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, ruddy complexion
Bustard, James 30 Sergeant I Donegal Soldier 5'6½" in height, hazel eyes, light hair, fair complexion
Carney, James 33 Private F Westmeath Unknown 5'4¼" in height, grey eyes, black hair, dark complexion
Cashan, William 31 Sergeant L Queen's County Soldier 5'9" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
Connor, Edward 30 Private E Clare Unknown 5'8½" in height, hazel eyes, brown hair, ruddy complexion
Considine, Martin* 28 Sergeant G Clare Unknown 5'7½" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
Cooney, David** 28 Private I Cork Laborer 5'5¾" in height, grey eyes, dark hair, fair complexion
(Promoted Sergeant on June 28th)
Downing, Thomas 24 Private I Limerick Laborer 5'8¼" in height, blue eyes, sandy hair, florid complexion
Drinan, James* 23 Private A Cork Laborer 5'7½" in height, grey eyes, light brown hair, dark complexion
Driscoll, Edward 25 Private I Waterford Laborer 5'6" in height, hazel eyes, light hair, light complexion
Eagan, Thomas 28 Corporal E Unknown Laborer 5'5½" in height, grey eyes, sandy hair, light complexion
Farrell, Richard 25 Private E Dublin Laborer 5'8¾" in height, grey eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
Finley, Jeremiah 35 Sergeant C Tipperary Laborer 5'7" in height, grey eyes, brown hair, light complexion
(He made Custer's buckskin jacket.)
Golden, Patrick* 26 Private D Sligo Slater 5'9¼" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
Graham, Charles 39 Private L Tyrone Unknown 5'6¾" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, florid complexion
Griffin, Patrick 28 Private C Kerry Unknown 5'9" in height, black eyes, dark hair, ruddy complexion
Henderson, John 37 Private E Cork Unknown 5'7¾" in height, grey eyes, light hair, fair complexion
Hughes, Robert H 36 Sergeant K Dublin Unknown 5'9" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
(Carried Custer's battle standard)
Kavanagh, Thomas G 31 Private L Dublin Farmer 5'11¼" in height, grey eyes, red hair, ruddy complexion
Kelly, Patrick 35 Private I Mayo Unknown 5'5" in height, grey eyes, sandy hair, fair complexion
Kenney, Michael 26 1st Sergeant F Galway Soldier 5'7¼" in height, grey eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
Keogh, Myles W 36 Captain I Carlow Soldier The only Irishborn officer, 2nd-in-command to Custer
himself in the ill-fated battalion
Mahoney, Bartholomew 30 Private L Cork Teamster 5'10" in height, hazel eyes, dark hair, sallow complexion
Martin, James* 28 Corporal G Kildare Laborer 5'5" in height, grey eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
McElroy, Thomas 31 Trumpeter E Tipperary Musician 5'5½" in height, blue eyes, dark hair, ruddy complexion
McIlhargey, Archibald31 Private I Antrim Unknown 5'5" in height, brown eyes, black hair, dark complexion
Mitchell, John 34 Private I Galway Unknown 5'6¼" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, ruddy complexion
O'Connell, David 32 Private L Cork Unknown 5'7½" in height, dark eyes, brown hair, ruddy complexion
O'Connor, Patrick 25 Private E Longford Shoemaker 5'5½" in height, blue eyes, light hair, fair complexion
Shanahan, John* 23 Private G Unknown Laborer 5'7" in height, blue eyes, brown hair, fair complexion
Smith, James 34 Private E Tipperary Unknown 5'6" in height, hazel eyes, brown hair, ruddy complexion
Sullivan, John* 25 Private A Dublin Laborer 5'6¼" in height, grey eyes, brown hair, medium complexion
* Killed with Reno battalion
** Died later of wounds received in the battle2
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old_aussie wrote: »Riley joined the stream of deserters
Is this an Irish military trait?
Australia was full
Where are our "Bushrangers" other than the obvious.0 -
Very few people know that Fossets Circus has a connection with Buffalo Bills (William Codys) Wild West Show that toured Europe in the Mid 1880s.
But many Cowboys were Irish and in between gold rushes and railroad building they were soldiers.
The most infamous are the St Patricios who fought for Mexico and their story is here as well as a list of the Irish Killed at Little Big Horn
And the Irish who died with General Custer at Little Bighorn
small men weren't they, not a six footer among them0 -
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didnt notice that it was cavalry
That earns you a Soupy Norman award -you being from Buttevant and all that.
Which being Cork -did you know that one of the most famous women pirates Anne Bonny* was from Kinsale.
http://www.geographia.com/bahamas/annebonny.htm
* Billy the Kids mothers maiden name was Bonny and he sometimes signed himself as William H Bonny.0 -
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Almost a century before Patrick Pearse was executed you had Alexander Pearse who was hanged in Austrailia for his culinary tastes "human stew"
His head is somewhere in a Philadelphia museum as some medic bought it to study phrenology.
Here is alexanders version of bush tucker.
A journey through hell's gate
October 29 2002
Alexander Pearce fled one of Tasmania's worst penal hellholes, only to find himself living another nightmare, writes Paul Collins.
The man standing in the dock of the Supreme Court of Van Diemens Land did not look like someone who was, as the Hobart Town Gazette put it on June 25, 1824, "laden with the weight of human blood, and believed to have banqueted on human flesh". In fact, he looked perfectly normal. He was 1.6 metres tall, slightly under medium height for the early 19th century, and his frame was wiry and strong. He was 34, but looked older.
There was nothing to distinguish the Irish-born Alexander Pearce from the procession of convicts who traipsed through the Hobart Town courts. Except for one thing - he was the first self-confessed cannibal to have appeared there.
Twenty months earlier, Pearce and seven other convicts had escaped from the prison settlement of Sarah Island, in Macquarie Harbour on the west coast of Tasmania, the most remote penal hellhole in the British Empire. In the jargon of the time, this was a place of secondary punishment, where recalcitrant convicts were sent when they repeatedly fell foul of the law while serving their original sentences. Pearce was the sole survivor of their nine-week escape through some of the world's most difficult wilderness terrain.
During their journey, five of his companions had been killed and eaten by their fellows. Two others died from exhaustion. Because cannibalism was unheard of among Europeans, Pearce's trial for murder created a sensation in Hobart Town, London, and even the United States.
Although Pearce was hanged in 1824, I keep meeting people who have heard of him. Perhaps it is the song about his exploits, A Tale They Won't Believe, by the group Weddings, Parties, Anything that has popularised him. He seems to be entering into popular consciousness, somewhat like Ned Kelly.");document.write(" [SIZE=-1]advertisement[/SIZE]</div>"); } } // -->
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Pearce originally had been sentenced at the County Armagh Lent assizes of 1819 to transportation for seven years. His crime was stealing six pairs of shoes, probably not his first offence. Only a professional thief would steal six pairs.
Pearce quickly distinguished himself as a troublesome malcontent. Between his arrival in Tasmania in February, 1821, and early August, 1822, when he was sent to Macquarie Harbour, he had absconded twice, received four floggings, one of 50 lashes for embezzling two turkeys and three ducks, one of 25 and another of 50 for being drunk and disorderly, and another 50 and six months working in chains for stealing a wheelbarrow.
In March, 1822, Pearce absconded again. After three months he was recaptured. By now the none-too-merciful magistrates of Hobart Town had had enough of him and he was sent to Macquarie Harbour for the remainder of his original sentence. He was there about six weeks when he bolted into the bush with seven others, beginning the extraordinary journey that has become famous in the history of penal Australia.
The whole area of the west coast then was separated from the settled districts in the centre of Tasmania by difficult and unexplored terrain.
Both guards and prisoners found Macquarie Harbour dreary and the weather appalling. The prisoners' main work was cutting and transporting the Huon pine logs and other fine timber, which grew abundantly in the area and were excellent for boat-building.
Today the area around Macquarie Harbour is valued precisely because of its isolation and is protected as one of the most spectacular wildernesses on Earth. This is a land of cool, temperate rainforests, the most extensive remnant of the extraordinary vegetation of the great southern supercontinent Gondwana.
These forests are of myrtle beech, celery-top and King Billy pine, and the most ancient of all conifers, Huon pine, which lives for up to 3000 years, and is found only in Tasmania.
On September 20, 1822, the convicts Alexander Pearce, Alexander Dalton, Thomas Bodenham, William Kennerly, Matthew Travers, Edward Brown, Robert Greenhill and John Mather were cutting Huon pine logs on the eastern side of Macquarie Harbour. Fed up with the rigid discipline, they planned to escape.
They intended to commandeer a whaleboat, sail north out of Macquarie Harbour, heading to freedom on a Pacific island, or even China. They easily overpowered their overseer, but they bungled the getaway. So they plunged impulsively into the rainforests and mountains surrounding the harbour. They headed east but they were utterly ill-equipped for what lay ahead on their 225-kilometre journey.
Nowadays this region is regarded as some of the toughest country in the world, visited only by experienced bushwalkers with good equipment. Eight days into their hellish journey and by now starving, the men realised that their only hope for survival was cannibalism. Almost impulsively, they killed and ate Alexander Dalton because, Pearce says, he had volunteered to be a flogger and such men were hated.
Next day, fearing that they might be the next victims, Brown and Kennerly decided to return to Sarah Island. Anything would be better than being killed and eaten by their fellows in the wilderness. They made it back to the coast of Macquarie Harbour, but died from exhaustion soon after.
The other five men continued, led by Greenhill, who had been a sailor. It was his navigational skills, using the sun and the stars, that enabled the party to travel for 42 days almost due-east towards the settled areas. It was an extraordinary feat.
As the journey continued, one by one, the weakest man was killed with an axe and butchered to provide food for the others. After five weeks of endless walking, only three men were left: Greenhill, Pearce and Travers. Most of the killing had been done by Greenhill, but Pearce and Travers had also participated. At first they cooked the flesh and innards, but eventually they just ate them raw. By this stage they had reached less rugged country, but with no knowledge of the bush they were unable to live off it.
Driven by extreme hunger, Greenhill finally faced the prospect of having to kill his injured friend Travers, who had been bitten on the foot by a venomous tiger snake. With Travers' foot now gangrenous, Greenhill and Pearce half-dragged and carried their injured companion for five days until Travers begged them to kill him. The only weapon left was the axe. They killed him in his sleep, and ate his flesh.
But the problem with human flesh is that, while rich in protein, it never really satisfies hunger because of the lack of carbohydrates, which provide energy. That is why the men had to kill so regularly. No matter how much they ate of their companions, it was not enough for the energy needed on their stamina-sapping journey.
Pearce and Greenhill struggled on for eight days, playing cat and mouse with each other, desperate to stay awake, fearing that the other would attack him if he closed his eyes and nodded off. It was Pearce who kept awake long enough to grab the axe and kill the sleeping Greenhill with a blow to the head.
The Irishman eventually made it to the settled districts, was befriended by a convict shepherd, and lived rough for several months, robbing farms and stealing sheep, before he was recaptured.
Incredibly, when Pearce gave an account to the authorities of the nightmare journey and the cannibalism involved, the examining magistrate and local parson, the Reverend Robert Knopwood, did not believe him, thinking that Pearce concocted the story to cover for his mates who were believed to be still at large. Pearce was returned in chains to Sarah Island, where his fellow convicts treated him as a hero.
Several months later he bolted again from a work party, this time heading north along the east coast of Macquarie Harbour with a young man named Thomas Cox, who had pestered Pearce to accompany him on an escape attempt.
When Pearce surrendered 11 days later near the mouth of the King River, just south of present-day Strahan, he had human flesh in his pocket.
Why he felt the need for cannibalism again is a mystery, since the guards found that he had other food with him. Pearce, who was clearly a psychopath, said that human flesh was by far preferable to ordinary food. Obviously he had acquired a taste for it, and for killing.
Pearce later admitted that he had murdered Cox in a rage, because he suddenly realised that the young man could not swim, and was going to be a continuing hindrance to him.
At Pearce's trial, witnesses said he had given himself up because he had no hope of ultimately escaping, and that he was horror-struck at his own inhuman conduct. This sounds like a sanitised account, but we know that he showed signs of repentance at the time of his execution.
It was very cold - there was heavy snow on Mount Wellington - in the court room on that winter day, June 20, 1824, when the cannibal stood trial for murder. The chief justice, John Lewes Pedder, presided at the trial for the murder of Thomas Cox. Pedder was a scrupulous judge, but he often hectored the condemned from the bench, telling them that they should not complain about harshness when penalties were well known to everyone.
The prosecutor was the attorney-general, Joseph Tice Gellibrand. Ironically, Gellibrand was to become lost in the bush near Melbourne in 1837, and was almost certainly killed by Aborigines.
Pearce had no defence counsel and there is no record that he said anything on his own behalf. The trial was brief and the inevitable verdict was handed down. The chief justice pronounced the death sentence and ordered that the body be delivered to the surgeons for dissection.
Thirty days later, after receiving the sacraments from the Catholic chaplain, Father Philip Conolly, Pearce was hanged in the yard of the Hobart Town jail at 9am on July 19, 1824.
Handing over the body for dissection was an uncommon addendum to the death sentence, but in the logic of 19th-century criminal justice it made eminent sense: the corpse of the cannibal was to be cannibalised for science. Thus ended one of the great Gothic horror stories of Australia's rich convict history.0 -
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:D:D 
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