I shall endeavour to help us regain normalcy by doing my duty...besides, I never thought the kid was a Sooner-quality QB to start with (and that ain't sour grapes.)
August 3, 1823 Union Brigadier General Thomas F. Meagher is born in Ireland
183 years ago today,Thomas Francis Meagher (pronounced "marr",) designer of the Irish tricolor, is born in Waterford, Ireland.
The Irish flag designed by Meagher. This flag is the current flag of the irish Republic (Eire.) The orange is for Protestants, the green is for Catholics, and the white in the middle is for "peace."
A Catholic, Meagher was educated by Jesuits, and studied law in Dublin. As a young man, he became deeply involved in Young Ireland, a nationalistic organization that opposed British rule in Ireland. Meagher was a fiery orator, and directed his invective against Ireland's British overseers.
After participating in the aborted Irish Rebellion of 1848, Meagher was convicted of high treason in a British court. Authorities commuted his death sentence to hard labor and exiled him, like many Irish nationalists of his day, to Tasmania -- the big jungle island just south of eastern Australia.
After four years in the wilds of Tasmania among his fellow convicts, he escaped and made his way to New York City. He married into a prosperous merchant's family and became a leader within the NYC Irish-American community.
When the Civil War broke out, Meagher was elected a captain in the 69th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, an Irish unit that became part of the three volunteer regiment nucleus of the famous Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac.
Reproduction of the brigade color presented to the Irish Brigade in early 1864 by Irish admirers in NYC. The flag featured a list of engagements fought in on the fly end. the original was richly embroidered on silk by the Tiffany Co. in NYC.
In February 1862, he was appointed brigadier general of the unit. Meagher served in all of the army's major campaigns in Virginia, and the Irish brigade distinguished itself at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. However, he was criticized for his unit's high casualty rates, which were rumored to be a result of his heavy drinking...hey, WTF did they expect, he was a lawyer AND Irish.
The first rays of light filter through the early morning fog revealing ranks of men in blue drawn up along Water Street near the Fredericksburg city wharf. Columns of smoke rise from the burning town and the rumble of cannon from the heights west of the city combines the crash of shells to mark the dawn of a day of battle. It is December 13, 1862 and the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac's famed Irish Brigade ready themselves to storm the Confederate entrenchments of Marye's Heights. Lacking their war-torn Irish banners, sent home for replacement, the men placed sprigs of boxwood in their caps to mark them with the green badge of Erin. Riding down the line of the 69th New York is their commander, the former Irish revolutionary Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher~"Meagher of the Sword"~accompanied by Division Commander Winfield Scott Hancock. Cheer after cheer echoes through the streets "each man...aware of the great and terrible work before him."
Meagher resigned his commission in 1863 when General Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, refused his request to return to New York and recruit Irish replacements for the brigade. He continued his work in the New York Irish-American community, but he returned to duty and served in the US Army of the Tennessee under Major General George "Rock of Chickamauga" Thomas in early 1865.
After Meagher departed his old regiment for the western theater of the war, the Irish brigade he helped found suffered horrible casualties at Gettyburg in July 1863. This is their monument on the battlefield. It features a celtic cross and a wounded irish wolfhound.
After the war, President Andrew Johnson appointed Meagher governor of Montana Territory. He died mysteriously at Fort Benton, Montana, on July 1, 1867, after falling from the deck of a riverboat on the Missouri River -- allegedly drunk. His body was never recovered.
Meagher is honored today with a statue in front of the Montana capitol in Helena.
Originally Posted by TUSooner
Re: Good Morning, Not that anyone cares b/c everyone is still wigged-out
