Reviewed by William H. Mulligan Jr. | Reviews | Journal of American Ethnic History, 28.3

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Reviewed by William H. Mulligan Jr. | Reviews | Journal of American Ethnic History, 28.3 | The History Cooperative

Reviews

*The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865.* By Susannah Ural Bruce. New York: New York University Press, 2006. xiii + 309 pp. Maps, photos, notes, bibliography, and index. $70.00 (cloth); $22.00 (paper).
Susannah Ural Bruce has made an important contribution to the history of the Irish. The Harp and the Eagle: Irish-American Volunteers and the Union Army, 1861–1865 deals with more than the involvement of the Irish in the U.S. Civil War by discussing the impact that Irish and Irish American participation in the war had on how Irish Americans were perceived and treated by the larger society.	1
Bruce begins the first chapter with a discussion of Irish immigration to the United States from 1700 to 1860 that is thoroughly grounded in the current scholarly literature on Irish migration and the Irish in the United States. She discusses the experiences of the pre-1830 migrants—who were largely Protestant—as well as the heavily Catholic post-1830 migration and effectively explores how the larger society received and perceived these two groups and their shifting interactions. In doing so, she is sensitive to the differences between American-born Irish and those born in Ireland. The chapter is sophisticated and nuanced.	2
Bruce explores the position of the Irish in the U.S. military prior to the Civil War, noting the different ways the Irish community and the U.S. military understood and remembered the San Patricios incident. The San Patricios were a unit in the Mexican Army during the Mexican War (1846–1848) made up primarily of Irish Catholics who had deserted from the U.S. army due to mistreatment and discrimination. Those San Patricios later captured by the U.S. army were executed as traitors. Largely forgotten until a decade ago—when the 150th anniversary of the incident sparked a resurgence of interest in Ireland, Mexico, and the United States—the execution of many San Patricios on the eve of the Civil War was a raw reminder to contemporary Irish Catholics of how little they were valued by U.S. society.	. . .

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