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GENERAL MEAGHER HEADSTONE UNVEILED IN NEW YORK

The first headstone anywhere in the world to memorialize Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher was unveiled at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn NY, on Saturday, April 19, 2008. The initiative is among the first of many Civil War veterans' grave-markers that the management of the National Historic Landmark cemetery has begun to install. Five years ago the cemetery assembled a team of research volunteers, led by Green-Wood's historian Jeffrey Richman, to identify the unmarked burial places of war veterans in the cemetery, which ultimately amounted to 1,100. Jeff was also master of ceremonies for the Meagher memorial.
Among these unmarked burials, forgotten across the 143 years since the end of the War Between the States, about 20 are veterans of the famous 69th New York Infantry and their two companion New York regiments that composed the Irish Brigade, the 63rd New York and the 88th New York. The headstones for these forgotten warriors will also be installed at Green-Wood this year. The other two regiments of Meagher's brigade were the 28th Massachusetts Infantry and the 116th Pennsylvania Infantry. Early in the first great battle of the war, at First Bull Run, Meagher served in the 69th New York Militia as a company commander, then quickly organized the Irish Brigade of five regiments that served with distinction until war's end. [Among many other Irish-born war veterans, the grave of the Cork-born poet Fitz-James O'Brien -- an early practitioner of the short story and science fiction -- has also been identified at Green-Wood and is now marked with a military stone.]
General Meagher, a native of Waterford, Ireland, and a major figure in the Young Ireland freedom movement in 1848 at age 25, for which he was imprisoned and sentenced to death by hanging, escaped from a British prison colony in Tasmania and made his way to the United States to great acclaim. He married Elizabeth Townsend of a prominent New York family in 1855. With the outbreak of the war, Meagher soon rose to even greater fame in his adopted nation. He recruited, organized and commanded the Union Army's Irish Brigade, which early became known for its esprit de corps and reputation as perhaps the most effective brigade on either side during the war.
At his death in 1867, Meagher was the Acting Governor of Montana when accidentally drowned in a fall from a boat -- some believe vigilantes -- on the Missouri River opposite Fort Benton, assassinated him. His body was never recovered. His military headstone is placed in the Townsend family plot where his beloved Elizabeth was buried in 1906. She was received into Catholic Church by Archbishop John McCloskey of New York and became a major figure in several Catholic charitable organizations and was president of the Cancer Hospital of New York.
Present at the ceremonies at Green-Wood was the Color Guard of the 69th New York Infantry led by Staff Sergeant Vasques. A message of commendation for the unveiling from the Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, was read by Major Patrick Flaherty, a member of the Montana Army National Guard currently on duty at the Pentagon. Green-Wood staff member, Santos Rivera, ably rendered taps. [A year earlier at Green-Wood, Mr. Santos played Taps at the unveiling of the memorial monument to 30 Irish-born US soldiers and marines who were killed in the Korean War.]
Miss Sarah Burke sang the national anthem of the United States and also, in Gaelic, rendered Amhrán na bhFiann. Her father, Michael Burke, has assisted in numbers of the Green-Wood research projects and is the author of a 2006 biographical sketch of Fitz-James O'Brien published by the New York Irish History Roundtable. Mr. Burke was also instrumental in bringing the recently discovered bust of General Thomas Sweeny to public attention. It's now on permanent display at Green-Wood, where Sweeny is buried.
A number of collateral Meagher family descendants from California were present. Representing the New York Waterford Association was Peter McKay. A portrayal of the days of mourning for Elizabeth Townsend Meagher was enacted by two visitors from Helena, Montana, Lenore McKelvey Puhek, author of a 2006 novel about the Meaghers, The River's Edge; Their Love Story, and her portrayed maid, Katie Daly --
each wearing black clothing of the period, and veiled. Charles Laverty, historian of the Fenian Graves Project, read a stanza from the T. D. Sullivan poem, Lines On The Death Of Thomas Francis Meagher (1885).
Following the General Meagher ceremonies, the entourage walked to the nearby grave of General Tom Sweeny, a native of Dunmanway, Cork, veteran of the war against Mexico, where he lost an arm, then commanded a division in the Union Army and in the battles around Atlanta with Sherman, where he fought his brilliant fellow-Corkman from Ovens Township, Major General Patrick Ronayne Cleburne. Both were seasoned division commanders and Fenians. Within a year after the civil war, Sweeny was Secretary of War for the New York City-based Fenian Brotherhood and created the plans for the incursion into Canada that resulted in the capture of Fort Erie (opposite Buffalo NY), and the rout of the joint British-Canadian forces at nearby Ridgeway under Colonel John O'Neill. At General Sweeny's grave, Dan McCarthy, president of the Corkmen's Association of New York, placed a commemorative wreath.

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