The Greatest Trials I Ever Had New Perspectives on the Civil War Era Series Editor Judkin Browning, Appalachian State University Series Advisory Board Stephen Berry, University of Georgia Jane Turner Censer, George Mason University Paul Escott, Wake Forest University Lorien Foote, Texas A&M University Anne Marshall, Mississippi State University Barton Myers, Washington & Lee University Michael Thomas Smith, McNeese State University Susannah Ural, University of Southern Mississippi Kidada Williams, Wayne State University The Greatest Trials I Ever Had The Civil War Letters of Margaret and Thomas Cahill Edited by Ryan W. Keating The University of Georgia Press Athens © 2017 by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 www .ugapress .org All rights reserved Set in 11/13 New Baskerville by Graphic Composition, Inc., Bogart, Georgia. Most University of Georgia Press titles are available from popular e-book vendors. Printed digitally Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data Names: Cahill, Thomas, 1827– 1869, author. | Cahill, Margaret, – 1870, author. | Keating, Ryan W., editor. Title: The greatest trials I ever had : the Civil War letters of Margaret and Thomas Cahill / edited by Ryan W. Keating. Description: Athens, Georgia : The University of Georgia Press, 2017. | Series: New perspectives on the Civil War era | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: lccn 2017009537 | isbn 9780820351544 (hardcover : alk. paper) | isbn 9780820351551 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 9780820351537 (ebook) Subjects: lcsh: Cahill, Thomas, 1827– 1869—Correspondence. | Cahill, Margaret, – 1870—Correspondence. | United States. Army. Connecticut Infantry Regiment, 9th (1861– 1865) | United States—History—Civil War, 1861– 1865—Personal narratives. | Soldiers—Connecticut—New Haven—Correspondence. | Women—Connecticut— New Haven—Correspondence. | New Haven (Conn.)—Biography. | Cahill family. Classifi cation: lcc e499.5 9th .c34 2017 | ddc 973.7/ 446—dc23 lc record available at https:// lccn.loc .gov/ 2017009537 Contents Introduction 1 Editorial Method 15 Chapter 1. Organization: Fall 1861 17 Chapter 2. “A Prefect Paradise of a sand Spit”: January– February 1862 37 Chapter 3. “It was awfully sublime”: March– May 1862 49 Chapter 4. “You may well call this a horrible war”: June– August 1862 87 Chapter 5. “All is ‘fair in Love war and Politics’ ”: September 1862– January 1863 109 Chapter 6. “All my command are on detached ‘provost Duty’ ”: April– October 1863 154 Chapter 7. “My plan is to get home and there if I have a choice express it”: July– October 1864 188 Bibliography 217 Index 227 This page intentionally left blank The Greatest Trials I Ever Had This page intentionally left blank Introduction On a cold night in November 1861, Col. Thomas Cahill sat on his mattress, huddled over a small leather writing desk. It is not hard to imagine the scene that evening as the colonel took pen to paper and wrote the fi rst of many letters home to his wife, Margaret. His regiment, the Ninth Connecticut (Irish) Volunteers, had arrived at Camp Chase in Lowell, Massachusetts, two days before. There they joined the Twenty- Sixth Massachusetts and a number of other smaller units, forming the nucleus of Gen. Benjamin Butler’s New England Expeditionary Force.1 The camp was full of men from all over New England, and they were excited—excited to be away from home, excited to be joining the fray against the rebellious Southerners, or maybe just excited at the prospect of slipping over the fence and visiting the local public houses to frater- nize with the young women who worked in Lowell’s factories.2 Housed in “the best of tents . . . [with] plenty of mattresses fi lled with straw, and a generous supply of blankets and comforts,” Cahill described with some dismay the recent journey from New Haven.3 Soon after their initial muster, his men gained ill repute for their disorderly conduct, and their bad behavior continued, defi ning their short journey to Lowell. Echoing local newspapers that lambasted the behavior of the Irishmen in the Ninth, Cahill was not optimistic, his language unenthusiastic. While his attitude may have been swayed to a degree by a sense of frustration with the men under his command, his tone refl ected underlying emo- tions that became increasingly evident in his correspondence as the war 1. Gen. Benjamin Butler, a Massachusetts Democrat, was perhaps most famous (at this point in the war) for his declaration in the summer of 1861 that escaped slaves be consid- ered contrabands of war. He returned to Massachusetts that fall to raise a brigade consisting of New England regiments for service in the Gulf of Mexico. See Hearn, When the Devil Came Down, for Butler’s biography and wartime experiences. 2. “The Expedition from Boston; Steamship Constitution at Portland the Trip to the Capes of Virginia, the Weather, the Passengers, and How They Stood the Passage,” New York Times, November 29, 1861; Daniel O’Sullivan to friend, December 25, 1861, O’Sullivan Collection, held in the private collection of Joseph Kelly, Toms River, N.J. 3. “Camp Chase,” Lowell Daily Citizen and News, November 9, 1861. 1