'Meagher of the Sword'

New Zealand Tablet, 20 September 1906, Page 10

'Meagher of the Sword'

A white-haired, quiet, charitable woman— Mrs. Elizabeth Townsend Meagher— passed over to the great majority in New York a few weeks ago. She was the widow of Brigadier-General Thomas Francis Meagher-- 1 -Mcagher of the Sword '—who was associated -with Smith O'Brien, Charles (afterwards Sir Charles) Gavan Duffy, and John Mitchell in opposing O'Connell's ' Peace Resolutions ' in 1846. Mrs. Meagher fol- ' lowed her husband through the war, and nursed him back to life after his horse had been - shot under him and he had been left for dead on the hard-fought field of Bull's Run. He was taken from her in 1867 by the swirling -yellow waters of the Mississippi, and 1 his handsome form was never again seen of men. His widow then dropped beneath the great public life of the country, carried on " till her death a mission -of love" and charity among the submerged tenth of New York. Then she flitted, full of years and good works, leaving 'no memorial but a world made a - little better by her life.' Yet the widow's passing, recalls strenuous days and brings back the memory of one of the most gallant feats of arms that poet ever sang. We refer to the wild charges of General Meagher's Irish Brigade at the battle of Frcdericksburg, during the American

, Civil War, on# -December 13, 1862. 'That,' said General Longstreet, an eye-witness, * was one of the handsomest things .in the whole war.' It was the heavy task of Meagher's - division ~to burst out of Fredericksburg, form under a devastating fire from the Confederate (Southern) batteries/ and' then attack* Marye's "Heights, which towered in. an almost, impregnable- position high above them. Behind.ra stone wall that ran along the Heights there lay a' Georgian "regiment, almost wholly composed of seasoned Irish troops. « When,' says a historian, of the war, 'the Brigade was seen advancing fronf* the town, they were at once recognised by their green badge, that sent a thrill to many a brave" but sorrowful/" heart, behind that rampart. " God ! what a pity !" ■ said some. " We're in for it ! " said others: " Here are Meagher's fellows!" said more. The voice " of . the colonel tang clear and, shrill :" '"lts Greek to Greek to-day, boys ; give them hell ! " And they did. For that deadly fusillade was a genuine feu d'eiifer '. - 'ft i-- • , i m

Meagher's men swarmed up the .Heights twelve hundred strong. Six times they faced the hell-storm of lead that poured upon them from the levelled barrels behind the wall. ' I looked with my field-glass,' said the Adjutant-General *of General Hancock's staff, ' and I looked' for a long time -before I was certain of what I saw. lat first thought that the men of the Brigade had lain down to allow the showers of shot and shell to pass over them, for they lay in " regular lines. I looked for some movement, some stir —a hand or foot in motion. But no ; -they were dead —dead every man of them— cut down" like grass '. Of the six hundred and seven gallant nien'af the Light Biigade who charged at Bal a klava, one hundred -and ninety-eight (or thirty-two per cent.) returned. Some twenty-six per cent, of MacMahon's regiment of curassiers drew their rations after their desperate charges on and through the eleventh Prussian corps at the battle of Reichshofen. Out of Meagher's Brigade of twelve hundred men that breasted the death-storm on Marye's Heights, only two hundred and eighty (or twenty-three per cent.) came back. On May 3of the following year, the Brigade was annihilated at Chancellorsville, after two days and two nights of continuous fighting, during which they had dragged into action a battery of guns of which both horses -and drivers had been mown down by the flying leaden death. Of the l wild charge they made ' up the Heights above Fredericksbutg, a brilliant historian and eye-witness wrote : ' Never at Fontenoy, Albuera, nor at Waterloo, was more undoubted courage displayed by the sons of Erin than during those six frantic dashes which they directed against the almost impregnable position of their foe. . . The bodies which lie in dense masses within forty yards of -the- muzzles of Colonel Walton's guns are the best evidence what manner of men they were.' The fearless and faithful wife who lately passed beyond the Veil -witnessed that Homeric struggle and welcomed h.?*r cool and dashing husband back from the inferno. They Were stirring times for man or woman to live through. • ■ -