At its core, the Civil War was a conflict over the meaning of citizenship. Most famously, it became a struggle over whether or not to grant rights to a group that stood outside the pale of civil-society: African Americans. But other groups--namely Jews, Germans, the Irish, and Native Americans--also became part of this struggle to exercise rights stripped from them by legislation, court rulings, and the prejudices that defined the age. Grounded in extensive research by experts in their respective fields, Civil War Citizens is the first volume to collectively analyze the wartime experiences of those who lived outside the dominant white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant citizenry of nineteenth-century America. The essays examine the momentous decisions made by these communities in the face of war, their desire for full citizenship, the complex loyalties that shaped their actions, and the inspiring and heartbreaking results of their choices-- choices that still echo through the United States today. Contributors: Stephen D. Engle, William McKee Evans, David T. Gleeson, Andrea Mehrlander, Joseph P. Reidy, Robert N. Rosen, and Susannah J. Ural.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

aAnyone serious about their Irish-American history will have to get The Harp and the Eaglea
--"Irish Echo"

aProfessor Susannah Ural Bruceas remarkable a and highly readable a study explores the complex political and historical motives that sent 150,000 Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. For the majority of Irish soldiers the cause of the union was inextricably linked to the cause of Irish independence and Bruceas wide ranging study paints a complex and evocative picture of the network of alliances and experiences that animated Irish participation in the war effort. Recommended.a
--"Irish Voice"

"Bruce explores with astute insight the complex web of political bonds and personal motivations that sent thousands of Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. Her smooth blending of social, religious, political, and military history makes clear that the comprehensive contribution of Irish Catholic Union soldiers in the Civil War deserves the broad and nuanced appreciation she presents."
--Carol Reardon, author of "Pickett's Charge in History and Memory"

"With remarkable sensitivity and acuity Bruce goes digging among the personal and public accounts of the Irish soldiers in the Union army and presents these soldiers, and their families and communities, on their own terms so that they emerge as real people conflicted and changed by the demands of war and the obligations of 'community.' The result is a book of immediate interest."
--Randall M. Miller, author of "Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, PostwarAdjustments "

"Through wide-ranging research, Susannah Ural Bruce moves us closer than ever before to a full understanding of the real experiences, in all their glory and horror, of ordinary Irish immigrant soldiers and their transatlantic communities and families during the American Civil War."
--Kerby A. Miller, author of "Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America"

aBruceas well-researched first book offers the only broad study of Irish Catholic volunteers in the Union Army during the Civil War.a--"Choice"

"A fine overview of the Irish participation in the Union War effort. Bruce describes how the Irish contested the memory of their participation in the conflict thereby highlighting the continued importance of the War to the Irish in the North far beyond 1865."
--David T. Gleeson, author of "The Irish in the South, 1815-1877"

On the eve of the Civil War, the Irish were one of America's largest ethnic groups, and approximately 150,000 fought for the Union. Analyzing letters and diaries written by soldiers and civilians; military, church, and diplomatic records; and community newspapers, Susannah Ural Bruce significantly expands the story of Irish-American Catholics in the Civil War, and reveals a complex picture of those who fought for the Union.

While the population was diverse, many Irish Americans had dual loyalties to the U.S. and Ireland, which influenced their decisions to volunteer, fight, or end their military service. When the Union cause supported their interests in Ireland and America, large numbers of Irish Americans enlisted. However, as the war progressed, the Emancipation Proclamation, federal draft, and sharp rise incasualties caused Irish Americans to question--and sometimes abandon--the war effort because they viewed such changes as detrimental to their families and futures in America and Ireland.

By recognizing these competing and often fluid loyalties, The Harp and the Eagle sheds new light on the relationship between Irish-American volunteers and the Union Army, and how the Irish made sense of both the Civil War and their loyalty to the United States.

At its core, the Civil War was a conflict over the meaning of citizenship. Most famously, it became a struggle over whether or not to grant rights to a group that stood outside the pale of civil-society: African Americans. But other groups--namely Jews, Germans, the Irish, and Native Americans--also became part of this struggle to exercise rights stripped from them by legislation, court rulings, and the prejudices that defined the age. Grounded in extensive research by experts in their respective fields, Civil War Citizens is the first volume to collectively analyze the wartime experiences of those who lived outside the dominant white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant citizenry of nineteenth-century America. The essays examine the momentous decisions made by these communities in the face of war, their desire for full citizenship, the complex loyalties that shaped their actions, and the inspiring and heartbreaking results of their choices-- choices that still echo through the United States today. Contributors: Stephen D. Engle, William McKee Evans, David T. Gleeson, Andrea Mehrlander, Joseph P. Reidy, Robert N. Rosen, and Susannah J. Ural.

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

aAnyone serious about their Irish-American history will have to get The Harp and the Eaglea
--"Irish Echo"

aProfessor Susannah Ural Bruceas remarkable a and highly readable a study explores the complex political and historical motives that sent 150,000 Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. For the majority of Irish soldiers the cause of the union was inextricably linked to the cause of Irish independence and Bruceas wide ranging study paints a complex and evocative picture of the network of alliances and experiences that animated Irish participation in the war effort. Recommended.a
--"Irish Voice"

"Bruce explores with astute insight the complex web of political bonds and personal motivations that sent thousands of Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. Her smooth blending of social, religious, political, and military history makes clear that the comprehensive contribution of Irish Catholic Union soldiers in the Civil War deserves the broad and nuanced appreciation she presents."
--Carol Reardon, author of "Pickett's Charge in History and Memory"

"With remarkable sensitivity and acuity Bruce goes digging among the personal and public accounts of the Irish soldiers in the Union army and presents these soldiers, and their families and communities, on their own terms so that they emerge as real people conflicted and changed by the demands of war and the obligations of 'community.' The result is a book of immediate interest."
--Randall M. Miller, author of "Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, PostwarAdjustments "

"Through wide-ranging research, Susannah Ural Bruce moves us closer than ever before to a full understanding of the real experiences, in all their glory and horror, of ordinary Irish immigrant soldiers and their transatlantic communities and families during the American Civil War."
--Kerby A. Miller, author of "Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America"

aBruceas well-researched first book offers the only broad study of Irish Catholic volunteers in the Union Army during the Civil War.a--"Choice"

"A fine overview of the Irish participation in the Union War effort. Bruce describes how the Irish contested the memory of their participation in the conflict thereby highlighting the continued importance of the War to the Irish in the North far beyond 1865."
--David T. Gleeson, author of "The Irish in the South, 1815-1877"

On the eve of the Civil War, the Irish were one of America's largest ethnic groups, and approximately 150,000 fought for the Union. Analyzing letters and diaries written by soldiers and civilians; military, church, and diplomatic records; and community newspapers, Susannah Ural Bruce significantly expands the story of Irish-American Catholics in the Civil War, and reveals a complex picture of those who fought for the Union.

While the population was diverse, many Irish Americans had dual loyalties to the U.S. and Ireland, which influenced their decisions to volunteer, fight, or end their military service. When the Union cause supported their interests in Ireland and America, large numbers of Irish Americans enlisted. However, as the war progressed, the Emancipation Proclamation, federal draft, and sharp rise incasualties caused Irish Americans to question--and sometimes abandon--the war effort because they viewed such changes as detrimental to their families and futures in America and Ireland.

By recognizing these competing and often fluid loyalties, The Harp and the Eagle sheds new light on the relationship between Irish-American volunteers and the Union Army, and how the Irish made sense of both the Civil War and their loyalty to the United States.

One of the most effective units to fight on either side of the Civil War, the Texas Brigade of the Army of Northern Virginia served under Robert E. Lee from the Seven Days Battles in 1862 to the surrender at Appomattox in 1865. In Hood's Texas Brigade, Susannah J. Ural presents a nontraditional unit history that traces the experiences of these soldiers and their families to gauge the war's effect on them and to understand their role in the white South's struggle for independence. According to Ural, several factors contributed to the Texas Brigade's extraordinary success: the unit's strong self-identity as Confederates; the mutual respect among the junior officers and their men; a constant desire to maintain their reputation not just as Texans but as the top soldiers in Robert E. Lee's army; and the fact that their families matched the men's determination to fight and win. Using the letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper accounts, official reports, and military records of nearly 600 brigade members, Ural argues that the average Texas Brigade volunteer possessed an unusually strong devotion to southern independence: whereas most Texans and Arkansans fought in the West or Trans- Mississippi West, members of the Texas Brigade volunteered for a unit that moved them over a thousand miles from home, believing that they would exert the greatest influence on the war's outcome by fighting near the Confederate capital in Richmond. These volunteers also took pride in their place in, or connections to, the slave-holding class that they hoped would secure their financial futures. While Confederate ranks declined from desertion and fractured morale in the last years of the war, this belief in a better life-albeit one built through slave labor- kept the Texas Brigade more intact than other units. Hood's Texas Brigade challenges key historical arguments about soldier motivation, volunteerism and desertion, home-front morale, and veterans' postwar adjustment. It provides an intimate picture of one of the war's most effective brigades and sheds new light on the rationales that kept Confederate soldiers fighting throughout the most deadly conflict in U.S. history.