The Greatest Brigade

The Irish Brigade played a key role in all the major battles including the Peninsula Campaign, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Petersburg, and Appomattox and wasn’t decommissioned until WWI. It was full of larger than life characters and effectively led by a charismatic commander who was court marshaled for revolutionary activity in Ireland and was dismissed to enable him to serve in the war. Some numbers say that this unit lost more than 4,000 soldiers, one of the largest body counts of any brigade, if not the largest. This is a tale of a critical and incredible fighting force, packed with immigrants that helped win the war not only through bravery and war tactics but also by scaring the English out of the war with threats of violence at home. It’s a story every Civil War history buff should know and it is told with page-turning excitement that has made Craughwell a bestselling history author.