theamericanparlor: Fighting Sons of Erin: Connecticut’s Irish Regiment In The Civil War 

theamericanparlor:

Fighting Sons of Erin: Connecticut’s Irish Regiment In The Civil War 

On battlefields from Virginia to Louisiana, the soldiers of Connecticut’s Ninth Regiment Volunteer Infantry marched into combat against Confederate forces under a regimental flag unlike any other from the state: a blue banner emblazoned with a golden harp on a field of emerald green dotted with shamrocks and bearing the motto “Erin Go Bragh.” 

The symbols and the slogan proclaimed the unit as Connecticut’s “Irish Regiment,” composed of 1,200 first- and second-generation Irish for whom fighting to preserve the Union was a demonstration of their loyalty to an adopted land that had more often than not treated them as second-class citizens. 

- See more at: http://connecticuthistory.org/fighting-sons-of-erin-connecticuts-irish-regiment-in-the-civil-war/#sthash.I5syxSlJ.dpuf