Acknowledgments

I thank the many people who helped me in the course of writing this book. At Boston College, David Quigley, Alan Rogers, James O’Toole, and Thomas H. O’Connor continue to be true mentors who provided me with valuable suggestions as well as their friendship. Tyler Anbinder, William A. Blair, Lorien Foote, Elizabeth Leonard, James McPherson, Kerby Miller, Donald Yacovone, and the anonymous readers for Cornell University Press and Civil War History provided me with helpful comments and encouragement about the portions of my work that they read. I especially appreciate Lorien’s and Elizabeth’s friendship and enthusiasm for my work. I also benefited from the comments of Thomas J. Brown, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Andrew Slap, and Michael Smith as we participated at various conferences. Michael McGandy shared my enthusiasm for this book and has proven to be an outstanding editor.

Ben Maryniak kindly provided me with typescript copies of letters in his possession, and Mike Ruddy sent me a portion of John Savage’s Fenian Heroes and Martyrs. The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois, the American Social History Project, and the Library of Congress and National Archives in Washington, D.C., have been extremely helpful in providing me with illustrations and documents. As they have done for years, the Interlibrary Loan Staff at Boston College’s O’Neill Library obtained for me all sorts of primary sources regardless of their obscurity.

I am grateful for funding provided to me by Boston College, the Mark DeWolfe Howe Fund, and the Irish American Cultural Institute. Chapter 4 was originally published as “The Intersection between Military Justice and Equal Rights: Mutinies, Courts-martial, and Black Civil War Soldiers,” Civil War History, 53, no. 2 (June 2007), 170–202. It is reprinted here with the permission of The Kent State University Press.

Finally, I would like to express my deepest thanks to all of my friends for their support and fellowship and my parents and family for their love.