Malvern Hill tour highlights Irish Brigade
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The crowd at Malvern Hill Battlefield was a mix of the curious and the proud on May 24, as National Park Service Ranger Bert Dunkerly led a walking tour describing the exploits of the Irish Brigade. A number of tour participants were of Irish heritage, while others were Civil War buffs – and some were both.
Young Hunter Adams volunteered for service as a flag-bearer, leading the way with the colors as Dunkerly discussed the hard-fighting reputation earned by the Union infantry brigade in the Seven Days Battles of 1862.
Dunkerly also sprinkled his talk with first-person accounts from soldiers as they marched and camped between battles, and detailed the struggles with poverty and discrimination experienced by a large number of New York and Boston Irish – many of whom took up arms for the Union not only out of loyalty to the United States, but in hopes of gaining experience that could help them return to Ireland and win freedom from British rule.
