“The Irish Brigade would receive our well-directed fire steady and firm, and when great gaps were cut through their ranks by the artillery, would reform under the incessant fire, come again, sink down and rise again, trample the dead and wounded under foot and press the stone wall of liquid fire, then recede a few feet and come again, like an avalanche into the very jaws of death, until strength and endurance failed, having been forced back by shell and the deadly miniè ball that no human being could withstand. The field of battle ran great streams of blood, and the immortal Irish Brigade recoiled before the living wall of fire in glory. “I know of no charge upon the field of battle in history to compare to the charge of the Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg, unless it was Pickett’s Division at Gettysburg, or the Old Guard at Waterloo. The immortal Irish Brigade were soldiers indeed. I have heard, but I do not know whether it is correct, that after the Fredericksburg battle the United States government mustered out the Irish Brigade from service and placed all upon the pension roll. You can examine records or see for yourself as to its correctness. I have always felt proud of my one-fourth Irish blood. The Irish have fought the battles of all countries. I wish you success in your address, and three cheers for the Immortal Irish Brigade!” Lieut. Gen. Longstreet says of the charge of Meagher’s Brigade: “The manner in which Meagher’s Irish Brigade breasted the death storm from Marie’s Heights of Fredericksburg, was the handsomest thing in the whole war. Six times in the face of a withering fire, before which whole ranks were mowed down as corn before the sickle, did the Irish Brigade run up that hill—rush to inevitable death.” Said the adjutant-general of Hancock’s staff: “I looked with my field glasses, and I looked for a long time before I was certain of what I saw. I at first thought that the men of Meagher’s Brigade had lain down to allow the shower of shot and shell to pass over them, for they lay in regular lines. I looked for some movement, some stir—a hand or foot in motion; but no—they were dead—dead, every man of them.” The following contribution from Mr. John L. Rapier, of the _Mobile Register_, is highly appreciated: “When you ask me for the names and deeds of glory of Irishmen and sons of Irishmen, in peace and war, ’tis like putting one in the Klondike fields and asking him to pick up the nuggets of gold that lie round about him. The field of my memory is full of them. To be brief as possible: “Theodore O’Hara, poet, writer, one of the editors of the _Mobile Register_, wrote the immortal poem, ‘The Bivouac of the Dead,’ adopted now by the government. The verses are cast in bronze and cut in marble and used in every National cemetery in the country.