As early as 1833 it was computed that there were 44,000 of Irish birth or descent in New York City, which at that time meant Manhattan Island only. But the days were at hand when the combination of famine with brutal oppression was about to result in the casting forth from Ireland literally of millions of our people. That America should receive the greatest share was inevitable, and that New York should receive, if only for a temporary stay, the majority of these was natural. From 1846 to 1860 fully a million and a half of the famine-driven children of Ireland were poured upon the shores of America. And they came, for the very largest part, poorly clad, unlettered, uncouth, often weakened sorely in body by prolonged semi-starvation. Thousands—men, women and children—died of ship fever, of sea-sickness in debilitated frames, of inability to digest the wretched food supplied them on the long passage in the overcrowded sailing ships of the day. How many died of heartbreak alone, God only knows. But the survivors! In their bodies, at least, they soon vindicated the indestructibility of the Celt. Unskilled, except in a very small fraction, they took up the hardest kind of labor. They built the railroads, the canals; they “carried cities upon their backs.” It was a terrible story, working slowly to a happier consummation. They brought an instinctive loyalty to American institutions. Bitter were the prejudices they had to face, but they managed to outlive them all. Naturally, in such case, they clung together. New York already had given the Irish exiles a home. Here their real qualities had had time to assert themselves, and here, accordingly, the newcomers of the later forties and early fifties settled freely. In politics they became Democrats, simply because Democracy never joined in their proscription as emigrants unfit to be Americans, while other parties did in lesser or greater degree. In religion they remained Catholic or Protestant as they came, and that meant largely Catholic. This large substratum of newcomers from Ireland found here, as has been intimated, a large and fairly prospering Irish-born and Irish-descended population—furnishing men of eminence to all the higher callings—judges, lawyers, clergymen, physicians, merchants and manufacturers. With an assimilation more rapid than with any other race, the famine-exiles took up the order of American life. Their children filled the public schools and found Irish teachers there. They attended and supported churches whose hierarchy from archbishop to priest was almost wholly Irish. Thus the Celtic complexion of the city was enhanced, and it is no doubt true that at the outbreak of the Civil War, the population of New York (Manhattan) was nearer to one-third than one-fourth of Irish blood.