When the Civil War put American manhood to the test the Irish were everywhere—in the thickets of the Wilderness, at the Bloody Angle of Gettysburg, on the crimson field of Chancellorsville. Standing for state rights—the rights of which John C. Calhoun had been the great exponent—were Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne, Senator Regan, the Texan, and others. Standing for the Union were Sheridan, Meade and Meagher, whose dashing valor is one of our national boasts. Unquestionably “Little Phil” Sheridan deserves a high place, not only among American generals, but among the foremost military commanders of the world. Today, among the retired veterans of the United States Army there are three brigadier-generals of Irish birth—Richard Comba, John J. Coppinger and William Quinton.[10] There is also one rear-admiral—Joseph Trilley. Footnote 10: To these three should be added: Brig. Gen. Bernard J. D. Irwin, Brig. Gen. Michael Cooney, Brig. Gen. James W. Scully, Brig. Gen. Charles P. Eagan, Brig. Gen. William E. Dougherty, Brig. Gen. John R. McGinness and Brig. Gen. John J. O’Connell, all natives of Ireland. For more than two hundred years the sons of Ireland have been among the pathfinders who prepared the way for the American nation in its mighty sweep from the Atlantic to the Pacific. No region has ever been too remote or perilous to daunt the Irish pioneer. Whoever discovers the North Pole will no doubt find a Kelly or an O’Brien already on the spot. It was Capt. John J. Healy, for instance, who was the commercial discoverer of Alaska; and when the United States first took possession of that frozen country, four of the sixteen white men in its largest settlement were found to be subscribers to the _Irish World_. Gen. Patrick E. Connor was a trail-maker in Utah, as Philip Nolan and Sam Houston were in Texas. Henry W. Oliver, the late steel king of Pittsburg, who had the most dramatic career of ups and downs that western Pennsylvania has ever known, was the first Pittsburgher to realize fully the value of the Lake Superior iron ore. In consequence, he piled up a forty-million fortune. Missouri had Brian Mullanphy, who left a fortune for the assistance of poor immigrants. In fact, when the history of any western state is written, it will be found that among the army that cleared the way there was always an Irish brigade.