Coffey, a teacher in the Henry L. Pierce School, Dorchester, who lived with her parents. When a collection of articles for an Irish-American loan exhibition for the World’s fair at St. Louis, Mo., was being gotten up in 1904, John J. Coffey, the subject of this obituary, contributed an Irish flag that had been carried during the Civil War by the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts. Accompanying the flag, he sent a letter, the following being an extract therefrom: “This flag has a precious history. It was presented to the Twenty-eighth Regiment, through the late Patrick Donahoe, by the Irish women of Boston, on Sept. 24, 1861, at the same time Governor Andrew presented the regiment with the flag of the State of Massachusetts. My company (C) was selected as the right center or color company, and my brother, Michael J., whose height exceeded mine by two inches, was selected as color sergeant of this green flag, and carried it until he fell mortally wounded at the second battle of Bull Run, August 30, 1862; after that it went through Chantilly, South Mountain and Antietam. On the memorable day of the attack on Marye’s Heights, at Fredericksburg, it was the only green flag unfurled—and by this I do not intend to cast any reflections on the other four regiments of the Irish Brigade. Some time before Chancellorsville, in May following, Colonel Byrnes and the other officers of the regiment concluded that it was too cumbersome, subscribed among themselves and procured a flag of lighter fabric (worsted), and laid the old flag (this one) aside, but in safe keeping, and you may rest assured that it has been scrupulously cared for and treasured by the custodian.”