Thomas Francis Meagher: Encyclopedia II - Thomas Francis Meagher - Biography

Thomas Francis Meagher - Biography

Meagher (pronounced Mayor) came from an established Catholic Tipperary County family of tailors & vintners. His father, Thomas Meagher (1796–1874), was born in St John's Newfoundland to Thomas Meagher (1763–1837) and Mary Crotty and was a merchant for the "Waterford-Newfoundland" trade. He was an MP for Waterford and its first Roman Catholic Lord Mayor in over two hundred years, thanks to Daniel O'Connell's successful agitation. His wife Alicia Quan (1798–1827) was the second eldest daughter of Thomas Quan and Alicia Forristall.

Thomas Francis Meagher - Early life

Meagher was educated at Jesuit boarding schools in Ireland (Clongowes Wood) and England (Stonyhurst). While at school, Thomas Francis gained a broad and deep education and also came into his own as a speaker, although he developed what one Irishman called "a Saxon accent", becoming the youngest medalist of the Clowgowes Wood Debating Society at age 15. After graduating from Stonyhurst, Meagher left Ireland for a tour of the continent where he became imbued with the spirit of revolution then alive in Germany and France.

Meagher returned to Waterford in 1843, where he also first heard Daniel O'Connell speak. As a result of O'Connell's speech, he joined the campaign for the Repeal of the Act of Union with Great Britain of 1801. (Cf. Repeal (Ireland)).

In 1845, he became a founding member of the Young Ireland group, among them William Smith O'Brien, which favoured more aggressive action for home rule than O'Connell was willing to support, causing its split from O'Connell's Repeal party. It was a fiery speech by Meagher supporting armed insurrection as a means of Irish independence that finalized the split with Repeal and earned Meagher the sobriquet "Meagher of the Sword".

In January 1847, after the Great Hunger and a typhus epidemic swept Ireland, Meagher, together with John Mitchel, William Smith O'Brien, and Thomas Devine Reilly formed a new repeal body, known as the Irish Confederation and openly preached revolution. In 1848, Meagher and O'Brien went to France to study revolutionary events there, and returned to Ireland with the design for a new Flag of Ireland, a tricolour of orange, white and green gifted by the French. The acquisition of the flag is commemorated at the 1848 Flag Monument in the Irish Commons. The design used in 1848 was similar to the present flag, except that orange was placed next to the staff, and the red hand of Ulster decorated the white field. This flag was first flown in public on March 1, 1848, during the Waterford by-election, when Meagher and his friends flew the flag from the headquarters of Meagher's "Wolfe Tone Confederate Club" at #33, The Mall, Waterford.

In August 1848, Meagher, Terence MacManus, Smith O'Brien, and Patrick O'Donohoe were arrested for the failed Ballingarry, County Tipperary "Famine Rebellion", and tried and convicted for sedition, which, due to a newly passed ex post facto law, meant that Meagher and his colleagues were sentenced to be "hanged, drawn and quartered". But it was after his trial Meagher delivered his infamous Speech From the Dock – second only to Robert Emmet's pre-execution speech in the pantheon of Irish political rhetoric.

Meagher and his colleagues were soon joined in Richmond Gaol, Dublin, by Kevin O'Doherty and John Martin; but the death sentences were commuted to transportation to "the other side of the world," and in 1849 all were transported to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania, Australia). On July 20th, the day after being notified he was to be transported to Van Diemen's Land, Meagher announced he wished henceforth to be known as Thomas Francis O'Meagher.

Meagher accepted the "ticket-of-leave" in Tasmania, giving his word not to attempt to escape without first notifying the authorities, in return for comparative liberty on the island. Meagher lived in cottages in towns such as Campbelltown, Ross and Richmond, Tasmania – all of which are still in existence.

Thomas Francis Meagher - American Civil War

Throughout his time in Tasmania, Meagher continued to meet with and plot with his fellow Irish rebels. In January 1852 he broke his "ticket-of-leave" pledge (to the disapproval of Mitchel and Martin, but not of O'Brien) and escaped to America arriving in New York City in May 1852. When this question of "honour" was later raised, Meagher agreed to subject himself to a "trial" of American notables and agreed to return to Van Diemen's Land if they held against him. The "jury" (of unknown ethnic extraction) found for Meagher.

Meagher pursued journalism and studied law, gave lecture tours and with John Mitchel, who had also since escaped, published the radical pro-Irish, anti-British "Citizen". They split over slavery, Mitchel went to Richmond, Virginia and Mitchel's three sons served with the Confederate States Army; Willy Mitchel was killed at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Meagher served the Union Army as a U.S. citizen. As acting Major he led Company K of the 69th Regiment (which would be known as the "Fighting Irish") of the New York State Militia at Bull Run (1st Manassas). He returned to New York to form the Irish Brigade and led it at as Brigadier-General in the Peninsula Campaign at Fair Oaks, Mechanicsville, Gaines Mill, Peach Orchard (Allen's Farm), Malvern Hill, Antietam (see Meagher's battle report, Antietam [2]), Fredericksburg (Meagher's battle report, Fredericksburg [3]), and at Chancellorsville. He resigned in May 1863 over the army's refusal to let him return to New York to raise reinforcements for his battered brigade: 4,000 strong in mid-May 1862, by late May 1863 the brigade had only approximately 500 combat-ready men left.

After the death of another leading Irish political figure, Michael Corcoran, Meagher's resignation was rescinded and he was assigned to duty with the western armies, serving under General William Tecumseh Sherman, a Catholic convert. Sherman considered Meagher a foreign rabble-rouser and assigned him to non-combat duties outside of the theater of operations, in which capacity he finished out the war.

Thomas Francis Meagher - Territorial governorship

After the war, Meagher was appointed Secretary of the new Territory of Montana, and soon after arriving in the territorial capital was designated the Acting Governor. As acting governor, Meagher attempted to create a working relationship between the territory's Republican executive and judicial branches (Union supporters) and the Democratic legislative branch (Confederate sympathizers). He failed, making enemies in both camps.

The Territory of Montana was created from the eastern portion of Idaho Territory in recognition of the influx of settlers following the discovery of gold there in 1863. When the Civil War was finished, a flood of settlers entered the territory...often ignoring U.S. treaties with the local Native American tribes in their quest for riches. In 1866 the Sioux, under the command of Chief Red Cloud, threatened to go to war over these treaty violations and ended up killing the renowned Western explorer John Bozeman in a raid. Meagher responded by mustering the militia. He secured funding from the federal government to campaign against the natives, but was unable to find the offenders...or retain the militia's cohesion.

Thomas Francis Meagher - Death

In the summer of 1867 he prepared to travel East to press for a settlement of Montana's political issues, to lobby for increased militia spending, and to possibly visit his son in Ireland. He fell ill on the way to Ft. Benton, the Missouri River terminus for steamship travel, stopping a day to recuperate. When he reached Fort Benton, he was still ill, but took some time with local politicians and admirers. Some reports state that he spent the afternoon imbibing with his well wishers. Others say that he was simply ill to drink. Meagher's supposed compatriot, Colonel W. F. Sanders, stated that Meagher appeared to be acting "mentally deranged" and was "loudly demanding a revolver to defend himself against the citizens of Ft. Benton." This all happening at about 1:00 in the afternoon on July 1st. It was allegedly suggested to the General that he should get some rest, and that is what he allegedly purported to do, reboarding his steamship, the G. A. Thompson, sometime in the early evening. After about 11:00 PM, according to Sanders, "there was a colored man...the barber...[who] said a man had let himself down from the upper to the lower deck and jumped into the river and gone on down the stream." Sanders goes on to say that "the next day some members of the general staff" said that he, Sanders, must not mention anything about Meagher's mental condition or that the drowning was not an accident in his letter to Meagher's wife. But this Sanders refused to do, and explained everything to Mrs. Meagher as he saw and as he was told by the witnesses. Afterwards, no one seems to have questioned the barber's report as suspicious, or the fact that since Meagher had recently switched party affiliations to Democratic, Sanders had alienated himself from Meagher saying that "the secessionists (then called Democratic)...took charge of Gov. Meagher."

One other witness, a female passenger who had remained on board the steamship, recalled that she heard a deck-hand yelling "man over-board" at about the same time Meagher disappeared; and several years later at least two people attempted to "admit" that they in fact had something to do with Meagher being murdered. But none of the accounts did lead to any sufficient discovery.

Meagher's death, is still considered to be suspicious, however; and as he was outspoken, there could have been numerous persons who would have wanted to murder him.

Meagher was survived by his second wife, Elizabeth Townsend (1840–1906) the daughter of Peter Townsend (1803–1885) and Caroline Parish of Monroe, Orange County, New York, and at least one child that he had by the first marriage: Thomas Francis Meagher Jr.

He is remembered as the first Governor of Montana with a statue on the front lawn of the Capitol grounds in Helena, Montana, and with another statue in Billings, Montana. The county of Meagher County, Montana was also named in his honor.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biography", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki