Timothy Deasy (1839 – 1880)
Veteran of the American Civil War, Veteran of the Fenian Rising of 1867,
Escapee associated with the Manchester Martyrs, Member of the MA House of Representatives
Early
Life
Timothy Deasy was born in Farran, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, Ireland on February 20, 1839.
In September of 1845 six years after Timothy was born, the potato blight first appeared in Ireland destroying one third of the country’s potato crop. The following year, the returning blight destroyed almost all the crop catapulting the country into an unimaginable disaster, a period of mass starvation (the Great Hunger) that by 1850 had reduced the population of Ireland by 2.5 million. The ever-worsening situation greatly increased the spread of omnipresent life-threatening diseases far beyond Ireland’s western and southern regions which were most severely affected by the blight. Death from starvation and disease peaked in 1847, the year the Deasy family joined the exodus out of Ireland, having by then lost a child to the ever-worsening calamity.
Boston was one of the favored locations for Irish immigrants to gravitate towards upon arrival in the United States. Many of them took up residence there while others sought out opportunities in nearby developing communities. One such community was Lawrence, a river town located 30 miles north of Boston. The damming of the Merrimack River and the digging of canals in the 1840s resulted in an influx of skilled and unskilled workers to fill the resultant jobs and afterwards to build and work the textile mills and factories that the damming project spawned. In was there in Lawrence that the Deasy family settled.
Timothy and his siblings were educated in the Lawrence public school system. Its assumed here that they took full advantage of the free public primary and high school education provided by the progressive City of Lawrence ever since its incorporation in 1847.
Deasy’s memory of Ireland was commensurate with his youth and the years he spent there. The indifference and willful neglect demonstrated by the British authorities towards the starving millions were topics discussed within the family and within the Irish community at large. Every Irish family had a story to tell, of starvation, death, eviction or the journey across the Atlantic in a coffin ship. There was no lack of up-to-date information on the ongoing situation in Ireland as thousands of immigrants continued to seek refuge in the United States in the aftermath of the Great Hunger. They brought with them stories and firsthand accounts of the suffering that they and others endured under unfettered colonial rule. In addition to the immigrants' own stories, the Boston Pilot newspaper, as it had for decades, continued to publish accounts of the dire situation in Ireland. It was in that environment that Deasy and his brother, Cornelius, learned their Irish history and where they resolved to free their birthland from the scourge of British colonial rule.
Shortly after the Deasy family left Ireland a group of young political activists who had split from Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Committee (sarcastically dubbed Young Irelanders by O’Connell) launched an abortive Rising in 1848 to free Ireland from the scourge of colonial rule as evident by the inhumanity of its enforcers in exerting its control over the native Irish in the throes of mass starvation. Some of the Rising’s leaders were captured and imprisoned while others escaped to France and the United States.
In 1853 two of those leaders, John O’Mahony and Michael Doheny, founded the Emmet Monument Committee (EMA) in New York, Their reason for founding the EMA was to elicit help, in the form of weaponry, from the Russians who were at war (Crimea War 1853 –1856) with an alliance of the British and Ottoman Empires and France. When the war ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1856 the EMA was disbanded as the time for any Russian help had passed. Before disbanding the leaders of the EMA settled on a proviso that the organization could be reformed at a future opportune time.
Two years later on February 28, 1858 O’Mahony, Doheny, James Roche, Thomas J. Kelly, Oliver Byrne, Patrick O’Rourke and Col. Michael Corcoran founded the Fenian Brotherhood in New York City. A month or so later a sister organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), was set up in Dublin by Thomas Clarke Luby, James Stephens, Joseph Denieffe, Garrett O'Shaughnessy and Peter Langan.
Despite condemnation by the Catholic hierarchy who opposed the aim of the organization, i.e., the establishment of a sovereign Irish Republic, the organization expanded rapidly setting up ‘circles’ in various cities throughout the country including thirty-eight in Massachusetts. This was the opportunity that Deasy and his brother, Cornelius, had hoped for, a structured organization with informed leadership and a plan to redeem Ireland’s dignity and honor. By then they were ready and honored to become sworn Fenians.
Civil War
On June 11, 1861 shortly after President Lincoln’s call for 75,000-man militia to suppress the Confederacy following the bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter, Deasy and his brother enlisted in Company I, of the 9th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry regiment popularly referred to as the “Irish Fighting 9th”. The brothers believed that their enlistment would serve to demonstrate their fidelity to their adopted homeland, America, and provide them with the military training needed to free their birthland, Ireland, from British colonial rule. Their membership in the newly established revolutionary transatlantic Fenian movement would be the means to that end.
The 9th Massachusetts was created in Boston in June of 1861. It consisted primarily of Irish-Americans under the command of Irish-born Colonel Thomas Cass. The original funding for the regiment was provided by another Irish -born patriot, Patrick Donahoe, publisher of the Boston Pilot. On June 26, 1861 the 9th sailed out of Boston for Washington DC where they were integrated into the 2nd Brigade, Division 1, 5th Corps, Army of the Potomac where they remained for the duration of their enlistment.
While awaiting deployment they received a visit from Sligo-born Col. Michael Corcoran of the 69th New York militia made famous for refusing to parade the 69th in honor of the 19-year-old Prince of Wales, the son of Queen Victoria insidiously referred to by victims of British imperial oppression as the Famine queen.
On July 28, 1861, the 9th received its marching orders. After numerous bivouacs along the way, the 9th eventually setup camp near Hampton in Virginia. On April 4, 1862 the Army of the Potomac started their advance up the peninsula towards Richmond in what is generally referred to as the Peninsular Campaign. For the duration of the campaign the 9th took part in the Siege of Yorktown, numerous battles including Hanover Court House, Mechanicsville, Gaines Mills, Savage Station and Malvern Hill. At the battles of Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill the 9th including Company I took the brunt of the fighting and suffered heavy losses. In all, 415 were killed, wounded or missing.
On August 4, 1862 the Peninsular Campaign ended in a humiliating defeat and retreat by what was a highly resourced Union Army. On August 19, the 9th reached Newport News where they boarded a steamer for Aquia Creek 40 miles south of Washington. From there they moved north towards Bull Run arriving there on August 30, where the Union Army of Virginia was in full retreat after another humiliating defeat. The 9th took part in rearguard skirmishes to slow the pursuing Confederate Army.
After Bull Run the Army of the Potomac moved north into Maryland, arriving near Antietam in Maryland on September 16. The 9th was held in reserve during the ensuing Battle of Antietam that ended in a Union victory.
Having been promoted to sergeant shortly after enlisting, Deasy and other sergeants were promoted to 2nd lieutenants on September 26, 1862 to fill vacancies resulting from battlefield losses.
After the defeat of the Confederate Army at Antietam, the Eastern Theater of War returned to Virginia. The Army of the Potomac was on the move again toward Fredericksburg in pursuit of the Confederate Army that was heading south to defend Richmond. The ensuing Battle of Fredericksburg resulted in a costly Union defeat with Thomas Francis Meagher’s Irish Brigade suffering horrendous losses. On December 15, before the 2nd Brigade including the 9th attacked Marye’s Heights, the Union Army withdrew from the battlefield, having reasoned that another attack on the entrenched Confederates was futile. By then their losses including those killed, wounded, captured or missing were over 12,600.
On April 27, 1863 after the winter lull, the Union Army headed for Chancellorsville arriving there on April 30. The 9th took up took up defensive positions, repulsing several Confederate attacks during the ensuing battle. On May 3, the 5th Corps including the 9th was assigned rearguard duty holding back the pursuing Confederates during the Union Army’s retreat across the Rappahannock River.
On June 6, 1863, Deasy was promoted to 1st lieutenant.
On June 9th of 1863, the Union Army of the Potomac including the 5th Corps started its pursuit of the Confederate Army of North Virginia which had crossed into Maryland on their way north to Pennsylvania. On July 2nd they reached Gettysburg. The 9th regiment was detached from the 2nd Brigade and deployed to defend the northeast side of the Big Round Top. Through July 2nd and 3rd they repulsed several attempts by the Confederates attempting to flank the Union Army. They also engaged sharpshooter at Devils Den. The regiment suffered 26 casualties.
After Gettysburg the Union Army headed south after the fleeing Confederates. Apart from some scrimmaging the 9th were not involved in any other battle until November 7 when the 5th and 6th Corps engaged the Confederates at Rappahannock Station. That battle ended in a Union Army victory.
In March of 1864 General Grant was appointed General in Chief of the Union Army. He believed that a War of Attrition was more effective in bringing the war to an end than capturing territory. From May 5, through June 10, the 9th was involved in numerous battles including the Wilderness, Laurel Hill, Po River, Spotsylvania, North Ann River, Shady Oak Grove, Bethesda Church and Cold Harbor. In most of these battles the 9th was on the front lines, consequently suffering major losses. On May 5th during the Battle of the Wilderness the 2nd Brigade included the 9th took heavy losses in one of the first encounters of the battle. On May 9, Deasy was wounded but held his ground until the battle was over. Tipperary-born Col. Patrick Guiney commander of the 2nd Brigade was shot in the face by a sharpshooter. The toll on the 9th from the Battle of the Wilderness to Cold Harbor amounted to 282 between those killed wounded, captured or missing.
The 9th Massachusetts was mustered out on June 21, 1864 on Boston Commons.
The Fenian Rising
At the Fenian Convention in Cincinnati in January of 1865 John O’Mahony, the Head Centre of the Fenian Brotherhood called for a cadre of battle-hardened discharged Civil War officers to be recruited, organized and ready to depart for Ireland to train and lead a Rising expected to take place there within the year. Pursuant to that appeal, the Fenian Brotherhood sent Thomas J. Kelly to Ireland to assess the readiness of the IRB to fight the entrenched British administrative and military establishment. After meeting with Stephens and John Devoy, Kelly reported back that the IRB had 100,000 men recruited and ready to fight and that it was time to send the recruited Civil War officers to Ireland to help train and lead the IRB recruits. Throughout the summer months, it is estimated that between 150 and 300 officers were sent to serve in various location throughout the country. As many of the officers were Irish-born they instinctively migrated back to their hometowns, as did Timothy who took up abode in the vicinity of Clonakilty.
The unusual influx of young men from the U.S. combined with reports of nighttime military-type maneuvers by young men in remote locations set off alarm bells within the British security services. Their cause for concern was reinforced when they retrieved plans for the Rising that were lost by an American emissary at a Dublin railroad station. They also had information from their network of informers that Irish-born soldiers in British Army regiments were being recruited by embedded IRB operatives in Ireland and the British mainland. In September of 1865 in a preventive move British agents bolstered by military personnel arrested several IRB leaders including staff members of the organization's newspaper the Irish People. Those arrested included Thomas Clarke Luby, John O'Leary, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa and James Stephens. They also rounded up hundreds of other suspected IRB members and American Fenians including Deasy who was arrested on September 24. The logistics involved to handle the hundreds of arrested Fenians was a daunting undertaking, necessitating the early release of many of the IRB foot soldiers and the deportation of most of the American Fenians including Deasy with the proviso that they not return to Ireland.
Leaderless at both the national and local levels the Rising was called off by the Fenians leadership in America. To complicate matters the American Fenians split into two competing faction i.e. the O’Mahony faction and the Roberts faction over the failed Rising in Ireland. Both factions launched competing military raids into Canada in April and again in June of 1866. The first raid undertaken by the O’Mahony faction was thwarted by the US military. The second raid launched by the Roberts faction defeated a force of Canadian and British forces at Ridgeway across the border from Buffalo. However, they were forced to withdraw for lack of supplies and reinforcements. Some accounts have it that Deasy and his brother took part in one of the raids. There is no verifiable evidence to support these accounts.
Despite the IRB setbacks in Ireland and Canada, the American Fenians were still determined to launch a Rising in Ireland. Thomas F. Kelly took over control of the IRB from James Stephens in December of 1866 and shortly afterwards departed for England with Capt. John McCafferty to setup a Provisional Government of the Irish Republic and finalize plans for the impending Rising. They were accompanied by Deasy and other ex-army officers who were sent to various locations in England and Ireland. Deasy, as far as can be ascertained, was sent back to West Cork.
The Rising was originally scheduled to be launched on February 1, 1867. However, it was called off after a raid on Chester Castle to capture the arsenal was abandoned when it was discovered that the British were alerted of the impending raid by the informer John J. Corydon. Not to be deterred, the Provisional Government next set March 5th as the new date for the Rising. On March 4, 1867, the anniversary of Robert Emmet’s birth, the Times of London received a proclamation from The Provisional Government of The Irish Republic which called for the founding of a Republic based on universal suffrage.
The following day, March 5, unaware that General Massey, the senior commander of the Fenian forces in Ireland was under arrest in Cork, local Fenian leaders, including Deasy, mobilized their forces and launched a number of uncoordinated raids in counties Dublin, Kerry, Cork, Limerick and Tipperary. Poorly armed and without a central command to direct and coordinate the overall strategy, the Rising fizzled and ended in failure within weeks. The last battle of note was fought in Kilclooney Wood close to Mitchelstown in Cork where Peter O'Neill Crowley a native of East Cork was fatally wounded.
The Manchester Martyrs
After the Rising was quelled, British government agents aided by their network of informers in Ireland ramped up the arrests of suspected Fenians in a concerted effort to snuff out all traces of native resistance to their colonial occupation. They offered the king’s shilling for information leading to the arrest of known Fenian leaders including Kelly and Deasy and other Irish-Americans Fenians fingered by Corydon. Those American Fenians who managed to elude capture did so by returning to the United States or in the case of Kelly and Deasy crossing over to England where habeas corpus (suspended in Ireland) offered a degree of protection from arbitrary detention.
Deasy went to Liverpool where he took up residence amongst the tens of thousands of the Great Hunger escapees. Kelly relocated to London from where he revamped and directed all IRB operations. Deasy was put in charge of the Liverpool and Manchester Fenians and Col. O’Sullivan Burke was put in charge of the London Fenians.
In August of 1867 Kelly attended a secret IRB convention in Manchester where he was formally appointed Chief Executive and Central Organizer of the Irish Republic. The convention delegates, at the behest of Kelly, chose not to support either of the feuding factions in the U.S. calling instead for a new republican organization to be named Clan na Gael.
During Kelly’s visit to Manchester he and Deasy met with discouraged Fenians to convince them to stay the course despite recent setbacks in Ireland. In the early morning hours of September 11, on their way back to their lodgings from one such meeting, they were set upon by the police, arrested and charged with loitering. Hoping to mislead the police they gave their names as Martin Williams and John Whyte. Surmising that they had apprehended high-value Fenians, the Manchester police brought Corydon in from London to identify the prisoners. He confirmed their identity
On September 18, 1867, the police van transferring Kelly and Deasy from the courthouse to Bellevue Gaol was ambushed by a squad of 30 to 40 Fenians. Outnumbered and unarmed the escort of 12 mounted policemen fled the scene. Initially the Fenians tried to pry open the van with hatchets. Realizing that it would not yield easily they demanded that Sergeant Brett, the policeman inside the van, surrender the keys. When he refused one of the Fenians fired through the keyhole killing Brett who happened to be looking through the keyhole to see what was happening on the outside. After the unintentional killing of Brett, one of the four women prisoners removed the keys from his body and passed them through a vent to a Fenian who opened the van. In short order all the prisoners disappeared as did the Fenian rescuers. Kelly and Deasy were separated and taken to safe houses where they were outfitted with new clothing. They were continuously moved around to different safe houses until they were placed on ships bound for the United States. Purportedly, one of the safe houses that Deasy was moved to was that of Frederick Engels the renowned German philosopher and developer of the Marxist theory and his Irish partner Lizzie Burns.
The rescue of Kelly and Deasy came with a high price. Five of the 28 men rounded up after the rescue bore the brunt of British judicial retaliation. The five included William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, Michael O’Brien, Edward O’Meagher Condon and Thomas Maguire. All five were sentenced to death. On appeal Thomas Maguire was exonerated. Edward O’Meagher Condon who planned the operation had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment because of his American citizenship. William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin and Michel O’Brien who became known as the “Manchester Martyrs”, went to the gallows on November 23, 1867. Their executions were badly bungled, resulting in a slow and agonizing deaths for two of them. At their sentencing all the men gave memorable speeches from the dock protesting British rule in Ireland. O Meagher Condon concluded his speech with the words ”God save Ireland”.
The lyrics to "God Save Ireland" written by Timothy Daniel Sullivan were first published in December 1867. Between 1867 and 1916 "God Save Ireland" was adopted by Irish Nationalists and Republicans as the "Irish National Anthem" and sung at their gatherings at home and abroad.
Later life
Deasy’s ship arrived in New York City on October 27, 1867 where he was given a magnificent reception by Clan na Gael. He was accorded other ‘welcome home’ receptions in Boston and in his hometown of Lawrence.
For the rest of his life Deasy devoted his time to the welfare of his community. He was elected to the Lawrence City Council in 1872 and re-elected in 1874 despite the hostility directed at the Irish by the “Know Nothings” Nativists. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in November 1876, the only Irish Catholic elected from Essex County, to the chagrin of the Nativists.
As a member of Division 8, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Captain Deasy was selected Grand Marshall of the Lawrence 1872 St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Dressed in his finest military uniform, he reviewed the hundreds of marchers, bands, and civic, fraternal, social and military units that marched up Essex Street that day.
Apart from his civic successes he was also a successful businessman owning and operating several businesses with his brother Cornelius, including a saloon, a liquor dealership, a hotel and several rental properties.
Death
In June of 1878 his heath began to fail due to rheumatoid arthritis. As time went by his condition worsened limiting his ability to continue with his political career or his business enterprises. On December 10, 1880 Timothy Deasy, the hero of two nations, died at his home in Lawrence. For a detailed account of his funeral click on the below link.
The Lawrence Daily Eagle of Tuesday, 14 December 1880
Contributed by Tomás Ó Coısdealbha
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For an unvarnished account of the Great Hunger get a copy of Chris Fogarty’s book,
Ireland 1845 –1850 the perfect holocaust and who kept it perfect
https://www.amazon.com/Ireland-1845-1850-Perfect-Holocaust-Perfect/dp/0989610616
cemetery
NAME: Immaculate Conception Cemetery
ADDRESS: 29 Barker Street, Lawrence, Essex County, Massachusetts, 01841
HEADSTONE
