Statements About attempts to Recruit for US Civil War

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Document ID 9801359
Date 13-12-1827
Document Type Official Documents
Archive Irish National Archives
Citation Statements About attempts to Recruit for US Civil War;OP 1861/16 Part 1 Shelf 3/424/; CMSIED 9801359
32199
Original Statements                 Aldbro Barracks

Col. Whitmore                   Dublin 13th Dec. 1861
[Capt. Simpson?] to Col. Lake
John [Delaney?]
  Recruit
Royal Artillery
                    States as follows

               About ten o'Clock this morning I was
walking with two other recruits outside the Barrack
              gate where respectably dressed man having the
appearance
of a Tailor - accosted us (sic). He asked us had we
enlisted I said I had. He there said "It is a great
pity you should have to go to Canada and perhaps shoot
your Father or "Brother"- He also said "are you not
aware you can emigrate to America and if you apply to
the Secretary of "St. Patricks Brotherhood at No 2
Marlborough Street, you will get clothes and a free
passage to America, and you will be a Soldier when
you go there [now is the truce] while you are in plain
Clothes and you can be sent away privately tonight."
  He also said that 100 young men left last night for
Galway where they will embark for America.

             States as follows         Thomas [Kinchilla?]
                                       Recruit
                                       Royal Artillery
  About ten o'Clock this morning I was walking outside
the Barrack gate with two other Recruits. A respectably
dressed man with a waistcoat hanging on his arm, came up
to us and said - "I hope you have not enlisted." I said I
had. He there said that they had an Irish association for
Immigration to America at No.2 Marlborough St. and that
we would get œ15 and two suits of Clothes in hand, that
on arriving in America we would be very kindly treated,
and that it would be worth a man's while to get 3 or 6
months imprisonment to get away afterwards to America -
that if we wait to Canada we might have to fight against
our fathers or Brothers. I asked him how we were to be
supported here, and he replied that if we applied at the
office in Marlboro' Street we would be taken care of-

Sergeant McCarthy
97-S Regt [Regiment?]
                States as follows
  A Recruit by the name of Blake (who has since been
medically rejected) came to me this morning and said
that a man had been tampering with him and the recruits
and trying to persuade them to go to America, and that
it did not signify whether they had been attracted for
Her Majesty's Service or not. I ran after him to
apprehend him, but he escaped from me by running into a
House.
  I think I would know him again if I saw him.

  Copy of Law (Advisers) Opinion "The Police should
immediately be put on inquiry into this matter, not merely
in respect to the individual cases stated here, but also
in respect of what was said as to the 100 men going to
America by Galway. The Police should make the utmost
exertions to ascertain the identity of the person or
persons who accosted the recruits, but they ought not to
make any arrest without communicating the result of their
enquiries -
        [E]S 14.12.61