BTW,
Many of the Irish immigrants who came ashore in New York who couldn't even speak English were aremd, dressed and sent straight down to fight Johnny Reb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Army
200,000 or 9.1 % of the union army was Irish.
Hmmm, alot of the Confederate Army was Irish as well. I suppose that's the Irish for you.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'F')or comparison, the Confederate Army was not very diverse: 91% of Confederate soldiers were native born and only 9% were foreign-born, Irish being the largest group with others including Germans, French, Mexicans, and British.