Joined by a representative of the Montana National Guard, the Green-Wood Historic Fund unveiled a gravestone honoring Irish Freedom Fighter and Civil War Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher. General Meagher, who commanded troops in the storied Fighting 69th and Irish Brigades during the America Civil War, disappeared on the Missouri River in 1867. His body was never found. The new grave marker will lie beside the final resting place of Meagher’s widow, Libby.
Born in 1823 in County Waterford on Ireland’s West Coast, General Meagher is revered on both sides of the Atlantic. As a founding member of Young Ireland, Meagher earned the nickname “Meagher of the Sword” when in 1845 he advocated armed insurrection against Britain as the means to Irish independence. Convicted of sedition, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. His sentence was later commuted by Queen Victoria and he was sent to “Van Diemen’s Land,” the British penal colony in Australia. In 1852, he escaped to America.
During the American Civil War, Meagher
