Fighting 69th Has Proud History at Head of Parade

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You won’t see many Irish faces in the ranks as the “Fighting 69th” leads the 250th St. Patrick’s Day parade up Fifth Avenue. The famous regiment now includes more Hispanic and African-American soldiers, reflecting the modern demographics of the city.

Not that it matters. One of the Irish Brigade’s most famous members, Father Francis Duffy, the famous World War I regimental chaplain whose statue stands at the north end of Times Square, once described anyone not Irish who joined the regiment as “Irish by adoption, Irish by association or Irish by conviction.”

So when the Fighting 69th steps off this St. Patrick’s Day, its two regimental mascot Irish wolfhounds at the lead, it will continue a tradition dating to 1853. But the soldiers of the 69th didn’t initially join the parade just to be admired while marching in grand array. They were there to protect the marchers from attack by nativist mobs at a time of virulent anti-Irish and anti-Catholic agitation in the country.

The 69th traces its roots to late 1848 as one of several independent military companies in New York founded by Irish patriots with the goal of freeing Ireland from British rule. Eventually Irish leaders in New York City negotiated with the State to form an Irish regiment out of the independent Irish companies. The State adopted the First Irish Regiment on Dec. 21, 1849, which is now officially recognized as the date of the formation of what would become the 69th Regiment.

It was during the Civil War that the 69th truly gained its fame and in so doing changed the unflattering perception native-born Americans had of the Irish immigrants in their midst. Taking part in virtually every major campaign of the war, from Bull Run to Peninsula, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Appomattox, the regiment distinguished itself for its élan, perseverance and indomitable spirit. It would gain its hallowed nickname, “the Fighting 69th,” from, of all people, an admiring Robert E. Lee, general of the opposing Confederate Army.

The Fighting 69th again answered the nation’s call during the Spanish-American War in 1898, and again when America entered World War I in 1917. Father Duffy, born in Cobourg, Canada, educated at St. Michael’s College in Toronto, and ordained in 1896, served with the 69th as a major in some of the regiment’s heaviest fighting, repeatedly exposing himself to enemy fire to recover the wounded or administer last rites. His heroism made him the most highly decorated cleric in the history of the U.S. Army.

During World War II the regiment served in the Pacific theater as the 165th Infantry. In savage fighting on Makin Atoll, regimental commander Col. J. Gardiner Conroy was killed in action and chaplain Father Stephen J. Meany, S.J., was severely wounded as he attempted to attend to downed comrades.

When he returned to New York in 1944, Father Meany was chosen as grand marshal of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, where he watched solemnly as the battle-depleted 69th passed in review. More recently, the 69th served in Iraq, where 19 of its soldiers were killed and 17 were wounded.

The heroism and sacrifice of the 69th and other Irish units in wartime eventually broke down the barriers of prejudice and animus toward Irish immigrants and their Catholic faith. The Fighting 69th has earned its place at the head of the parade.