From the Irish village of Castlewarren in the 1850s to Lanesboro, Minnesota, The Irish Rebel follows the life of Edward Ruth. A story of survival, love, war, and life fashioned around a historical framework, this fictionalized account portrays the hardships of Ireland and provides a glimpse of the American Civil War through the eyes of an immigrant.

Based on writings from his great-great-grandfather's journey, author Peter L. Crawley has portrayed Ruth's struggle to extricate himself from the bogs of starvation and cultural ambivalence to make a name for himself as a dentist in his new country, while he tries to prove himself worthy for the hand of one Irish maiden. The journey takes him from Ireland during "The Times of Troubles," with England's insensitive colonial policies, to the American Civil War and Morgan's Raiders, led by the infamous John Hunt Morgan.

The Irish Rebel tells the tale of the striking similarity between the American Civil War and England's disgraceful disavowal of Irish Home Rule. This novel provides a vivid account of that historical period as portrayed by one who has Gaelic blood in him as well as a sentimental dose of unflappable Irish wit.

The Irish Rebel

The Journal of My Great-Great-GrandfatherBy Peter L. Crawley

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Peter L. Crawley
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-2831-2

Chapter One

    The western state of Minnesota-May, 1893

    Catching it up like a song forgotten,
    Filled the air with the Rebel Yell.
    The last war cry of the land of the cotton.

    Till all the resonant fibers of pines
    Every power of sound enlarging
    Rang with the thrill of a shout

    That never sprang from alright
    But the terrible lines
    Of the dauntless grayness fiercely charging

    Echoes it back from the mountain's brow
    From tallest pines and stunted sages
    A shout that shall echo through future ages:
    'To lower the flag is treason now—
    From Appomattox on and forever

    H. W. Taylor

"I say, damn them—damn them all to hell!" Coming as it did on the heels of a most rigorous Roman Catholic and apostolic Latin mass, was all the impetus I needed to look around, wondering if indeed the Apocalypse was now upon us. Or, at least a severe heavenly reprimand was due at any moment. Perhaps, in the form of an impending run on the bubbly, gas-induced liquid everyone around these parts called a "cherry soda" that was my one weekly indulgence, since spring had returned to the Midwest.

The younger man next to me muttered the above blasphemous sentence to no one in particular, as we cleared the big brass framed doors of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in downtown Lanesboro, Minnesota. I moved aside to let him pass into the springtime weather first. An extended gesture I hoped, of an older man being polite to another man quite a few years younger, and not out of fear of being verbally lambasted as I had just witnessed. Still, his exhortation that someone be given a free and everlasting ride to Hades, kept drifting back to me over the pregnant morning air. He might have been one of those holier than thou ex-"Yankees", the way he kept twisting his elongated, crushed, slightly-dimpled-on-the-crown, black, felt hat back in forth, in evident frustration. This he did, while at the same time declaring that a particular person or group had done him an irreparable harm, and therefore should be punished. It struck me that all this time, his pestiferous attitude conjured up the image of one who was destined to submit to inquisitional measures. On the other hand, what was evidently more likely given his stocky and menacing manner, to possibly mete them out. Finally, and indeed what was probably akin to the beatific truth more than anything else on this magnificent, Midwestern, springtime morning was the fact this young man owned a ticket to a boxing match. Which he just found out he could no longer attend. Or, if he did attend the boxing match, it was with the threat of religious excommunication hanging over his head. It was that simple and unequivocal.

I assumed his theological dilemma was due to the fact that our parish priest, right before giving out his benediction at the ten o'clock mass that morning had made a very important announcement to all of his parishioners. His announcement consisted of declaring the upcoming, bare-knuckled, match-fight between our very own hometown hero, "Fightin'" Jim Sweeney and some monster of a backwoods Georgia man, as off-limits to any practicing Catholics such as ourselves. Our parish priest I suppose, didn't want to see us encouraging the conduct of someone, who earned his daily bread traveling the countryside living off wagers. And those wagers consisted of betting he could knock the daylights out of any man who could don a pair of pants without pissin' in them first. You see, Father Helmut Guber doesn't exactly see things the same way you and I might see things. First off, just like our parish's patron saint, Father Guber is from someplace other than Minnesota, and in particular the ex-Holy Roman Empire. Where, and from what I have been told, unless you are wearing a hair vest, chewing locusts, and on your swollen knees a good six to eight hours a day in prayer.... Well then, you might just as well forget the idea that one is "saved". The "one" in mind of course, is yours truly, along with the rest of our dubious and apparently unrepentant congregation. Indeed, from what has been preached to me by Father Guber, as well as from what I have been able to surmise on my own, the conclusion is quite upsetting. For it seems to me, during the last dozen or so years that I have been a parishioner at St. Patrick's, I've been taught there is still a fifty-fifty chance that I won't make it to any celestial paradise. This morbid conjecture is based solely on my self-indulgent, almost heretical practice of using snuff more or less on a daily basis.

You can be a member of good standing in the Father Matthew's Total Abstinence Society. Make a point of giving a plate of food out the back door to the hungry traveler stopping through our lonely town. Even take time out to visit the saintly man who is in prison for setting fire to Killiwick's Apothecary shop. While in prison, he admittedly set fire because he'd refused to allow his youngest daughter to go a-courting with the son of that "Orangeman" Killiwick. Still in all, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans to our saintly priest. He'll call the shots concerning our collective spiritual welfare, and nowhere on his list of anointed things to do is there the least mention of assisting at boxing shows. Even though, most of us are pretty sure "Fightin'" Jim Sweeney can just about lower the boom, on any Southern straggler, who comes to Lanesboro, Minnesota claiming otherwise.

The only time I saw our priest close to being enthralled by my attitude was the curious moment when I'd stayed up all night assisting in a difficult birth. Being a dentist by trade, and with Dr. Fount gone over to St. Paul's for a bladder and spleen convention, I had no choice in the matter. Thus, he mistook the bags under my eyes to be the result of some sort of mystical hallucination, or even revelation for that matter. As such, Father Guber kept coming up to me at five minute intervals during the poor child's emergency baptism (she miraculously came through after having the umbilical cord twisted this way and that around her neck) asking if I'd seen an angel, and if I had ... was the Kaiser by any chance with him?

I have no doubt that our parish priest is a fine and holy man. It's just that as a close-to-being-retired parishioner I'm worried. I am more than a little concerned that my final debt as a salvation-bound Catholic is to be a last, all-out crusade to free the Holy Land one more time. And this all to be led by none other than our own Father Guber, perhaps with the concordance and fidelity of ravaging Templar Knights hiding out somewhere in the simmering back country of Minnesota.

Now, I am by no means a rabid boxing enthusiast. Except for the few times my older brother, Paul Francis Daniel was inclined to illustrate a black and blue tattoo around one or both of my eyes. This he did for some insalubrious remark I made concerning his carrot-colored hair. Nonetheless, it isn't to be that even the weighted remarks of such a holy man as our own Father Guber can keep me from going this afternoon. To witness the fate of such two talented pugilists as our own, "Fightin'" Jim Sweeney and whoever this Southern pretender to Sweeney's throne might be.

With that plan in mind I set off for my own home, not more than two blocks away from St. Patrick's, displaying a measured swiftness to my gait that I hadn't enjoyed for quite some time. It was as if the salty, sweet taste of the pickled herring that was to be my lunch was already in my throat, and only needed to be swallowed for my sense of well-being to be complete.

If the truth be known, I haven't felt such a sense of inspiration, nor for that matter something to look forward to for these last many pendulous months. Not since my own dear wife, Katherine Louisa Maddox was called to her heavenly home quite suddenly last December. In effect, her departure left me alone once again, for the first time since I'd been abandoned by my father. Thus, I ended up on a boat as a gossoon with my mother departing Castlewarren, County Kilkenny, Ireland for the United States. This all happened when I was of the wizened Abraham-like age of seventeen. That doesn't seem so long ago when measured by the time spent next to my beloved Katherine. Now alone again, it's as if that Dakota Indian saying: "that the departure of a loved one is like the Northern goose that hovers and hovers ... trying to find his bearings over some recently spaded field. Confused, batting its wings convulsively while instinctively knowing it will not make its Southern heading before winter comes much too early, and all is lost."

Yes, that's how I feel now, without Katherine, all is lost. Indeed, that's me—without my beloved Katherine; I'm hovering in flight once again while being inexplicably disoriented and invariably lost.

Also, and in spite of Father Guber's mid-sermon exhortation to the contrary, "Everyone remain close to your family's hearth tonight, for Satan is most likely to be up and about. He'll be dressed up in boxing attire while offering watered-down whisky to anyone who is foolish enough to partake."

This of course, brings to mind the question that only a true corned beef and cabbage fed Irishman like myself can answer. Which is to say; if the whisky isn't watered down then can one of Erin's own partake? The response came back suddenly, as if the sainted Patrick, who had chased the snakes from our sacred island, had answered me himself; 'Most willingly!' That response was all I needed to hear. Therefore, indeed, now that I had decided to attend the boxing show, I left the church's steps not so much echoing my fellow parishioner's sentiment that everyone be damned, but rather happily so. Contented in fact, realizing I wouldn't have to attend the evening staring at the parlor wall while dreaming I was off shooting Northern "Yankees" with Katherine at my side fixing lunch. With that in mind, I descended the final, graying, interlaced, granite stone steps of St. Patrick's towards my more modest dwelling over on Second Street.

On Coffee Street, I headed directly past the Phoenix Hotel that borders the red-bricked Rayon Wheel Company. This place of business presented no immediate concern to me other than the fact that the proprietor, Mr. P. W. Blatterman and I are veterans of the blue-grey conflict between the states. He in fact, being one of the more stubborn and most cussedness sort of man on the face of God's illustrious, green earth obviously fought for the North. While, myself, as only befitting someone who had been reared to hate the all-encompassing tentacles of the British Empire, had defended the courageous and fiercely independent South. There, to have indelibly stamped on my heart a love and respect for a certain Mr. Jefferson Davis which has not diminished in the least little bit. Not since I last took off the uniform of the Third Kentucky Cavalry, or as we were known throughout the Southern counties back then; "Morgan's Raiders". If I was able to lay claim to an old man's last desire, or could wish it were so, besides tasting one of my dear Katherine's corn-fed and rum-marinated tripe and kidney pies.... It would be to clear Mr. Davis' name from the cruel and unsuitable view that he turned his Free-Mason's back on us. Or, somehow, left us to face our unflinching Yankee fate without so much as a pair of proper trousers to our name. This, President Davis was accused of doing while supposedly off in some quaint Richmond hotel. Thereby, biding his time before joining up with those rich Northern industrialists who had only one purpose in mind; that of squeezing the last ounce of profit from our exhausted and destitute tat.

I spent many a cold and wheezing night thinking these same exact thoughts through and through in my disoriented mind. This occurred amidst my embattled internship in that barren, heartless prison known as the Rock Island Barracks. A lonely prison, cast aside somewhere in the cheerless state of Illinois, as if we were the North's invective after-thought.

You must understand how it was back then; we were something the North would attend to...when and if the North found the time to do so. But with the war at an end now, and so much to be decided, rebuilt ... reorganized along more consequential and therefore favorable geopolitical lines. This being the case, the Federal government decided we'll get to you prisoners when we can. Other than that, we as prisoners just had to wait until we were noticed once again amidst the North's preoccupying state of disemboweling the South. Like so much inheritance to be divided up...and the quicker the better.

So much for their nauseating spiel they proclaimed sans fin: "Now that Appomattox has put the conflict behind us, let's come together, we're all brothers once again...." Still in all, a lot of our Southern soldiers died from consumption at the Rock Island prison. Due in no small way, I believe, because our Northern "brothers" had forgotten to hand out enough blankets when all was said and done. Indeed, there was more than enough to be said for their Northern brotherly reconciliation, and the way our blue-clad, former adversary extended an olive branch—right before they buried a lot of us.

Yes, we as Southern prisoners-of-war were declassified somewhere in Rock Island, Illinois, left to rot so to speak. If for no other reason than to chase away anyone desiring to visit, or sharing a little sympathy with those of us deemed responsible, for embodying slavery in such a disgraceful way.

Why it wasn't that way at all, I swear to it. Most of us common soldiers didn't give a sprig of heather for slavery one way or the other. What got caught under my keel was the fact that the Northern United States, having over-developed and outgrown their industrial factories and cities to such a devastating extent that in doing so, they could no longer feed themselves. The Northern states then turned a wanton eye towards the South and their agricultural venues. That without which, the North could no longer exist, having overextended themselves in their lust for riches.

Of course, I didn't know anything about these matters back then. But only from what I've learned since the end of hostilities almost forty years ago that has convinced me of the following; it wasn't so much the slave question that vexed the Northern boys. But rather, how are we going to feed ourselves, if we let the South go independently on its merry way to pursue its own goals? Slavery, I've concluded was the last thing on the Northern boys' mind. If, it was there at all in the first place. No, it became simply the question; Why hadn't we thought of it first?

They say it's the writers of history that determine the truth. Well, from what I've read, and been lectured on these last forty years or so, the following becomes rather apparent. You can damn well bet your life on one regrettable fact. That most of what's been written about this supposedly decisive and glorious war that abolished the Southern practice of human enslavement once and for all; as a matter of course, was written by men, who'd been dipping into the poteen in voluminous increments. Thereby, considering themselves all shanachies. Thus, these narrators of history could write and say just about whatever they felt like as long as it followed their one hallowed rule of thumb: that whatever they said or wrote had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the truth.

I swear to you this day, by all that I hold sacred in this life, over thirty-five years to the day that hostilities have ceased. I never owned or knew of any of my fellow soldiers who possessed slaves. It just wasn't to be. And that includes Longfellow Mortlock who served with me in "Morgan's Raiders". Even though it's true, he kept a Negro boy around our soldiering camp at his beck and call. Longfellow claimed he paid the young Negro an honest thirty-five cents a week to make sure he was shaved properly every morning. This Longfellow insisted upon. Regardless of the previous evening's circumstances, for he'd promised his mother back home in Donegal he wouldn't die during battle unshaven, like a Protestant. Still, being around Longfellow Mortlock as much as I was, I never heard him employ the use of the words; 'banshee-whooper', 'shagger', 'thin lips' or 'frizzy head' in all our time together.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Irish Rebelby Peter L. Crawley Copyright © 2010 by Peter L. Crawley. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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