“The Harp and the Eagle makes a great
contribution to our understandingof the American Civil War and its impact on its
participants. Bruce does more than simply look at the war as a military conflict; she uses
her study to advance our understanding of how Irish in America during the 1860s
transformed into Irish-Americans within their lifetimes.” —
The Journal of American History
“Bruce has provided us with an
important, comprehensive book that clarifies a number of the misconceptions about
Irish-American soldiers and civilians. It is eminently readable, well-structured, and
impartial in its analysis.... The Harp and the Eagle will take its place as
one of the most significant studies of ethnicity in the American Civil War to date.”
— The Journal of Military History
“This is a well researched and well presented work. It
adds significantly to our understanding of both the Civil War as a national experience and
of the Irish-American ethnic experience in the nineteenth century.... Susannah Bruce
has done us an important service.” — Irish
Literary Supplement
“Bruce has adroitly plumbed the depths ... to give us ... an
important contribution to the emerging genre of common soldiers' histories.... An
overwhelmingly fine monograph.” — Civil War Times
Illustrated
“The Harp and the Eagle ... moves easily between the battle
front and the home front.... This book is a good choice for a reader seeking a
broader and more balanced understanding of how the Civil War affected the Irish population
in the North.” — America's Civil War
“...anyone serious about their Irish-American history will have to
get The Harp and the Eagle.” — Irish Echo
“ ... [a] remarkable and highly readable study.... Bruce's wide
ranging study paints a complex and evocative picture of the network of alliances and
experiences that animated Irish participation in the war effort. Recommended.” —
Irish Voice
“Bruce explores with astute insight the complex web of political
bonds and personal motivations that sent thousands of Irish Catholic soldiers into the
ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. Her smooth blending of social, religious,
political, and military history makes clear that the comprehensive contribution of Irish
Catholic Union soldiers in the Civil War deserves the broad and nuanced appreciation she
presents.”
—Carol Reardon, author of Pickett's
Charge in History and Memory and President of the Society for Military History
“With remarkable sensitivity and acuity Bruce goes
digging among the personal and public accounts of the Irish soldiers in the Union army and
presents these soldiers, and their families and communities, on their own terms so that
they emerge as real people conflicted and changed by the demands of war and the
obligations of “community.” The result is a book of immediate interest.”
—Randall M. Miller, author of Union
Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments
Full endorsement
by Miller: "Walt Whitman's famous caveat that anyone writing on the Civil War
will never get the "real war" into the books does not hold true for Susannah
Bruce's The Harp and the Eagle. With remarkable sensitivity and acuity she
goes digging among the personal and public accounts of the Irish soldiers in the Union
army to find and reveal a variegated and vigorous Irish commitment to and understandings
of the Union cause, Irish "nationality," faith, and honor, among several topics
she essays. Much has been written about individual Irish regiments, but until now no
one has entered the larger compass of the Irish experiences in the war.
Bruce's book combines the "new military history," with its emphasis on the
social, cultural, and political aspects of war, with a traditional respect for narrative
and recognition that campaigns and battles were essential factors in making soldiers and
deciding character. She presents the Irish soldiers, and their families and
communities, on their own terms so that they emerge as real people conflicted and changed
by the demands of war and the obligations of 'community.' The result is a book of
immediate interest, for it redraws the profile of the Union soldier, redirects the
discussion as to why soldiers fought, points to the centrality and volatility of questions
of ethnic and religious identity that the war magnified for all 'Americans,' and invites
comparisons with and dissections of other immigrant and ethnic groups' involvement in the
war. With all this, Bruce achieves the double feat of getting real Irish soldiers
into the Civil War narrative and bringing the Civil War into the immigrant narrative.
After reading The Harp and the Eagle no student of the Civil War and
American identity will ever leave the Irish soldier or the immigrant experience in the war
on the historical margin again." -- Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's
University
“Through wide-ranging research, Susannah Ural Bruce moves us
closer than ever before to a full understanding of the real experiences, in all their
glory and horror, of ordinary Irish immigrant soldiers and their transatlantic communities
and families during the American Civil War.”
—Kerby A. Miller, author of Emigrants and
Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America
—David T. Gleeson, author of The
Irish in the South, 1815-1877
