Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade

DESCRIPTION: "Said Pat to his mother, "It looks strange to see, Brothers fighting in such a queer manner." But Pat joins the Union army. He goes to battle still singing, but is shot and dies "far from the land of shillelagh."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1865 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 31(118))
KEYWORDS: Civilwar death battle foreigner
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Silber-SongsOfTheCivilWar, pp. 219-221, "Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-SoldierSongsAndHomeFrontBalladsOfCivilWar, p. 22-23, "Pat Murphy of the Irish Brigade" (1 text, 1 tune)
Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, #1849, p. 125, "Pat Murphy of Meagher's Brigade" (3 references)
DT, SHILLELA
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 23, #3 (1974), p. 18, "Pat Murphy" (1 text, 1 tune, based primarily on the early broadsides)
Roud #11630
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 31(118), "Pat Murphy of Meagher's Brigade", H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864
LOCSinging, sb30412b, "Pat Murphy of Meagher's Brigade", H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "By the Hush" (subject)
SAME TUNE:
Think of Your Head in the Morning (per broadsides LOCSinging sb30412b and Bodleian Harding B 31(118))
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Song of the Splintered Shillelagh
NOTES [224 words]: In at least one sense, this song is quite accurate historically. The Army of the Potomac's famous "Irish Brigade" (63 NY, 69 NY, 88 NY; 28 Mass and 116 PA added later) had the highest casualty rate of any unit in the army in the early years of the war. By Gettysburg, the brigade had only 530 men (out of more than 4000 originally enrolled), and the three New York regiments had fewer than a hundred men a piece -- a casualty rate in excess of 90%. For more on this, see the notes to "By the Hush." See also "The Irish Sixty-Ninth."
This song seems to have been moderately popular during the Civil War; Wolf-AmericanSongSheets, p. 125, lists three different broadsides, one of them "sung with great success by the Comic Vocalist of the day, Tony Pastor."
William H. A. Williams, 'Twas Only an Irishman's Dream, University of Illinois Press, 1996, p. 114, says that this "appears to have begun life as a comic piece to which some more serious verses were later appended." The tune is listed as "Think of Your Head in the Morning." - RBW
Broadsides LOCSinging sb30412b and Bodleian Harding B 31(118) are duplicates.
Broadsides LOCSinging sb30412b and Bodleian Harding B 31(118): H. De Marsan dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Last updated in version 5.2
File: SCW22

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