The Photographic History

Men of New York’s “Fighting Sixty-Ninth,” Prisoners in Charleston

Volume VII, Prisons and Hospitals, 1911, page 25

Corcoran's Irish regiment, taken at Bull Run, in their casemate at Castle Pinckney, which they had decorated and named the “Musical Hall, 444 Broadway.”

Cite as

Roy Mason, “Men of New York’s ‘Fighting Sixty-Ninth,’ Prisoners in Charleston,” in The Photographic History of the Civil War, ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller, vol. 7, Prisons and Hospitals (New York: Review of Reviews Co., 1911), 25.

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Published
1911
Volume
VII — Prisons and Hospitals
Page
25
Kind
photograph description
Author
Roy Mason
Photographs
1

MEN OF NEW YORK'S "FIGHTING SIXTY-NINTH," PRISONERS IN CHARLESTON

The prisoners shown in this photograph are members of Colonel Michael Corcoran's Irish Regiment, the Sixty-ninth New York. They were captured at the first battle of Bull Run, July 21, 1861. Colonel Corcoran (shown on a previous page) and his men were taken first to Richmond, and then in September to Castle Pinckney in Charleston Harbor. These prisoners have light-heartedly decorated their casemate with a sign reading: “Musical Hall, 444 Broadway." One of their number, nicknamed "Scottie," had been formerly with Christy's minstrels, who played at 444 Broadway, New York, during the war. According to the recollections of Sergeant Joseph F. Burke, of the Cadets, the prisoners and their youthful guards indulged in good-natured banter about the outcome of the war, the prisoners predicting that their friends would soon come to the rescue — that the positions would be reversed, so that they, not the Cadets, would be "on guard." Four terrible years elapsed before their prediction as to the outcome of the war came true.