Michael Corcoran, a native of Ballymote who emigrated to America where he became a General in the Union Army, brought his regiment to prominence when he refused to parade his troops for the Prince of Wales' visit to New York in 1860.

A new book, Green, Blue and Grey – The Irish in the American Civil War (The Collins Press, €16.99), describes how Corcoran used his position as commander of the 69th New York Volunteers to protest the British government's ineffective response to the Irish famine and then lost his job.

This didn't affect his future career, however, as Corcoran went on to form his own legion in 1862, following his release as a prisoner of war.

Corcoran wasn't the only Irishman to fight in the war between North and South.

The book's author, Cal McCarthy, explains:

"Thousands of Irish people left for the New World in the nineteenth century. Their families here may have mourned them as if they were dead but some went on to involve themselves in the conflicts of their new home."

Irishmen fought in every important action in the American Civil War, helping to shape the America that we know today. Irish involvement began when an ethnic Irish unit was called into action during John Brown's abortive attempt to start an anti-slavery uprising in 1859.

The most famous Irish unit in the Federal army, the Irish Brigade, which included the famous 'Fighting 69th', was formed in 1861.

Many Irish made the supreme sacrifice in Union blue and Confederate grey, and their heroics at Antietam, Gettysburg and Frederickburg have become an important part of American history.

Corcoran was born on 21st September 1827 in Carrowkeel.

He went to school, probably in Ballymote, until he was eighteen years old.

He applied to the Revenue Police and was accepted into the January 1846 class.

Private Corcoran was assigned to serve at the depot in Creeslough, Donegal, at a salary of one shilling and three pence per day.

Michael was promoted to private first class at the end of the year, at the onslaught of the famine, the potato crop had rotted again. The winter of 1846-1847 was fiercely cold and snowy, and disease and starvation escalated.

Corcoran became a Ribbonman in 1848, undertaking midnight missions. Michael kept up his double life for almost two years, and then for reasons unknown, resigned abruptly from the Revenue Police, boarded the British bark Dromahair exactly two and one half weeks later, and sailed out of Sligo Bay on 30 August 1849.

He stepped onto South Street in New York City, found work as a clerkbookkeeper for a Mr. John Heaney, the proprietor of Hibernian House, a tavern at 42 Prince Street, across the street from (Old) St. Patrick's Cathedral in downtown New York.

Michael lived over the tavern, as did the Heaneys.

Corcoran's mother immigrated to New York a year later. Michael became an American citizen as soon as he was eligible, married Mrs. Heaney's niece, Elizabeth, and managed Hibernian House for Mrs. Heaney after Mr. Heaney died in 1854. That tragedy was compounded by the death just days later, of Mary McDonagh Corcoran, from cholera, at the Hibernian House where Michael and Elizabeth were caring for her.

Corcoran joined a state militia regiment as required for all able-bodied young men, and there he met several veterans of the 1848 Young Ireland attempt at revolution.

Michael had enlisted as a private in the 69th Regiment; he served in every rank and was promoted to captain within three years. This was a state militia unit composed of citizens, not soldiers. None of them had the military knowledge and experience, with arms, drilling, and protocol, that Corcoran did, and, he was a natural leader.

The first time the 69th was activated, to keep the peace after a riot, the brigade inspector recorded that Captain Corcoran had a "well-known reputation as the best, if not the very best, infantry officer in the 4th Brigade ..."

In 1858 James Stephens and Thomas Clarke Luby founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in Dublin and planned to expand the organisation. Consequently, John O'Mahony founded the Fenian Brotherhood in New York City the following year. Michael Corcoran was the first one, and thus the first American, to be sworn in.

Not long afterward, he was elected colonel of the 69th Regiment as well as military commander of the Fenians. Tammany Hall gave him a patronage job in the post office with the highest salary he ever had.

Then it all fell apart. Just one event put an end to Michael's easy success and initiated the trials he would have to endure and overcome. In late 1860, the nineteen-year-old Prince of Wales visited New York City during a tour of Canada and the United States. There would be a parade, fireworks, banquets, a ball; society doyennes panted for an invitation to the ball. Colonel and Mrs. Corcoran were invited, as were the colonels of all the local militia regiments. Colonel Corcoran wrote a polite note declining the invitation.

Colonel Corcoran also refused to order his men to parade in honour of the prince because they had voted not to, with his approval.

Many New Yorkers were outraged that this ingrate Irish immigrant had the effrontery to insult the royal guest of the city, and demanded that he be removed from his federal job, that his citizenship be revoked, that he be thrown out of the country.

Colonel Corcoran was court-martialed.During the trial, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States; the southern states (whose economy depended on slavery) began seceding from the Union; the Irish community in San Francisco, California sent Corcoran a onepound gold medal, and the one in Charleston, South Carolina sent an ornate gold-tipped palmetto cane, both in admiration of his integrity and for backing his men.

Michael attended a state Democratic convention in Albany (New York), where he was noted as "one of the prominent Democrats," but then contracted an illness so debilitating that he was confined to bed for several weeks.

Fort Sumter was fired upon in April 1861 and the Civil War began.

President Lincoln called for volunteer militia units to defend Washington, D.C., and the 69th Regiment voted to answer the President's call.

Colonel Corcoran's court-martial was dropped and the 69th prepared to go to war.

The militia units had been activated for three months' duty and were within days of returning home in late July when combat exploded near a creek called Bull Run, near the town of Manassas.

Michael Corcoran was wounded in the leg, captured, and imprisoned in Richmond, Virginia with men and officers from his and other regiments.

In August 1862, Colonel Corcoran was exchanged for a southern colonel. Great celebrations greeted the exchanged prisoners when they arrived in Washington, D.C. Colonel Corcoran dined with President Lincoln who made him a Brigadier General.

Michael returned to New York to recruit Corcoran's Irish Legion. On the day of his arrival, the largest crowd ever seen in New York packed the lower part of the city.

He died on 22nd December 1863 aged thirty-six years old.

His body was embalmed and arrived back in New York on Christmas Day.

He lay in state in the Governor's Room in City Hall (where other officers - President Lincoln - would lie). The flags in the city flew at half-staff. After the requiem mass at (Old) St Patrick's Cathedral on Mott Street, he was interred in Calvary Cemetery, Long Island City, in Queens County, with his mother and first wife.