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Maybe it is just me, but it seems like if you see someone wearing a T-shirt commemorating a particular unit, it is more than likely an Irish unit.  I’ve taken to greeting people wearing them with “Clear the Way” which is a translation of what the Irish Brigade was chanting as they went into battle at Antietam.  A fellow, wearing an odd-looking kepi, that I tried it on turned out to be Father Stephen Duncan.  Father Duncan told me that he had been reenacting Father William Corby.  Father Corby had famously given absolution to the men of the Brigade before they went into action in the Wheatfield on July 2.

Ironically, our march along Seminary Ridge took us past the primary Confederate monuments.  Our first stop was at the North Carolina monument, which is a real work of art.  We were ordered – “If you have water, drink it.” I wisely had brought three bottles. The Park historians mainly told us the stories of individual men like Burlington Cunningham, a color bearer in the 19th Indiana.  Being a color bearer was a critical and extremely dangerous role, since the colors were what allowed men to orient themselves to their units in the smoke and confusion of battle.
We marched past the Seminary and up onto McPherson’s Ridge, where the Brigade went into action.  They needed to hold the ground for as long as possible to allow the rest of the Army of the Potomac to occupy the high ground south of the town.  Although the brigade would continue to exist after Gettysburg, the Park historians called this its last march, because it would never be the same as the brigade that started out in the morning.  We marched in the footsteps of 1,883 men.  At the end of the battle, only 691 would be left.