The Scotch Irish in the American War of Independence and the American Civil War:

They started the revolt and ended it.

The fighting qualities and iron resolution displayed in the Revolution, the Civil War and indeed in conflicts before hand came of a deeply cherished tradition brought over from Ulster, a resolution which is still alive and well today. As we in the USA have have a determination to break those who dare test our resolve to be free just so do the Scotch Irish in Ulster who still fight stoutly in defense of their homes, principles and religion against Irish Nationalist terrorism.

(See also The Paxton Boys and The Steelboys)

Twice after the plantation the Scotch Irish had repelled fierce assaults from the southern Irish bent on expelling them from the island. In the bloody uprising of 1641, at least 200,000 Protestants were slaughtered in a no-quarter attempt at annihilating the Protestants. Again in 1688, during the Civil War the Scotch Irish were pushed back to the sea in the north and beleaguered within the walled towns of Londonderry and Enniskillen. The Homeric epic of that war was the long siege of Londonderry, described as "the most memorable siege in the annals of the British Isles."

AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (1775-1781). This war, by which the United States definitely separated themselves from the British connexion, began with the affair of Lexington in Massachusetts, in April 1775, and was virtually ended by the capitulation of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781. The Scotch-Irish have been credited with leading the battle for independence from Britain during the American Revolution.

In fact, in 1764 one of the first acts of revolt happened when hundreds of armed Scotch-Irish marched on the British government in Philadelphia with a formal "Remonstrance" protesting their lack of proper representation.

The last official battle of the American Revolution didn't occur until September 13, 1782. The Scotch Irish again, this conflict pitted a company of British Rangers and 238 Indians against six settlers near the Dutch Fork region in Washington County, PA. The fact that the British and Indians withdrew is an example of the independent nature and fighting ability of the Scotch Irish settlers of the area.

The Scotch Irish came over, says W. E. H. Lecky, "their hearts burning with indignation, and in the War of Independence they were a man on the side of the insurgents." It was these people, and their near descendants, who contributed 12 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and 12 of the 54 delegates to the Constitutional Convention. The Mecklenburg Resolves voted by Scotch-Irish in North Carolina anticipated by more than a year the famous declaration at Philadelphia which marked the birth of our nation.

Between the years of 1740 and 1775 and beyond, mighty men filled the pulpits of this land. These men carried out a massive theological training program, equipping the people of our country to discern the times and see what they should do. Though the fact of the "Revolutionary Pulpit" has been noted by modern historians, its true influence is often totally ignored, the Presbyterian church indeed the Scotch Irsih as a whole had a widespread influence which ought never to be overlooked or forgotten. George Bancroft, historian of the eighteenth century, states,

"The revolution of 1776, so far as it was affected by religion, was a Presbyterian measure. It was the natural principles which the Presbyterianism of the Old World planted in her sons, the Presbyterians of Ulster."

There was a tremendous influx of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians into this country in the years preceding the War for Independence, indeed since the 1600s "Charles A. Hannah estimates that about 200,000 Protestants, most of them Presbyterians, one-third of the entire Protestant population of Ireland, left the Ulster during the disastrous period 1725-1768. another thirty thousand came during the years 1771-1773.

Before the War of Independence, in 1764 The Paxton Boys, were group of Scotch-Irish frontier settlers from western Pennsylvania. At that time Philadelphia was the state capital, the legislature met there, and the government, pacifist and self-righteous, refused to help the Scotch Irish in any way.

Despite their anguished pleas, the legislature refused to authorize money, powder, lead, guns, men, or equipment to help the settlers. In a rage, some fifteen hundred of these Scotch Irish men - known as the Paxton Boys set out to attack Philadelphia. Fifteen hundred very tough and very angry frontiersmen was not a force to be ignored.

This was in 1764. Four years later, in 1768, it would be these men who poured across the Allegheny Mountains into western Pennsylvania, and eleven years later, in 1775, it was again these men who partook of another revolt - the American Revolution.

When the Revolution broke out, the Scotch-Irish in America numbered one-sixth of the total population." These people dominated the population of the Middle and Southern Colonies. They were staunchly anti-British in sentiment and would not only prove an invaluable aid to the military efforts but also would be quite influential in the form and structure of the new government. Presbyterians supported the cause of independence; and indeed the American revolution was but the application of the principles of the Reformation to civil government. The entire idea of the covenant and the concept of the right of resistance to tyranny were most important in the fight for independence.

One common designation of the War in Britain was "the Presbyterian Rebellion." An ardent supporter of the king in this country, wrote to his friends in England, " They have been the chief and principle instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchical spirit which has always distinguished them everywhere."

There were around 30,000 German mercenaries used by England in the fighting, one of them wrote home as follows, "Call this war . . . by whatever name you may, only call it not an American Rebellion, it is nothing more or less than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion." When news of the War reached Britain, Horace Walpole the prime minister announced, "Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson."

Mr. William B. Reed an Episcopalian from Philadelphia, wrote, "A Presbyterian royalist was a thing unheard of. The debt of gratitude which independent America owes to the dissenting clergy and laity never can be paid."

Because of this involvement, the British destroyed more than fifty Presbyterian churches and defaced many others. W. P. Breed points out, "To the privations, hardships and cruelties of the war the Presbyterians were pre-eminently exposed. In them the very essence of rebellion was supposed to be concentrated, and by the wanton plunderings and excesses of the marauding parties they suffered severely. Their Presbyterianism was prima facie evidence of guilt. A house that had a large Bible and David’s Psalms in meter in it was supposed, as a matter of course, to be tenanted by rebels."

When the colonial forces assigned to defend Boston arrived in that city, they were shocked to find what the British had done: "The Old South Church had been desecrated, wantonly and calculatedly. ‘Gentleman Johnny’ Burgoyne had turned it into a riding academy for the cavalry of his regiment! ‘The pulpit and all the pews had been taken away and burned for fuel, and many hundred loads of dirt and gravel were carted in and spread upon the floor. The south door was closed, and a bar was fixed, over which the cavalry were taught to leap their horses at full speed. A grog shop was erected in the gallery . . .’

"Nor was this an isolated incident; throughout the northern Colonies, dissident churches were systematically abused. The Presbyterian church at Newtown, Long Island, had its steeple sawed off, and was used as a prison and guardhouse. Later, it was torn down completely, and its boards used for the construction of soldier huts. In New Jersey, the church at Princeton was stripped of its pews and gallery for fuel, and the churches at Elizabeth and Mount Holly were burned. In New York City, the Presbyterian churches were made into prisons, or used by British officers for stabling their horses."

Many Presbyterian ministers lost their homes and property. Bancroft describes one incident, "One Huck, a captain of British militia, fired [i.e. "set aflame"] the library and dwelling-house of the clergy man at William’s plantation in the upper part of South Carolina, and burned every Bible into which the Scotch Irsh translation of the psalms was bound."

The prominence of Presbyterians in the Revolutionary army is noted by historian J. R. Sizoo: "When Cornwallis was driven back to ultimate retreat and surrender at Yorktown, all the colonels in the Colonial Army but one were Presbyterian elders. More than one-half of all the soldiers and officers of the American Army during the Revolution were Presbyterians." (quoted by Boettner, op. cit., p. 384)

Dr. Thomas Smyth writes in regard to the crucial battles of Cowpens, King’s Mountain, and the skirmish known as "Huck’s Defeat," that Presbyterian elders and laymen made up the leadership and the majority of the forces. "General Morgan, who commanded at the Cowpens, was a Presbyterian elder. General Pickens, who made all the arrangements for the battle, was a Presbyterian elder, and nearly all under their command were Presbyterians. In the battle of King’s Mountain, Colonel Campbell, Colonel James Williams, Colonel Cleaveland, Colonel Shelby and Colonel Sevier were all Presbyterian elders, and the body of their troops were from Scotch Irish settlements.

At Huck’s Defeat, in York, Colonel Bratton and Major Dickson were both elders in the Presbyterian church. Major Samuel Morrow, who was with Colonel Sumpter in four engagements and took part in many other engagements, was for about fifty years a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church." The prominent involvement is illustrated by George Washington who would later donate $40,000 for the establishment of a Presbyterian college (the college is today Washington and Lee University). They made up a good part of the Pennsylvania Line on whom Washington could rely more than on any other regiments in the Continental Army

What accounts for the amazing support of the Scotch Irish Presbyterians and Congregationalists for the move for independence? The explanation is found in the men who worked the fields for an honest living and the men filled the pulpits of these Calvinistic congregations and the things they preached. These remarkable men belived in truth and justice.

In establish the nation, the Scotch-Irish proved equally valiant in preserving it from dissolution 85 years later. (See here) In the Civil War they were predominantly loyal to the Union wherever they lived. Horace Kephart ("Our Southern Highlanders") says that the Appalachian mountain area sent 180,000 riflemen into the Union armies. John Fox, Jr., the Kentucky novelists, described the Southern highlanders of Scotch-Irish descent as "a long, lean, powerful arm of the Union, stretched through the very vitals" of the Confederacy.

Grant’s army at Shiloh and Vicksburg and Sherman’s army in the drive on Atlanta were largely composed of these Scotch Irish men. Speaking of Sherman’s legions, his great adversary, General Joe Johnston, said: "I made up my mind that there had been no such army since Julius Caesar’s time."

To mention just one battle,on April 6, 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant and his Union soldiers advanced into Mississippi and reached Pittsburg landing on the Tennessee River. There he waited for more troops from Nashville. During that night, Union boats ran upriver to deliver fresh troops to Grant's camp. Grant made a surprise attack at dawn and forced the exhausted Southerners to retreat. The cost of the Union victory was dreadful. Union casualties at Shiloh were 13,000, about one-fourth of those who had fought. The Confederates lost 11,000 out of 41,000 soldiers. These Scotoch Irish with their precision rifles gave fearful account of their fighting prowess.

There were none who furnished more soldiers in proportion to their numbers than the Ulstermen. It was P. Henry, leading his fellow Scotch-Irish in Virginia in the Revolutionary War who said, "Give me Liberty or give me death." They gave New York her first Governor, George Clinton, who served twenty-one years. Thire blood is credited to 15 presidents, such as : Jackson, Polk, Taylor, Buchanan, Johnson, Harrison, Arthur and McKinley. Now, my friends, such is the history of the men who came from Ulster, the Scotch-Irish."

Another tribute to the Scots of Ulster, as well as the Scots of Scotland, is from the address given by the late Ambassador Whitelaw Reid before the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution of "The Scot and Ulster Scot in America." Ambassador Reid inferred in this address that these two branches of Scots "deserve more credit for the making of America than any other race of people - that there would have been no United States without them."

George Bancroft of New England has stated that: ". . the first voice raised publicly in America to dissolve all connection with Great Britain came not form the Puritans of New England or the Dutch of New York, but from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, and when the Declaration of Independence came it summed up the conclusions to which the Scots and Ulster Scots had been leading for years."

To day we are in the United States of America, Northern Ireland, Canada and Austrailia are "the descendants of a group of people who refused to be held hostage under the tyrants boots either monetarily or religiously. A group of people who endured many hardships and much suffering to bring us to where we are today, and in so doing built a better world for us all to live in. Even in Northern Ireland they still survive and resist, having edured 400 years of oppresssion and more recently 30 years of terrorisim.

We are....... very proudly........ Scotch Irish.

See also The Paxton Boys and The Steelboys

George Washington, at Valley Forge.