Thomas Cass of Massachusetts Irish 9th Regiment, Dies from Civil War Battle Wounds on July 12, 1862

Thomas Cass Memorial, Boston's Public Garden

On July 12, 1862, Colonel Thomas Cass, leader of the Irish 9th Regiment Massachusetts, died in Boston from his wounds at the Battle of Malvern Hill. He was buried with military honors at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge.

Born in Farmleigh, County Laois, Ireland in 1821, Thomas Cass emigrated with his family to Boston when he was nine months old, where they settled in the North End. He worked with his father and eventually became successful businessman, and also a prominent member of the Boston School Committee. He lived on North Bennet Street.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers to defend the Union. Cass immediately offered to raise a regiment of Massachusetts Irish volunteers to fight for the Union. Governor Andrew commissioned Cass to lead the Fighting Irish 9th, as it was called, and the Regiment was permitted to carry its own Irish flag, which was donated by Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis.

The 9th Regiment flag, along with other flags from Civil War regiments, is now part of the Hall of Flags at the Massachusetts State House.

 

Cass and his men left Boston on June 25, 1861 and headed south to the war zone. Cass led the regiment into battle many times in the following year, including the Battle of Yorktown and Gaines Mill. At the Battle of Malvern Hill, which lasted seven days, the 9th fought valiantly but sustained serious losses: 166 were killed or wounded. Cass himself was wounded at Malvern on July 1 and was carried to the rear. He was sent home to Boston where he died of his wounds on July 12, 1862.

From the battlefront, the Ninth Regiment issued a proclamation, which read in part:

In the death of Col Cass, the cause has lost one of its bravest defenders, a true patriot, a lover of constitutional liberty and oof the county of his adoption. He left the luxuries and comforts of home, exchanging them for the rigors of camp, the hardships of a campaign and the dangers of the battlefield. Arising from a bed of sickness to take command of his regiment, and gallantly leading them on in every battle and skirmish until he received his mortal would, he has sealed with his blood the indisputable evidence of devoted loyalty, attachment for the land that has offered a home to his oppressed and exiled countrymen.

A statue to Thomas Cass statue, made of granite and initially for a cemetery, was unveiled in the Public Garden in 1889, but critics quickly objected to it. Then in 1899, a new marble statue, by sculptor Richard E. Brooks, was unveiled to acclaim, winning an award at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

 

Departure for War, Soldiers & Sailors Memorial 

Colonel Cass is depicted in the famous Soldiers & Sailors Monument on Boston Common, designed by Irish immigrants Martin and Joseph Milmore. One of four mezzo-rilievos at the base of the monument, entitled Departure for the War, depicts five officers on horseback going off to war from Massachusetts. They are General B. F. Butler, Quartermaster-General John H. Reed, Colonel Thomas Cass of the Irish 9th Regiment, Colonel Robert G. Shaw of the Black 54th Regiment and Captain Charles Russell Lowell.

The Thomas Cass statue is along Boston's Irish Heritage Trail.