Boston Irish Civil War Hero Thomas Cass , Born June 4, 1821
Colonel Thomas Cass Statue, Boston Public Garden Boston Civil War hero Thomas Cass, commander of the Massachusetts Ninth Regiment , was born on June 4, 1821 in Farmleigh, Queen's County (now County Laois). His family immigrated to Boston when he was an infant, and settled in the North End, at that time a heavily Irish neighborhood. Cass was a member of the Boston School Committee and a successful businessman. During the 1850s, he organized a local militia unit of Irish immigrants known as the Columbian Artillery but the group was dismantled by the nativist Know-Nothing movement in 1855. When the Civil War broke out, and with the encouragement of Governor John Andrew , Cass gathered his men to form Boston's first Irish troop, the Ninth Regiment. Colonel Cass reported with the regiment of 1,022 men at the State House on Tuesday, June 25, 1861, to receive the state flag and to be reviewed by Governor Andrew. Fellow Irish immigrant Patrick S....