Glossary

Abatis: A line of sharply pointed, chopped tree limbs installed in the ground outside the main defense line, slanted outward toward the enemy.

American Protective Association or APA: Founded in Iowa in 1887, it pushed an anti-Catholic political agenda at local and state levels of government. According to the APA, loyalty to the pope was irreconcilable with loyalty to America. Sought to prevent Catholics from holding public office and from teaching in public schools. Disappeared about 1910 but lived on in the minds and speech of Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, for much longer.

Americans: Term used by nineteenth century sociologists to denote aristocratic, generally wealthy, culturally elite Protestants of English ancestry from New England as distinguished from more recent immigrant groups like Germans and Irish. “Americans” controlled business, government, and community institutions in Buffalo in the first half century from its founding.

Anglo-Irish: English who immigrated to Ireland after Cromwell conquered the island in 1650; controlled its main businesses and estates of thousands of acres until years after Irish independence from England in 1922 and in some cases still today. Became a common term among Irish people and educated Irish immigrants.

Artillery: Cannons or other large caliber firearms; a branch of the army armed with cannons. On occasion, artillery men operated as line infantry.

Banshee: In Irish mythology, a female fairy whose wailing foretold someone’s death.

Battery: The basic unit in an artillery regiment. Batteries included six cannons, one hundred fifty-five men, a captain, thirty other officers, two buglers, fifty-two drivers, and seventy cannoneers with the horses, wagons and equipment needed to move and fire the cannons.

Bayonet: A metal blade shaped like a long knife that could be attached to the end of a musket rifle and used as a spear in hand-to-hand combat.

Breach: A large gap in a fortification or line of soldiers exposing the inside of the fortification or line to penetration by an attacking enemy.

Breastworks: Breast-high earth works or barriers, made of logs and soil, to protect soldiers from enemy fire.

Bullet screens: Light defenses, often built from a farmer’s fence rails, generally with some earth mounded against them.

Butternut: Term applied to Confederate soldiers by Union soldiers because of the yellowish-brown color of their jackets.

Caliber: The distance around the inside of a gun barrel measured in millimeters or thousands of an inch. Bullets are labeled by the size of gun they fit.

Campaign: A series of military operations that compose a distinct phase of a war, e.g., the Overland Campaign waged by General Grant in Virginia from May 1864 to April 1865.

Cap: A tiny brass shell holding fulminate of mercury. When the trigger is pulled, the hammer slams into the cap, igniting gunpowder which flames into the chamber of the musket gun, igniting a wad of gunpowder, which blasts the bullet out of the barrel.

Cartridge: A roll of thin paper holding a small amount of gunpowder in the bottom and a ball or bullet in the top. A soldier had to tear off the top of the cartridge and ram it down the barrel of his rifle, one of nine steps to firing a muzzle-loading rifle.

Cavalry: Military mounted on horseback, often used to scout enemy positions and movements or to attack enemy cavalry. Cavalry could dismount and serve as infantry.

Cholera epidemics: The First Ward was prone to cholera epidemics because it was built on low-lying land that retained sewage water and bred virulent bacteria. Buffalo was ravaged by cholera epidemics in 1832, 1835, 1849, and 1854. Cholera is caused by the bacterium vibrio cholerae, transmitted by water or food that is contaminated by the feces of an infected person.

Clogs: Originally, wooden-soled shoes used in Irish dancing.

Colors: A flag identifying a regiment or army.

CSA: Confederate States of America, which were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.

Contraband: Slaves who escaped or were freed by the Union Army, often encamped near a Union Army post and employed by its soldiers. After mid-1863, 200,000 freemen and former slaves joined the U.S. Colored Troops.

Community of the True Inspiration or Ebenezer Society: A breakaway German Anabaptist church founded in the 18th century; between 1842 and 1846, purchased 5,000 acres of land that formerly belonged to the Seneca Nation Buffalo Creek Reservation in West Seneca, New York. Because of the growth of Buffalo, they started a move to Amana, Iowa, in 1855 and completed it over the following decade. The site of their first settlement is still known as Ebenezer.

William ‘Fingy’ Conners: Born in 1857, he lost a thumb as a child and was thus nicknamed “Fingy.” An uneducated tough, he took over his parents’ saloons on Ohio Street as a teen and used them and his gang to organize labor crews in the port of Buffalo; organized 7,000 unskilled laborers in Great Lakes ports; controlled Buffalo government construction contracts; influenced state and national elections; purchased the Buffalo Courier and Express newspapers and large Florida real estate holdings.

Demonstration: A military movement used to draw the enemy’s attention from the main attacking or withdrawing force.

Dysentery: Intestinal disease brought on by a variety of pathogens (viral, bacterial, and parasitic) causing severe diarrhea; one of the leading causes of death in the Civil War. More soldiers died in the Civil War because of disease than as a consequence of battle.

Earthwork: A field fortification such as a trench or line fortified with earth and logs.

Elevate: To empty a lake freighter of its grain or ore, contained in separated sections or holds.

Enfilade: To fire across the length of an enemy’s battle line from one of its flanks.

Episcopus Ordinatus: Latin for the consecrated bishop of a Roman Catholic diocese.

Fatigue duty: Physical, noncombat work, e.g. cleaning up the camp, repairing structures, digging latrines, building roads or fortifications, kitchen duty.

Fenians: Term first used by John O’Mahoney for the American Irish republican society he formed in 1858 to free Ireland from British rule; adapted from “Fianna” or Gaelic warrior bands who lived apart and could be called upon to defend the land. Became an umbrella term for various Irish revolutionary groups.

Flank: The end or wing of a battle line; as a verb, to move around the end of an enemy’s battle line.

Furlough: Leave from duty granted by a superior officer. Furlough papers described the appearance, unit, and time of leave and return.

Gabions: Cylindrical wicker baskets filled with rock and earth used to build field fortifications.

Grand Army of the Republic: The GAR formed as a fraternal organization of Union veterans in 1866 to promote housing, pensions, and other veterans’ issues in Congress.

Hedge Schools: Schools started in poor rural areas of Ireland from the 18th century on by educated local men. Even though the National School system was established in 1830, due to lack of resource commitment, hedge schools continued until the 1890s. Called “hedge schools” because they were held outdoors alongside the ever-present hedges of the Irish countryside. They were also held in homes, barns, and other buildings, particularly during uncomfortable weather.

Know Nothing or Native American Party: An anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic national political party active between 1845 and 1855 and directed especially against German and Irish immigrants. Died after the election of 1856 when Millard Fillmore ran unsuccessfully on its line, but lived on in the vocabulary of Irish Americans. Membership was limited to white men of English ancestry.

Kyrie Eleison: Greek meaning, “Lord, have mercy.” Found in the Roman Catholic mass.

Lake Carriers’ Association: A Great Lakes, American flagship, shippers’ organization controlling freighters moving commodities like grain, ore, salt, and limestone among Great Lakes ports.

Low Mass/High Mass: A pre-Vatican II Council (1961 to 1965) distinction. Low masses required a smaller donation and had no musical instrumentation and usually no singing. Only two candles were lighted at the altar. Six candles were lighted for a high mass, which was celebrated with music.

Maire: Irish name for Mary, pronounced “Moira.”

Marine leg: A long boom suspended from the side of a grain elevator, lowered into the holds of freighters with a conveyor belt of buckets attached to elevate, i.e., empty the bulk grain or ore in a hold.

Military Units: The army was the largest organizational group of soldiers. One company was said to be equal to 50-100 men and up to four platoons; ten companies equal to 300-1,000 men or one regiment; four regiments equal to 2,500-3,000 men or one brigade; two to five brigades equal to 6,000-10,000 men or one division; two to five divisions equal to a corps; one to three corps equal to an army. A company was commanded by a captain, a regiment by a colonel, a brigade by a brigadier general; an army, a corps, or a division by a major general, and the whole Union Army by a lieutenant general who was also commander-in-chief.

Muzzle loading: Rifle muskets loaded from the muzzle end of the gun by jamming a cartridge down the barrel with a ramrod, a metal rod attached beneath the barrel.

Parrott Gun or Rifle: A type of artillery piece designed by Robert Parrott of the West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, New York. Produced ten- and twenty-pound models for field use by both the army and navy and up to 200-pound models for fortresses.

Pickets: Soldiers posted in small units spread several yards apart and 200 to 500 yards in front of the main defense line to provide advance warning of an enemy attack or to filter an assaulting line.

Plug: A baseball fielder could throw a runner out by hitting him with the ball, i.e., “plugging” him, when he was running between bases.

Quartermaster: The officer responsible for armament, clothes, food, and other supplies for the troops.

Redoubt: An enclosed fieldwork or fort used to protect a garrison from multisided attacks. Called a salient or lunette if shaped like a half-moon and attached to a fortified line of defense.

Rifle pit: A shallow hole used by pickets with earth and log mounded in front from which a soldier shot from a prone position.

United States Sanitary Commission: Established by Congress on June 18, 1861, but privately financed and staffed by volunteers to assure and supervise appropriate care of Union sick and wounded.

Seanachaite: Irish storytellers skilled at inventing or retelling ancient Celtic and other legends.

Skirmish: A minor attack to probe the enemy’s line for weakness.

Sutler: A private business near or within a military encampment that sold practical and comfort items (canned foods, clothes, pen knives, etc.) to soldiers.

Union: The section of the country that remained loyal to the federal government during the Civil War: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. West Virginia became a Union state in 1863, seceding from Virginia. Union soldiers were also called Federals.

Vedette: A mounted sentry stationed in advance of a picket line.

Veteran Reserve Corps: Wounded and partially disabled soldiers were allowed to remain in service in the VRC to do noncombat, light duty, e.g., hospital service, brig guard duty.

Vincentians or Congregation of the Mission: Founded by St. Vincent de Paul in Paris in 1624. The order is a loose federation of congregations of Roman Catholic priests and brothers whose principal mission is the instruction of the poor in the faith and the formation of the clergy. It has hundreds of houses in 86 countries and had over 4,000 members at the turn of the 21st century.

WASP: Of White Anglo Saxon Protestant ancestry.

WCTU: Women’s Christian Temperance Union, formed in 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio, to educate and agitate against the use of alcohol. It evolved to stand for women’s rights in an era when women could not vote, hold property, or retain their children in case of divorce.

Welland Canal: Twenty-six miles long, connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario across the Niagara Peninsula, thus bypassing Niagara Falls. Part of the St. Lawrence Seaway System, it allows lake freighter traffic amounting to 40,000,000 tons to move between the western Great Lakes region and the Atlantic Ocean and beyond. Opened in 1830 and modified for the fifth time in 1972.

Whiteboys: Eighteenth century Irish secret society members who wore white smocks during nighttime raids against landlords and tithe collectors. Became a general name for Irish who carried out violent raids on English interests in Ireland well into the 19th century.