James William Fitzgerald

James William Fitzgerald

One of the first members of John O'Mahony's Fenian Brotherhood

Later a Prominent Senate Wing leader from Cincinnati, Ohio

Founder of the Irish Republic newspaper of Chicago

Below is a scan of an Irish American article about Fitzgerald.

On June 1st, one week after this article, Fitzgerald arrived with the Cincinnati Fenians to Buffalo where the Cincinnati soldiers apparently integrated into the 18th Fenian Ohio Regiment and then joined Fenian Colonel John O'Neill in the Senate Wing Fenian invasion of Canada. Fitzgerald arrived according to Scian Dubh [James O'Carroll] in his account of Ridgeway but nothing verifying his actual participation in the battle.

Before the second Fenian Senate Wing invasion of Canada in 1870 by the now Fenian General John O'Neill, Fitzgerald issued a proclamation withholding Cincinnati Fenians from participation in what was later called O'Neill's Folly.

 

Fitzgerald probably in on founding of Clan na Gael

In addition to O’Neill’s conflict with the Senate Council, the Senate Wing had another problem to face. In 1868 the fledgling nationalist organization known as the Clan-na-Gael began actively recruiting members of the Senate Wing, a fact that provoked O’Neill to issue an eighteen-page circular warning members against joining “secret sworn organizations.” The circular also charged the Irish Republic with fomenting Senate Wing disunion. As mentioned above, Michael Scanlon, P.W. Dunne, J.W. Fitzgerald, Dr. David Bell, and other senators founded The Irish Republic in Chicago in 1867. From the tone of The Irish Republic editorials and the circumstances of its founding one is led to speculate that these Fenian senators, at the time of the newspaper’s founding, were in collusion with, or already members of, a group advocating oath-bound secrecy that by 1868 had affiliated themselves with the emerging Clan-na-Gael Association.

The Change of a Fenian's Heart

James W. Fitzgerald, the powerful Fenian Senator from Cincinnati, seems to have had an epiphany in May 1870. The Cincinnati Enquirer on April 22 stated that Fenian Major General Fitzgerald was about to lead the Cincinnati Fenians into battle. On May 6 the Cincinnati Enquirer published an announcement that “Parties who desire to make a pleasant summer excursion in Canada are requested to call upon General Fitzgerald.”[1] The Cincinnati Gazette reported that men were assembling for battle at the armory but at the end of the article was a paragraph that cast some doubt about Fitzgerald’s commitment to the coming battle:

                                 James W. Fitzgerald, who has returned from a visit to Louisville, reports that the number of Fenians who have gone from the city to the fight on the border is ridiculously small.[2]

[1] Cincinnati Enquirer, May 6, 1870
             .
[2] CincinnatiDaily Gazette, May 28, 1870

 Fitzgerald refuses to send troops for the invasion

On May 23, Senator Fitzgerald publicly pronounced the invasion to be “hair-brained and premature” and the invasion to be the work of “hot-brained madcaps” not of the Fenian Brotherhood.[1]O’Neill’s military entourage arrived in Cincinnati to collect men and arms but were officially denied access to the Senate Wing armory and its store of weapons.[2] O’Neill’s senior commander General Owen Starr demanded the Fenian armory be opened and weapons released or he would take them by force.
Fitzgerald, who controlled access to the armory, posted guards to prevent the weapons from being taken. A secret meeting was held on May 24 at night in the armory between Starr and Fitzgerald and their respective adherents, as reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer. The result of the meeting was that Fitzgerald convinced the Cincinnati Fenians not to join the invasion. The Cincinnati Enquirer summed up the result of the meeting: “General Starr, Major O’Keefe, and ‘Colonel’ Trusman left last night in the direction of St Albans, with three privates, who could pay their own way.”
[3] Apparently these three men were the extent of O’Neill’s Cincinnati military levy.

   

 

   [1] Cincinnati Daily Gazette, May 23, 1870.
     [2] Cincinnati Enquirer, May 25 1870.
     [3] Cincinnati Enquirer, May 23, 1870.