The Irish War

In the 1830s, thousands of Irish laborers poured into northern Indiana to dig the Wabash-Erie Canal, backbreaking work that promised a new life. Instead, they found war. Drawing on the original report of canal commissioner David Burr, this slim historical document reconstructs a shocking chapter in American immigration history: how ancient factional grudges from Ireland, carried across the Atlantic, exploded into riots, beatings, and murder on the canal banks. The authorities were powerless. The bloodshed continued until one side was driven from the region. This is not romantic history. It is the raw account of men who fled famine only to find new reasons to kill each other, and of a young country too desperate for labor to intervene.