The Fitzgerald Family
(Crest No. 34. Plate 66.)
(Crest No. 35. Plate 66.)
(Crest No. 36. Plate 66.)
(Crest No. 37. Plate 66.)
GENERAL FITZGERALD, EARL OF DESMOND.
“Earl Gerald of the open hand, and eye that scowls on danger—
The scourge of the Sassenach, and stately betach of the stranger,
God and St. Coleman speed to-day the spears that round him ranged are!”
The Geraldines! the Geraldines!—’tis full a thousand years
Since ’mid the Tuscan vineyards, bright flashed their battle spears;
When Capet seized the crown of France, their iron shields were known,
And their sabre dint struck terror on the banks of the Garonne;
Across the downs of Hastings they spurred hard by William’s side,
And the grey sands of Palestine with Moslem blood they dyed;—
But never then, nor thence, till now, has falsehood or disgrace
Been seen to soil Fitzgerald’s plume, or mantle in his face.
The Geraldines! the Geraldines!—’tis true, in Strongbow’s van
By lawless force, as conquerors, their Irish reign began;
And, oh! through many a dark campaign they proved their prowess stern,
In Leinster’s plains, and Munster’s vales, on king, and chief, and kerne;
But noble was the cheer within the halls so rudely won,
And gen’rous was the steel-gloved hand that had such slaughter done;
How gay their laugh, how proud their mien, you’d ask no herald’s sign—
Among a thousand you had known the princely Geraldine.
These Geraldines! these Geraldines!—not long our air they breath’d;
Not long they fed on venison, in Irish water seethed;
Not often had their children been by Irish mothers nursed,
When from their full and genial hearts an Irish feeling burst!
The English monarchs strove in vain, by law, by force, and bribe,
To win from Irish thoughts and ways this “more than Irish” tribe;
For still they clung to fosterage, to brehon, cloak, and bard;
What King dare say to Geraldine, “your Irish wife discard”?
Ye Geraldines! ye Geraldines!—How royally ye reigned
O’er Desmond broad, and rich Kildare, and English arts disdained;
Your swords made Knights, your banner waved, free was your bugle call
By Glyn’s green slopes, and Dingle’s tide, from Barrow’s banks to Youghal.
What gorgeous shrines, what brehon lore, what minstrel feasts there were
In and around Maynooth’s grey keep, and palace-filled Adare!
But not for rite or feast ye stayed, when friend or kin were pressed,
And foemen fled when “Crom Aboo”[1] bespoke your lance in rest.
Ye Geraldines! ye Geraldines!—since Silken Thomas flung
King Henry’s sword on council board, the English thanes among,
Ye never ceased to battle brave against the English sway,
Though axe and brand and treachery your proudest cut away.
Of Desmond’s blood, through woman’s veins passed on th’ exhausted tide;
His title lives—a Sacsanach churl usurps the lion’s hide;
And, though Kildare tower haughtily, there’s ruins at the root,
Else why, since Edward fell to earth, had such a tree no fruit?
True Geraldines! brave Geraldines!—as torrents mould the earth,
You channelled deep old Ireland’s heart by constancy and worth;
When Ginckle ’leaguered Limerick, the Irish soldier gazed
To see if in the setting sun dead Desmond’s banner blazed!
And still it is the peasants’ hope upon the Curragh’s mere,
“They live, who’ll see ten thousand men with good Lord Edward here”—
So let them dream till brighter days, when, not by Edward’s shade,
But by some leader true as he, their lines shall be arrayed!
These Geraldines! these Geraldines!—rain wears away the rock,
And time may wear away the tribe that stood the battle’s shock,
But, ever, sure, while one is left of all that honored race,
In front of Ireland’s chivalry is that Fitzgerald’s place;
And, though the last were dead and gone, how many a field and town,
From Thomas Court to Abbeyfeale, would cherish their renown,
And men would say of valor’s rise, or ancient power’s decline,
“’Twill never soar, it never shone, as did the Geraldine.”
The Geraldines! the Geraldines!—and are there any fears
Within the sons of conquerors for full a thousand years?
Can treason spring from out a soil bedewed with martyrs’ blood?
Or has that grown a purling brook, which long rushed down a flood?—
By Desmond swept with sword and fire—by clan and keep laid low—
By Silken Thomas and his kin—by sainted Edward! No!
The forms of centuries rise up, and in the Irish line
Command their son to take the post that fits the Geraldine!
—Thomas Davis.
Note: [1] Formerly the war-shout of the Fitzgeralds, and now their motto.
SIR MORROGH’S RIDE TO THE DESMOND’S GATHERING.
My Chief! I pledge my knightly word, beside that apparition,
My charger sprang like Phooka’s steed, on Hell’s own wrathful mission.
St. Bride befriend me! ’twas a ride might craze both brain and vision.
SIR MORROGH’S RIDE TO THE DESMOND’S GATHERING.
(1569.)
The Moon is bright on Muskerry—broad Muskerry’s dark mountains;
Her beams are in its gliding streams and holy gushing fountains.
The gray wolf’s howl is on the breeze—the red dog quits his cover;
But man is housed in hall and hut, all broad Muskerry over;
For on this night—All-hollows Night—no longer covert keeping,
By fairy moat, the Slua Shee o’er hill and dale are sweeping.
But who is he who spurs so late across the dreary highland,
And holds his path by bog and stream as boldly as on dry land?
A black plume in his baradh high, the red steel in his right hand,
Less black I trow, than his grim brow—than his fierce eye less bright, and
The moonbeams showed how, as he rode, like fiend’s it glared and lightened
On Ballyhowra side ’tis noon—on Awbeg’s rushing water;
On many a crest of pride, and shield and spear of coming slaughter;
On many a long-locked, steel-clad knight, and mantled chieftain stern;
On galloglass, with axe in hand, and saffron-shirted kern.
Beneath the gray November sky, in the chill West wind curling,
O’er gathering bands and gleaming brands, a standard proud’s unfurling—
The Desmond Flag! on whose broad fold is scroll’d heraldic story
Of him, the knightly Geraldine, his clansmen’s shield and glory:
Earl Gerald of the open hand, and eye that scowls on danger—
The scourge of Sassenach, and stately betach of the stranger,
God and St. Coleman speed to-day the spears that round him ranged are!”
“The steed our chief so featly reins was bred by Guadalquiver,
And never bolder body-guard engirdled prince or riever,
Fourscore MacSheehies, stark and swart, in that grim troop assemble;
And soon at wild Clan-Gerralt’s war-shout Youghal town will tremble;
And soon the Collough-rue’s array by Cappoquin will scatter,
When yonder Imokilly axes casque and corslet shatter.”
So sang the harper, as he strode the green hill side before us,
While screamed from many a bag-pipe round, a goodly battle-chorus,
He sang Earl Seamus, wise and great—Earl Tomàs, conquered never,
And him who tamed the Butler’s pride by Nore’s oak-shadow’d river,
And knightly deeds, the which, God wot, a bard might rhyme forever.
The chief had turned his rein to greet some Condons tall and Roches,
When thro’ the clan’s dividing ranks, a wounded knight approaches.
He lighted slowly down—good sooth! ’twas well his ride was ended,
And raised his black-plumed cap, and grasped the cordial hand extended.
“Brave kinsman, Morrogh! welcome to our hosting,” quoth Earl Gerald—
“Thy tidings from Sir Shaune have faired but hardly with their herald:”
“The Saxons barred my path ere I had crossed the Kerry border;
Con Gorrav fell, my henchman true! by false steel of marauder.
Dundarerk’s lord purvey’d fresh steed, and escort thro’ his passes,
And then the Barry More beset me with his galloglasses,
But here I am. and need thine ear far more than leech or masses.
“For, all along my devious path, by Araglin and Allo,
The Banshee of our clan danced ghastly in the moonbeam’s halo—
Beside me, thro’ the roaring flood, across the silent heather!
While shrilly rose her plaintive scream o’er wind and stream together
‘Mavrone! mavrone!’ she wailed—‘Mogeely’s princely pride is ended!
Mavrone! mavrone! the Geraldine—the high and far-descended!
The oak is hewn—the flame is quenched; and who shall heir his glory?
Foes rend his spoil, and with his blood their bandog’s maw is gory!’
My Chief! I pledge my knightly word, beside that apparition,
My charger sprang like Phooka steed, on Hell’s own wrathful mission.
St. Bride befriend me! ’twas a ride might craze both brain and vision.”
The Desmond’s brow grew black as night—then red as stormy morning,
And curled his lip and shook his long white locks in ireful scorning:—
“But that thy sword drank, at Affane, of Ormond blood so deeply,
I’d hold Sir Morrogh! kinsman mine! thy manhood somewhat cheaply.
There rides the fierce O’Sullivan, from tempest-lash’d Ivèra!
There proud Clan Caura, and the sons of savage Iveleara!
Here wheel my haughty kindred, too, with plume and banner streaming!
’Twere well to greet such men to-day, with tale of brain-sick dreaming!
Less meet for ear of helmèd knight, than friar cowled and shaven.
If fall we must, Clan-London shall not vaunt us false or craven:
Their bandog’s thirst, forsooth! so do our Gaelic wolf and raven.”
—G. H. Supple.
Red dog—fox. Shua Shee—fairy host. Baradh—head-dress. Betach—keeper of a house of hospitality. Collough-rue—Queen Elizabeth. Mavrone—My grief! Phooka—demon-horse.
THE Fitzgerald family is of mixed Continental and Welsh origin. The ancestor of the Irish Fitzgeralds was Maurice Fitzgerald, a knight who, at the solicitation of King Dermod MacMorrough, went to Ireland in 1169, where he assisted Strongbow and Dermod in securing a footing.
The great-grandfather of Maurice, a powerful baron, named Otho, was descended from the Gherardini of Florence—the Dukes of Tuscany, whence the appellative of Geraldines—and went from Normandy, where some of the family had been settled, to England in the sixteenth year of the reign of Edward the Confessor. He obtained possession there of thirty-five lordships located in several counties. Of these one was in Somerset, two were in Berkshire, three in Surrey, three in Bucks, three in Dorsetshire, four in Middlesex, nine in Wiltshire, and ten in the County of Southampton.
His son Walter, after the subjugation of England by the Normans, being of Norman blood, was confirmed in his possessions, and Gerald, son of Walter by Gladys, a Welsh woman, was appointed by King Henry the First of England Norman constable of Pembroke Castle in Wales, and endowed with many lands in that country for his services against the Welsh.
Maurice, the first of this family to settle in Ireland, was the son of Gerald, and was also the first of the family to adopt the surname Fitzgerald, which signifies Gerald’s son, by which the Irish descendants of the race have since been known. Henry the Second appointed Maurice Fitzgerald chief governor of Ireland in 1173, and large grants of lands in the present Counties of Kildare, Wicklow, Wexford, Cork, and Kerry were bestowed on him and his descendants.
A branch of the Fitzgeralds were created earls of ancient Desmond, comprising the whole of the present County of Cork and the greater part of Kerry, together with a portion of Waterford and a small part of Tipperary, a territory which, under the Earls of Desmond, was subsequently much restricted. Another branch of the Fitzgeralds became Barons of Offaly, embracing a large portion of Kings County, with parts of Queens County and Kildare, Earls of Kildare, and Dukes of Leinster.
The Fitzgeralds of Leinster spring from John Fitzthomas Fitzgerald, created first Earl of Kildare by Edward the Second in 1316, whose line, through twenty earls, was raised to the dignity of Duke of Leinster in 1766, and which is to-day one of the wealthiest and most prominent families in Ireland.
The Fitzgeralds who were created Earls of Desmond were descended from Maurice Fitzthomas, fourth Lord of Decies, ennobled in 1329, and several of them were lord deputies of Ireland in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. They held the rank of Prince Palatine, which constituted them provincial kings within their dominion.
Gerald Fitzgerald, the fifteenth Earl of Desmond, known as “The Great Earl,” was one of the most princely nobles in Europe having a larger income than that of any other subject in the Queen’s dominions. Having refused to acknowledge Queen Elizabeth’s spiritual supremacy and resisted the establishment of the English State Church in his palitinate, a protracted war was waged between the English Government and the Earl’s forces, in which the latter were eventually defeated, and the Earl himself slain, A. D. 1583. His head was sent as a present to Elizabeth, who had it fixed on a spike on London Bridge. The Earl’s vast estates were parcelled out among the Queen’s favorites and English adventurers, on the conditions that none of the new occupiers should convey any part of the lands to the “mere Irish,” or intermarry with the Irish, or maintain any Irish in their family.
Among the adventurers who obtained portions of Desmond’s lands were Sir Walter Raleigh and the poet, Edmund Spencer, an enterprise that cost the latter the life of his son and indirectly his own, and contributed to the death of the former. Both of them were ferocious prosecutors of the native Irish, whose lands they had despoiled and whom they sought to exterminate.
The Fitzgeralds, or Earls of Desmond, had branches extended over the four provinces of Ireland, and more than fifty lords and barons paid tribute to them. They possessed, besides the Palatinate of Kerry, a tract of territory 120 miles in length and 50 in breadth, and had over one hundred castles and strongholds.
The Geraldines at an early period adopted the language and customs of the Irish, and joined with them against the English. It was to them that phrase was first applied of being “more Irish than the Irish themselves”—“Ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores.” In 1376 the statute of Kilkenny forbade the English settlers in Ireland to intermarry with the old Irish under penalty of outlawry. James, Earl of Desmond, was the first to violate this law; he married an O’Meagher.
Thomas Fitzgerald, tenth Earl of Kildare and known as “Silken Thomas” from the gorgeous richness and elegance of his retinue, was acting vice-deputy of Ireland in 1534, being then in his twenty-first year. Entering the King’s Council with a number of his followers, on June 11 of that year, he renounced his allegiance to King Henry the Eighth in an impassioned speech, with the declaration: “I am none of Henrie his deputie; I am his fo. I have more mind to conquer than to governe—to meet him in the field than to serve him in office.” The chancellor with tears in his eyes pleaded to dissuade him from so rash a purpose, to which the young Earl replied: “I will take the market as it ryseth, and will choose rather to die with valiantnesse and libertie, than to live under King Henrie in bondage and villanie.” For fourteen months he held out against the English power, defeating his enemies in many engagements.
During the first six months of the rebellion Ireland was almost denuded of English troops, and if the Earl had been supported by the native Irish chieftains an end would have been made of the English authority in Ireland. But only a few of them joined him; others held carelessly aloof, while still others were so paralyzed by their insane dissensions and feuds that they could not or would not lend him aid; and some actually joined the enemy and fought against him. He was finally induced to surrender on the promise of his life and the lives of his remaining followers being spared, which promise was kept by immediately sending him to London, where he was beheaded with five of his uncles.
Henry the Eighth then sought to destroy the entire Geraldine family, and Gerald, the eleventh Earl of Kildare and brother of the preceding, was afforded refuge by some of the independent Irish chieftains for a time, who refused to surrender or betray him into the king's power. He was subsequently sent to the Continent, and remained for a time at the court of Francis the First, King of France. In the reign of Edward the Sixth of England he succeeded in recovering his estates.
The last male heir of the Desmond line was Gerald Fitzgerald, who left Spain, whither his father had gone in 1603, and entered the service of the Austrian emperor. After serving with distinction for three years, he was in command of a strong fortress, then besieged, and refusing to surrender it finally died of starvation. Thus terminated the career of the last of the Desmond Geraldines in 1632.
The title then passed to Thomas, tenth Earl of Ormond, in right of his mother, Joan Fitzgerald, daughter of James, eleventh Earl of Desmond. When Ormond’s daughter married Sir Richard Preston, James the First’s Scotch favorite, the title was conferred on him, and when the latter’s only child, a daughter, was engaged to be married to the son of the English Earl of Denbigh, the intended bridegroom assumed the title. The marriage never took place, but the Denbighs still retain the title and motto of Desmond.
“His title lives—a Sacsanach churl usurps the lion’s hide.”
The original crest of the Fitzgerald family was a knight mounted on full charge. This was derived from the prowess of one of the Fitzgerald chieftains during the Crusades. In a battle with the Saracens his bridle-arm was broken by a stroke of a battle axe, and though disabled he grasped the reins in his teeth and led his followers, sword in hand, into the enemy’s ranks.
The Fitzgeralds, as well as being great warriors, were noted hunters, and from this latter fact adopted the wild boar as one of their crests.
Both branches of the Fitzgeralds have the picture of a monkey “environed and chained” among their crests. The origin of this crest is derived from the fact that one of the heirs of the house of Fitzgerald, when an infant in the cradle, was rescued by a pet monkey during a fire in the castle, and from this remarkable incident the family adopted the monkey as one of their crests.
Various officers of this family served in the Irish army of King James the Second during the Revolution of 1688-91. Colonel Sir John Fitzgerald of the Southern, or Desmond, branch, after the treaty of Limerick, which he predicted would be violated, went over to France with his regiment of 1,600 men. From 1693 to 1696 he served with his command in the campaigns under Marshal de Catinat, and in 1697 under Marshal de Choiseul on the Rhine.
Major-General James Fitzgerald entered the Regiment of Dillon, Irish Brigade, in France, as lieutenant in 1730. He served in many campaigns in various parts of the Continent, and participated in a score of battles and sieges, among them the battle of Fontenoy. He died in 1773.
Lieutenant-Colonel Nicholas Fitzgerald, after taking a leading part in the defense of Limerick, went with his regiment to France in 1691. After serving with the French army in Germany in 1693, 1694, and 1695, he commanded his regiment in Germany in 1701 on the outbreak of the war of the Spanish Succession, and the following year in Italy, when he was made brigadier for his conduct at the battle of Luzzara. From 1703 to 1706 he served in the campaigns of Italy, taking part in all the important engagements and operations, and afterward in Flanders, where he was wounded at the battle of Oudenarde. He attained the rank of major general, and according to the testimony of all the generals under whom he served was “as good an officer as any of his rank in France.” Several other Fitzgeralds served as officers in the Regiments of Dillon, Clare, Berwick, O’Donnell, Walsh, and Bulkeley in the brigade in France.
Another branch of the family, under the name of Geraldine, settled in France, and their descendants became Seigneurs de Lapenti, de St. Semphorien, de Corsine, etc. One of them was lieutenant-colonel in Fitz-James’ Regiment of Horse and brigadier of the King in July, 1762.
Of all the men whose fate has been linked with that of Ireland, there are few whose names are more fondly cherished or whose memory is more endeared to the Irish people than that of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. Descended of a princely family, brought up in the midst of associations that tend too often to deaden the aspirations of patriotism, the adhesion of Lord Edward to the popular cause was an event as gratifying as it was unexpected. If we add to this the impassioned and practical devotion which he showed during the evening of his young life to the cause he had so nobly espoused, we need not wonder that his memory is enshrined in the hearts of his countrymen with that of Tone and Emmet.
Lord Edward was born October 15, 1763, being the fifth son of the Duke of Leinster. He passed his youth in the magnificent mansion of his family. In his sixteenth year he showed such a predilection for military life that a lieutenancy was purchased for him in the Ninety-sixth Regiment, and two years afterward he was introduced to the horrors of war. In view of the course he pursued in after years, it may seem strange that at the outset of his military life he held rank in the English army in its efforts to reduce Washington and his compatriots to subjection. This fact, however, was due to his youth and the circumstances in which he was placed, rather than to any indifference to the cause of freedom. In after years he often regretfully adverted to the fact that in his youth he had taken part in “a war against liberty.”
Having returned from America in 1783, he was elected member of Parliament for Athy. From the noble spirits who were battling in that assembly for the freedom of their country, Lord Edward learned those principles which served as the guiding star of his after career. So electrically did the inspirations of liberty flash upon his soul that in October, 1792, on the occasion of attending a meeting in Paris to celebrate the victories of the armies of Republican France, none was louder than he in applauding the toast: “May the example of its soldiers be followed by all enslaved countries until tyranny be extinct.” For this he was dismissed from the British army, in which he had attained the grade of major-general. He renounced his titles, and thenceforth devoted himself wholly to the cause of his country. Both within and without Parliament he was indefatigable in his labors. Having denounced the Government from his place in Parliament on a certain occasion, he was called on to apologize, which he did in the following manner: “I have spoken what has been taken down; it is true, and I am sorry for it.” Meantime, the insolence of the English Parliament had become intolerable, and failing to secure any amelioration of the condition of Ireland through constitutional methods, Lord Edward drifted into open revolution.
It was at this juncture that the Society of the United Irishmen was formed. Lord Edward was elected their commander-in-chief, a post for which he was eminently fitted, both by training and military ability. The government having come into possession of his plans, caused him to be informed that it would connive at his leaving the country, but he spurned the proposal, replying: “It is now out of the question; I am too deeply pledged to these men to be able to withdraw with honor.” The majority of the leaders having been captured, Lord Edward, though living in the metropolis, succeeded in escaping the vigilance of his pursuers. At last, through the treachery of a supposed friend, he was captured in his room, 153 Thomas Street, Dublin, by Majors Sirr and Swan and a posse of soldiers. How he fearlessly refused to surrender; how gallantly he struggled; how, though contending against fearful odds, he struck down more than one of his opponents; how the cowardly Major Sirr shot him from behind the door; how wounded and fainting as he was he cut off three of Major Swan’s fingers with one stroke of his double-edged dagger; how he grappled with another of his assailants and buried his dagger in him fourteen times; how, when mortally wounded, he was brutally beaten into insensibility by the soldiery; how, when burning with fever immediately before his death in prison a few days afterward, imagining in his delirium that he was still contending with his foes, the undaunted Geraldine shouted: “Come on! Come on!”; and how after his death the Government, with base vindictiveness, persecuted and robbed his wife and children by passing a posthumous bill of attainder—all this is so well known to Irish readers as to need no recapitulation here. Suffice it to say that on the morning of June 4, 1798, one of the noblest spirits to whom Ireland ever gave birth passed to a world where pain and oppression are no more, in the death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald.
The loss of Lord Edward was ruinous to the Irish cause, as there was no one of sufiicient military ability to take his place. And, judging by the plans he had formed and the result of the partial rebellion that took place in one or two counties, in the suppression of which fifty thousand of England’s choicest troops were sacrificed, and the certainty of French aid in case of a protracted conflict, it is more than probable that had Lord Edward not been betrayed, a new chapter would have been added to Ireland’s checkered history.
Lord Edward was married to the beautiful Pamela, illegitimate daughter of Madame de Genlis, by the Duke of Orleans (Philipe Egalité), brother of Louis Philippe, King of France. She lived on an allowance given her by King Louis Philippe, after the death of her husband and the forfeiture of his estates.
In America also this illustrious family has been honorably represented. Colonel Fitzgerald was Washington’s favorite aide-de-camp during the War of the Revolution, and none among the gallant officers of that day were more devoted than he to their great commander. Mr. George Washington Curtis, Washington’s adopted son, relates the following incident concerning him that occurred at the battle of Princeton: “Colonel Fitzgerald was an Irish officer in the old Blue and Buffs, the first volunteer company raised in the South in the dawn of the Revolution, and commanded by Washington. In the campaign of 1778 and retreat through the Jerseys, Fitzgerald was appointed aide de-camp to Washington. At the battle of Princeton occurred that touching scene, consecrated by history to everlasting remembrance. The American troops, worn down by hardships, exhausting marches, and want of food, on the fall of their leader, that brave old Scotchman, General Mercer, recoiled before the bayonets of the veteran foe. Washington spurred his horse into the interval between the hostile lines, reining up with the charger’s head to the foe, and calling to his soldiers, ‘Will you give up your general to the enemy?’ The appeal was not made in vain. The Americans faced about, and the arms were leveled on both both sides—Washington between them—even as though he had been placed there as a target for both.
“It was at this moment that Fitzgerald returned from carrying an order to the rear; and here let us use the gallant veteran’s own words.
He said: ‘On my return, I perceived the general immediately between our line and that of the enemy, both lines levelling for a decisive fire that was to decide the fortune of the day. Instantly there was a roar of musketry followed by a shout. It was the shout of victory. On raising my eyes, I discovered the enemy broken and flying, while dimly amid the glimpses of smoke was seen Washington alive and unharmed, waving his hat and cheering his comrades to the pursuit. I dashed my rowels into my horse’s flanks and flew to his side, exclaiming: “Thank God! your Excellency is safe!” I wept like a child for joy.’”
Thomas Fitzgerald, a United States senator, was born in Herkimer County, N. Y., in 1796. His father was a native of Ireland, and served in the Revolutionary War. Thomas Fitzgerald served in the war of 1812, and after being admitted to the bar settled in Indiana, where he was elected to the first Legislature of that State. He removed to Michigan in 1832, and in 1837 was made regent of the University of Michigan. In 1848 he served in the United States Senate during the unexpired term of Lewis Cass. Appointed commissioner to investigate the wildcat banks, he brought about their complete abolishment. He was for many years probate judge in Michigan, where he was the leader of the Democratic party.
Among the many worthy representatives of this family may be mentioned the late John Fitzgerald, of Nebraska, who by sheer ability and indomitable pluck raised himself to the wealth of a multi-millionaire; the Most Rev. Edward Fitzgerald, of the Diocese of Little Rock, Ark.; Mr. John Fitzgerald, of Boston; and Judge James Fitzgerald and General Louis Fitzgerald, of New York.
General Louis Fitzgerald has been a prominent man for many years in the State, both as a soldier and as a business man. A member of the Seventh Regiment, New York, he went with his command to the defence of Washington, immediately on the outbreak of the Civil War. He was promoted for gallantry at the battle of Bull Run, where he was wounded. He participated in the Peninsular Campaign, and for a time was disabled by a severe wound. He again joined the Army of the Potomac as an officer on General Kearny’s staff. After the death of that gallant officer at Chantilly, General Fitzgerald served on the staff of General Birney, and subsequently accompanied General J. G. Foster in his campaigns in North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and was promoted at the close of the war for his meritorious services. In 1882 he was appointed brigadier-general of the First Brigade, New York State Militia. General Fitzgerald has been connected for years with many large financial and mercantile concerns in the metropolis. He is esteemed by all who know him for his patriotism, ability, and rare personal qualities.
GENERAL LOUIS FITZGERALD,
First Brigade N. G. S. N. Y.