Irish regiment places headstones for five Civil War soldiers in Philadelphia

Under a sunless morning sky Saturday, young Timmy Kelly sang the haunting Irish patriotic ballad "Minstrel Boy" while reenactors from the 69th Pennsylvania Irish regiment stood at five graves where headstones had been placed for Civil War soldiers at New Cathedral Cemetery in North Philadelphia.

Though parades, battle reenactments, and speeches will be common to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the mission of members of the 69th Pennsylvania Irish is different:

They find the burial spots of Civil War solders whose families could not afford gravestones. They sift through Philadelphia death records and look up cemetery plot maps. When they find a soldier, they file the required paperwork to get a headstone for the unmarked grave.

"We have located 350 of our soldiers around the country. Of those, we have put stones on 66," said Don Ernsberger, former Council Rock High School history teacher and author of five Civil War books, including Paddy Owen's Regulars about the 69th's Irish volunteers from Philadelphia.

"Every time we think we've found everybody, we find a few more," said Ernsberger, also a reenactor who portrays Pvt. John Harvey. "Of the 1,400 total in the regiment during the war, probably about half have headstones."

Joining the 15 reenactors Saturday was a crowd of 50 onlookers and descendants of the five Union soldiers honored with prayers, holy water, Irish and American flags, and three volleys of rifle shots over their graves.

The five, all born in Ireland, ranged in age from 22 to 38 when they marched in battles from Glendale to Antietam, Gettysburg to Petersburg. They were Capt. Thomas Woods, Sgt. Patrick McAnally, Pvt. Philip O'Reilly, Sgt. Robert Stinson, and Pvt. Rodger Laughling.

"I started this research in 1973, and I didn't know until about 2½ years ago that I was a descendant," said Cecilia Kinney of Bensalem, a great-great-granddaughter of McAnally's.

Kinney scoured census records as well as Civil War and military records. She and her cousin Joe Kinney of Warrington searched records of St. Michael's Catholic Church at Second and Jefferson Streets, where McAnally's children were baptized.