Among the reports got up to inflame the Irish population and encourage enlistment, was one that Col. Corcoran, of the 69th, had been found lying wounded in a house, to which the rebels at once set fire, and burned up the gallant colonel. Another was that the body of acting Lieut-Col. Haggerty, who was killed on the first charge, was found on the field badly mutilated. The throat was cut, the eyes gorged our, the nose and ears taken clean off, &c. The object of the inventors of this canard is apparent from the following, which was printed on an immense placard and posted round the streets of New York:
Erin Go Braugh. – Irishmen – Haggerty must be avenged. Our gallant countrymen of the immortal 69th have covered themselves with imperishable glory. They proved themselves not only heroes, but Christian men – as generous to wounded foes and prisoner as they were invincible in battle. But how were they treated by the barbarous enemy? Let the fate of the gallant Captain Haggerty, who, lying wounded on the field, rendered immortal by the heroic deeds of the 69th, had his throat cut from ear to ear by a dastard rebel hand, attest. Irishman! the heroic Corcoran is in the power of these cutthroats! Shall he meet with such a fate as that dealt out by the rebels on his brave comrade in arms? Forbid it, genius of Erin! The grass would wither on the tortured bosom of our green mother Isle, should we permit it. Sons of Erin! countrymen of Corcoran to arms! Let there be ten thousand Irishmen on the south bank of the Potomac in twenty days, there battle cry being “Corcoran, resettled if living, avenged if dead.”
Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 7/26/1861
Harry Smeltzer
Bull Runnings 
And a Happy St. Pat’s to you as well! Argh!
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