http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Virginia_Infantry
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,231128.0.html
http://www.1stvirginia.com/1stVirginiaHistory/1stVirginiaHistory.htm


Patrick Moore and the Battle of Bull Run

Scattered as they were among dozens of regiments, Irish units probably fought in every major Civil War battle. In one of the earlier fights--called Bull Run in the North and First Manassas in the South--the 1st Virginia regiment, commanded by Galway-born Colonel Patrick Moore, defended strategic Blackburn’s Ford. The regiment’s Montgomery Guards was an Irish unit and it fought effectively as skirmishers. At one point, Col. Moore led a charge against the Yankees shouting, “Feagh a Ballagh!”—perhaps the first Irish battle cry heard in the war. General Thomas Jackson earned the sobriquet “Stonewall” at that engagement, primarily because his troops held so well at the ford. The Montgomery Guards and the 1 st Virginia later were to suffer 120 casualties out of 155 men in Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg.

In a way, Irish troops of the 1 st Virginia regiment created the Stonewall Jackson legend by their stand at Blackburn’s Ford— but a similarly named Irish unit ended it. The 1 st Virginia Battalion, also called the Irish Battalion, became the provost guard for the Army of Northern Virginia. During the winter of 1862-63 an Irish guard of that battalion failed to recognize General Jackson returning to his bivouac late at night—and shot him.