Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Corcoran, Michael
CORCORAN, MICHAEL (1827–1863), brigadier-general of federal volunteers in the American civil war, was born at Carrowskill, co. Sligo, Ireland, 21 Sept. 1827. He emigrated to America in 1849, and obtained employment at first as a clerk in the New York city post office. He became colonel of the 69th New York militia, and on the call for troops in April 1861 took the field with his battalion, and distinguished himself at the first battle of Bull's Run, where he was wounded and made prisoner. He was confined successively at Richmond, Charleston, Columbia, Salisbury, N.C., and other places, and was one of the officers selected for execution in the event of the federal authorities having carried out their threat of hanging the captured crews of confederate vessels as pirates. Exchanged on 15 Aug. 1862, he was made a brigadier-general, and raised an Irish legion. He took part in the battles of Nausomond and Suffolk in North Carolina in 1863, and checked the advance of the confederates on Norfolk. He died, from the effects of a fall from his horse near Fairfax, Virginia, on 22 Dec. 1863.
[Drake's Amer. Biog.]