there he could obtain no employment. He wrote to me to say that the police followed him like his shadow, and to their interference he attributed his being so long an idle wanderer through the streets.
Under these circumstances I was not sorry to hear ho had made up his mind to go to America. Emigration, to America, or one of our colonies, is the only means of affording a convict a certain mode of commencing life de novo, or of honestly obtaining a livelihood. He is almost sure to be detected in this country by some one, and pointed out as a person to be avoided and driven from employment, and back to his former evil courses. Hence the wisdom of the directors of Irish convict prisons in inducing as many of the discharged prisoners as they possibly can to emigrate. In this consists what is styled the success of the Irish system, in the deportation, and not in the reformation—of which we can have no evidence—of Irish convicts. We are convinced that more than the half of discharged Irish prisoners are disposed of in this way. We find that in the year 1862 as many as ninety-five emigrated out of a hundred and forty-two discharged from the intermediate prisons of Smithfield and Lusk. This was, perhaps, the largest proportion of emigrants in one year, but the average is over the half.
Well, our young friend resolved to emigrate, and took his departure from Liverpool to New York, about six months ago. I heard of him soon after his arrival, and found he had done what I suspected he would do, that was, enlist in the Federal army. Perhaps it was his only chance. There is many a man in the Queen's livery who has worn the convict frieze and badge; I have known several. The Federal army contains as many Irish roughs as New York rowdies.
When I heard of his having enlisted, I said, "Well, he will make a brave soldier at any rate." What, therefore, was my surprise to learn, a few weeks ago, that he had deserted in the presence of the enemy, as his regiment was moving up to take a position in front. I found it hard to believe it, for fighting seemed so congenial to his nature; but how could I disbelieve it, with his brother's letter before me, detailing the particulars, and mentioning the prison in which he was confined, awaiting his sentence, of the nature of which there could be no doubt. "Oh, would," said his brother, "that he had died fighting the enemy, and not to be shot down, by his own comrades, in cold blood, like a dog."
I was greatly distressed on his account, and that of his family, who are respectable, and although the young man's case appeared a hopeless one, I wrote at once to Mr. Adams, the American ambassador, on his behalf, informing him of the zeal and enthusiasm with which the young deserter had lately expressed himself, in a letter to his friends, respecting the Federal army; adding, that I did not think he was always master of his own actions, and that I suspected a wound which he received in the head at the Crimea, now and then, affected his mind.
Nothing could be more kind or prompt than His Excellency's reply. The matter was altogether out of his department, but he advised me how to proceed with the proper authorities in America. I at once wrote to the deserter's friends, enclosing the ambassador's letter, with a flickering hope, burning out like the end of a candle which had dropped into the socket, that he had not yet been shot.
What was my surprise, therefore, about a month ago, to see a letter addressed to his brother, from the "Army of the Potomac, in front of Petersburg," dated the 19th of June, 1864, commencing thus:—
"You, no doubt, will be surprised and offended at not hearing from me sooner. It has caused me uneasiness not being able to send you some account of my movements. To begin at the beginning. Early in the month of May I was on detached service at Aquia Creek and Belle Plain, and consequently was not in some of the actions in which our army was engaged that month; but in lieu of such I was brought into contact with guerillas, in the above-mentioned places, never receiving a wound."
But not a word about desertion, arrest, imprisonment, or shooting. How was it to be explained? Simply enough. There was another J. P. in the American army, and all our sorrow and sympathy had been evoked for the wrong man, for our J. P. was no deserter after all. "I knew it," I exclaimed, "the fellow was too brave to run away."
As our readers by this time may possibly begin to feel some little interest in the right J. P., we shall favour them with two or three extracts from his letter. The following passage, somewhat abbreviated, gives a pretty correct picture of the fasting, marching, fighting, and plundering capacity of Irish soldiers in the Federal army:—
"Left Belle Plain on May 22, and marched to Fredericksburg, fourteen miles; next day to Bowling-Green (not Kentucky), twenty-one miles; third day, marched twelve miles, and encamped in the woods, about an hour before the whole force got orders to make a flank movement. Off we started to Byers Plan