A large number of prisoners of war were released a few days ago from Richmond, but, long and anxiously as he has been expected, Colonel Corcoran was not among them. What does it mean? Why is this brave man kept so long and against repeated promises, in the wretched tobacco warehouse at Richmond? Is it because he is an Irishman – one of those “mudsills” against whom the rebel aristocrats have so loudly denounced vengeance? We remember a passage in Mr. Russell’s letters to the London Times where a leading rebel is quoted as remarking that “after the war not an Irishman or German should vote.” Is this another sample of their hatred of the foreign born citizens who have so generally proven faithful to the land and Government of their adoption?
A few days more must release the brave Corcoran, unless, indeed, his tormenters force him away from Richmond to some new prison house. Doubtless, not an Irishman in McClellan’s army but cries “on to Richmond” – Corcoran must be released.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 24, 1862, p. 2
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