Three regiments filled with Irish and Scotch immigrant New Yorkers struggled to survive in the days after Bull Run.
The Seventy-Ninth New York Highlanders was a proud militia regiment formed from the crème of New York’s Scottish community. Today we rarely think of the Scots as an immigrant ethnicity, but they were a major component of 19th century immigration. There were over 100,000 Scotch immigrants living in the United States at the start of the Civil War. In fact, there were more immigrants from Scotland than from all of Scandinavia combined.1
They numbered eight hundred men, exclusive of their band and drum corps, the former consisting of sixteen performers, and the latter of twenty drummers. About one third of the members wear the full Highland uniform, the remainder being dressed in blue jackets trimmed with red, dark green plaid pants, and blue fatigue cap.2
Ceremonial uniforms of the 79th New York as worn by modern re-enactors. Source: Civil War News…