'To live and die [for] Dixie': Irish civilians and the Confederate States of America

Around 20,000 Irishmen served in the Confederate army in the Civil War. As a result, they left behind, in various Southern towns and cities, large numbers of friends, family, and community leaders. As with native-born Confederates, Irish civilian support was crucial to Irish participation in the Confederate military effort. Also, Irish civilians served in various supporting roles: in factories and hospitals, on railroads and diplomatic missions, and as boosters for the cause. They also, however, suffered in bombardments, sieges, and the blockade. Usually poorer than their native neighbours, they could not afford to become 'refugees' and move away from the centres of conflict. This essay, based on research from manuscript collections, contemporary newspapers, British Consular records, and Federal military records, will examine the role of Irish civilians in the Confederacy, and assess the role this activity had on their integration into Southern communities. It will also look at Irish civilians in the defeat of the Confederacy, particularly when they came under Union occupation. Initial research shows that Irish civilians were not as upset as other whites in the South about Union victory. They welcomed a return to normalcy, and often 'collaborated' with Union authorities. Also, Irish desertion rates in the Confederate army were particularly high, and I will attempt to gauge whether Irish civilians played a role in this. All of the research in this paper will thus be put in the context of the Drew Gilpin Faust/Gary Gallagher debate on the influence of the Confederate homefront on military performance. By studying the Irish civilian experience one can assess how strong the Confederate national experiment was. Was it a nation without a nationalism

The James Webb Space Telescope mission

Instrumentatio

Energy Spectra of Fragments from Silver and Uranium Bombarded with 5.0 GeV Protons

In this third paper in a series in which the characteristics of nuclear fragments produced in the interaction of 5 GeV protons with Ag and U targets were studied by means of dE/dx-E measurements with semiconductor detector telescopes new information was obtained on the energy spectra of light fragments. One set of measurements on fragments from a Ag target involved the use of a two-element telescope incorporating a {Delta}E detector as thin as 16 {micro}m. A new algorithm for processing the {Delta}E and E data to extract particle identification was developed and the resulting particle spectra showed superior resolution for the elements from Li(Z = 3) to S (Z = 16). Segments of the energy spectra of each of these elements were measured at 20{sup o} and, for many of them, also at 45{sup o}, 90{sup o}, 135{sup o} and 160{sup o} to the beam direction. By use of 3-element telescopes and absorbers the high energy part of the energy spectrum for isotopes of He, Li, Be, B, and C ejected from Ag and U targets was measured at 20{sup o}. The measurements extended beyond 300 MeV for {sup 6}Li and {sup 7}Li and to 400 MeV for {sup 7}Be. A distinct high-energy component was found in these cases. The suitability of nuclear evaporation as a description of the emission of the low-energy fragments was tested with two simple theoretical models, one specifying isotropic fragment emission from a moving nucleus at a fixed nuclear temperature and one specifying isotropic fragment emission from a set of moving nuclei with a Maxwellian distribution of excitation energies and forward momenta. The second could describe rather well all the 90{sup o} data, provided a Coulomb barrier 0.4 that of the classical tangent spheres barrier was used. However, the measured intensity in the forward direction was much higher than predicted. Neither evaporation calculation was able to describe the highest energy part of the spectra, and the conclusion was drawn that these particles must be produced in the initial high-energy cascade