Individuals >> Meagher, Thomas Francis (1823-1867)

Lawyer, Politician, Lecturer.

Thomas Meagher’s association with Pfaff’s is uncertain; a questionable source mentions him in reference to a Bohemian Club which frequented “Pfaaf’s [sic],” but his supposed connection to Pfaff’s is based on little more than circumstantial evidence ("Our New York Letter" 64).

Meagher fled to New York City after being tried and convicted on charges of treason in Ireland. He was active in the Civil War, particularly in the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He resigned his commission after losing most of his brigade in various battles and returned to New York as a hero. After the war he was given the office of Territorial Secretary of Montana and he also spent one year as Governor of that state.

Meagher’s publications include: Speeches on the Legislative Independence of Ireland and The Last Days of the 69th in Virginia (1861).

References & Biographical Resources

Maverick, Augustus. Henry J. Raymond and the New York Press, for Thirty Years: Progress of American Journalism from 1840 to 1870. Hartford, CT: A.S. Hale, 1870. [more about this work]

Tells the story of when Meagher challenged Raymond to a duel. Also quotes a December, 1850, issue of the New York Times reporting that Meagher had "recently made his escape from the penal imprisonment in Australia" (248). Mentions also in passing "Meagher's Irish News" (250). [pages: 248-250]

Rhodes, Charles Dudley. "Thomas Francis Meagher." Dictionary of American Biography. Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale, 2006. http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC. [more about this work]

Stylus. "Our New York Letter." The Literary World: A Monthly Review of Current Literature. 20 Feb. 1886: 64-65. [more about this work]

Mentioned in reference to the Bohemian Club, which may be a post-Pfaff's group of journalists, even though they are described here as frequenting "Pfaaf's" [sic]. See Thomas Dunn English's "That Club at Pfaaf's [sic]." [pages: 64]

Wilson, James Grant and John Fiske, eds. Appletons' Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume IV, Lodge-Pickens. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1888. [more about this work]

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