One of the great unsung heroes of the American Revolution was an Irish Catholic colonel in the Continental Army who called Alexandria, Virginia home. His name was John Fitzgerald and he would be by George Washington’s side during some of the most dramatic moments of the Revolutionary War. Unfortunately, today in his adopted hometown, people are working to erase his gallant memory.
In 1769 John Fitzgerald sailed from the emerald green fields of County Wicklow, Ireland to the southern British colonial town of Alexandria, Virginia. Fitzgerald left a country that was firmly under the domination of British and Protestant rule. Despite making up a majority of the residents of the country, Irish Catholics were treated as second class subjects in Ireland. What Fitzgerald would find in colonial Virginia would not have been that much different as many British colonists had anti-Catholic sentiments. Fitzgerald would find it illegal for him to openly worship in Virginia. He would be forced to celebrate Catholic mass in his private home.
Despite the prejudices he faced, Fitzgerald became a merchant in Alexandria and would soon become good friends with the prominent local citizen, George Washington. As tensions began to build between Great Britain and the American colonies, Fitzgerald would become an early proponent of the patriot cause. As early as 1774, Fitzgerald had joined the local patriot militia, the Fairfax Independent Company, as an officer.
In early 1776, Fitzgerald became a captain in the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Continental Line, and was promoted to major that fall. In November, Fitzgerald was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and joined Washington’s headquarters as an aide-de-camp. Fitzgerald joined his staff at one of the darkest moments of the entire war. Fitzgerald joined as what was left of Washington’s army was retreating across the state of New Jersey. Washington’s army was dissolving before his very eyes. From 24,000 men that August, by December Washington only counted about 3,000 men. In this trying time, Fitzgerald would be by Washington’s side as the revolution seemed near an end. He would then join Washington and his men as they crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night and took part in the pivotal battles at Trenton and Princeton. (Read about these important battles in my book “Victory or Death: The Battles of Trenton and Princeton”)
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“The study of history is an ongoing conversation between past and present from which we all have much to learn,” write Joseph Ellis in his new book, American Dialogue: The Founders and Us. The book serves as Ellis’s attempt to sit with several of the Founders and carry on that conversation, with “us,” the readers, as spectators. As John Adams so often did with his own books, we can engage in the conversation by writing notes in the margins and underlining passages, and we can even read the original works of the Founders ourselves. Knowing they were writing as much to history as to each other, they left behind a rich documentary legacy.
Emerging Revolutionary War Era 