Thomas Kirwan

author

Thomas Kirwan

1829–1911

A Civil War veteran turned newspaperman, he wrote with the eye of someone who had seen history up close. His books range from firsthand war memoir to speculative fiction, giving his work an unusual mix of grit, curiosity, and imagination.

1 Audiobook

Soldiering in North Carolina Being the experiences of a 'typo' in the pines, swamps, fields, sandy roads, towns, cities, and among the fleas, wood-ticks, 'gray-backs,' mosquitoes, blue-tail flies, moccasin snakes, lizards, scorpions, rebels, and other reptiles, pests, and vermin of the 'Old North State.' Embracing an account of the three-years and nine-months Massachusetts regiments in the department, the freedmen, etc., etc., etc.

Soldiering in North Carolina Being the experiences of a 'typo' in the pines, swamps, fields, sandy roads, towns, cities, and among the fleas, wood-ticks, 'gray-backs,' mosquitoes, blue-tail flies, moccasin snakes, lizards, scorpions, rebels, and other reptiles, pests, and vermin of the 'Old North State.' Embracing an account of the three-years and nine-months Massachusetts regiments in the department, the freedmen, etc., etc., etc.

by Thomas Kirwan

About the author

Born in 1829 on Prince Edward Island, he later made his career in New England as a reporter and author. Sources available here link him to early education in Charlottetown and describe him as a well-known Boston journalist with a long newspaper career, while surviving records of his books show how wide his interests were.

He is best remembered for Soldiering in North Carolina (1864), a vivid Civil War narrative drawn from his experience with the 17th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. Late in life, he was also associated with Memorial History of the Seventeenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, which was published in 1911, the year of his death.

His writing was not limited to war history. He also published fiction and social speculation, including Reciprocity (Social and Economic) in the Thirtieth Century, a futuristic work that shows a very different side of his imagination. Taken together, his books suggest a writer equally interested in lived experience, public life, and big ideas about the future.