The Irish War

A canal commissioner's report recounts violent factional clashes among Irish laborers building the Wabash-Erie Canal, where longstanding enmities between rival groups escalated into beatings, arson threats, and armed marches along a roughly fifty-mile line. It describes workers dividing the line by faction, hiding in woods, and preparing for open battle until local authorities and militia intervened, negotiated a temporary cessation of hostilities, and made arrests. The document transmits related expense claims and recommends that canal funds, rather than county treasuries, bear the costs of restoring order.