Hello List, With the nebulous > "Irish descent" added we then go back to the 1700s, but many of these Irish > were not starving dirt farmers but tradesmen and were accepted members of > the American community and many were Scots-Irish forced out of Ulster. The above is very true and also tends to bolster the numbers of Irish who would have fought for the South. There is an excellent book entitled " The Scotch-Irish: A Social History " by James G. Leyburn, copyright 1962, which give a bevy of figures regarding the number of Scotch-Irish who entered the (soon to become) United States during the five major waves of immigration from Ulster between 1716 and 1774. The figures vary from about 200,000 to 400,000. But, sliced, diced, baked or fried the figures would mean a huge number of them populated the US by the time of the 1790 Census because they tended to marry young and reproduce like rabbits. The 1790 Census shows slightly over 3 MM whites in the country and a good guess for the percentage of Scotch-Irish is 16%, second only to the English. Also, for several reasons, the migration path tended to be into the ports of Philadelphia and those to the south, thence inland until stopped by the Alleghenies, when they took a hard left (south) down the Great Wagon Road. Consequently, Southern Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia tended to fill first with the later immigrants and later generations moving into the Carolinas and Georgia. All in all, it gave a disproportionate share of Scotch-Irish a "Southern Exposure". By the time of the Civil War many had changed their religions while still retaining a distinct "ethnic identity". And it may be important to remember that (even as it is so today) the old phrase "Them that comes over are different from them that stays". Indeed, the Scotch-Irish left an indelible mark on the Southern character. But it is also important to remember that in the pre-Civil War United States, Irish was Irish. The distinctions of Green/Orange, Protestant/Catholic, etc. were not terribly important in America. Marksmanship and moxie, regardless of stripe, were more important in the winning of the West. Slán agat (goodbye), Phil