William T. O'Higgins

William T. O'Higgins (1829-1874) was a Catholic chaplain in the American Civil War. He served in the 10th Ohio Infantry.

Born William T. Higgins in 1829 near the border of counties Leitrim and Longford, Ireland,[1] he later took the last name of his uncle (Bishop William O'Higgins (1793-1853)), styled O'Higgins, after the royals.[1] After studying in Maynooth at the Royal College of St. Patrick's, he was sent to British Guiana in the West Indies.[1] He arrived in Philadelphia on May 23, 1857 and joined the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.[1] From 1860 to 1861, he was the assistant to Rev. Richard Gilmour at St. Patrick's in Cincinnati.[1]

After difficulties in Cincinnati, William wrote the Archbishop, John B. Purcell, requesting a position as chaplain; this "remov[ed him from a thorny personnel situation by responding to an obvious wartime need".[1]

He was commissioned as chaplain of the 10th Ohio Infantry on June 3, 1861, in which he served until June 17, 1864.[1]

Following the war, he returned to Cincinnati as a pastor and chaplain, but later left for the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he served at the Cathedral of St. Andrew, with a colleague from Ohio, Bishop Edward Fitzgerald.[1] By 1871, he had returned to Ohio, this time to Cleveland, where he taught at St. Mary's Seminary for one term and subsequently served 6 months as pastor of St. Augustine's Church, Cleveland. In 1973 he returned to County Leitrim, Ireland, where he died November 4, 1874.[1]

References
  1. Endres, David J.; Jerrold P. Twohig (Winter 2013). ""With a Father's Affection": Chaplain William T. O'Higgins and the Tenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry". U.S. Catholic Historian. 31 (1): 97–127. doi:10.1353/cht.2013.0003. ISSN 0735-8318.
  • Carter, Ruth C., For Honor, Glory & Union: The Mexican & Civil War Letters of Brig. Gen. William Haines Lytle. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. ISBN 0-8131-2108-6.
  • Grace, Kevin (Oct 29, 2012). Irish Cincinnati. Arcadia Publishing. p. 32.
  • Catholic Military and Naval Chaplains by Aidan Henry Germain (1929)
  • David J. Endres "An Ohio 'Holy Joe': Chaplain William T. O'Higgins' Wartime Correspondence with Archbishop Purcell of Cincinnati, 1863," Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal 13, no. 2 (2009): 73–78.
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