Notre Dame Students Fighting for the Rebs?! (Part II)

The other day I posted on an interesting research thread that seems to indicate a student enrolled at Notre Dame in 1860-61 left that spring, returned to Virginia, and enlisted with the Confederate army.

Today, I add to that story, but first I want to introduce you to someone: Linda Cunningham Fluharty.

Linda maintains an amazing website with more than 500,000 genealogy and history files, especially related to Civil War soldiers from West Virginia as well as "pioneer nurses" of West Virginia. She is also the author of several books on the Civil War, which you can find here. Linda is extremely generous, answers ALL her e-mails, and when I did a search for "Michael Quinlan" and "27th Virginia," her excellent webpage on the "Shriver Grays" (the local company that Quinlan joined) was the first "hit." I explained my research thread to Linda and she responded in less than a day with an amazing amount of information, newspaper clippings, etc., on Michael Quinlan!

Some of the information confirms what (little) I had already discovered and much of the great new information has to do with Quinlan's early years, his family, and his death. While neither of us have yet been able to confirm this is the same Michael Quinlan enrolled at Notre Dame, 1860-61, it certainly seems more likely he could be!

Some of the highlights of her excellent and generous research findings:

• He was associated with the most affluent families in Wheeling.
• By 1850, Michael (and three other Quinlans) were orphans living in the home of a local and wealthy merchant.
• In the 1860 census, Michael (along with three brothers) are shon as residing in the home of Mary Zane; each of the boys had estimated personal estates valued at $6000.
• Michael is listed as a printer (remember this from Post I)
• Michael is found in the roster of a community militia group in Wheeling in 1859 called the Virginia State Fencibles.
• He was diagnosed as having Valvular Heart Disease (remember the disability discharge I showed in Post I) and Michael and his siblings were all dead by 1878.

The next step is to follow up with Notre Dame to see if they still have any period records that show he is the same Michael Quinlan described above. I'll post any additional information I get!

THANK YOU LINDA!

Readers - PLEASE visit her excellent website and tell her I sent ya!