Hometown: New York, NY (via Tipperary, Ireland) 
Branch: U.S. Army 
Unit: Company E, 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment
Date of Sacrifice: April 14, 1861 - KIA at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina 
Age: 35-36 (exact birth date is unknown)
Conflict: Civil War, 1861-1865

America’s Civil War (1861-1865) was by far its costliest conflict, with an estimated 620,000 people killed and another 876,000 wounded, captured, or missing. Private Daniel Hough holds the distinction of being the very first soldier killed in the conflict.

Like many Irish immigrants in the mid-1800, Hough left his home in Tipperary, escaping the starvation and disease of Ireland’s devastating potato famine for a better life in America.

Two months after arriving in New York harbor in 1849, Daniel Hough enlisted in the U.S. Army—as did many young immigrant men, because it was a sure way to secure a steady income. His first assignment was with Company D of the 1st U.S. Artillery Regiment. Enlistment was a commitment to five years of service, and he’d go on to re-enlist twice, in 1854 and 1859. His military records describe him as gray-haired (despite being in his mid-30s) and 5' 8" tall.

Pvt. Hough was stationed at Fort Brooke in Florida (present-day Tampa) and after a few years transferred to Fort Capron on Florida’s Atlantic coast (now Fort Pierce, FL). In his third enlistment, Hough was assigned to Company E in the same 1st Artillery Regiment and sent to Fort Sumter—built on a man-made island in the middle of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

It was at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, that the first shot of the American Civil War was fired. According to the American Battlefield Trust:

At 4:30 a.m., a flaming mortar shot arcs into the air and explodes over Fort Sumter. On this signal, Confederate guns from fortifications and floating batteries around Charleston Harbor roar to life.

Just a day later, at 2:30 p.m. major Robert Anderson and his outmanned, undersupplied 80 Union troops surrendered Fort Sumter to Confederate Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard’s 500 Confederate forces.

Miraculously, despite the heavy bombardment there were no casualties in this first battle of the war between the States. Confederate General Beauregard permitted the vanquished Union troops to conduct a 100-gun salute as they lowered the American flag and prepared to leave the fort.

During the ceremony, a round exploded prematurely—killing Private Daniel Hough and mortally wounding another Union soldier. The first soldier lost in the nation’s bloodiest war was…an accident.

Private Daniel Hough, an Irish immigrant looking for a better life in America, would be remembered as the very first to give “the last full measure of devotion” to preserve the Union, and to free 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage.

Sources
Card illustration: Union private infantryman, from plate 172 of the “Atlas to Accompany the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies” (public domain)
American Battlefield Trust: Fort Sumter
National Park Civil War Series: Five Flags Over Fort
NPR: The Civil War’s First Death Was An Accident
Irish Central: First casualty of the U.S. Civil War was an Irish soldier
Tipperary Museum of Hidden History: Daniel Hough - First Man Killed in the American Civil War
Burial Site: Find a Grave