When the Civil War started, most Newporters responded with apprehension.  While they wanted to support the Union cause, they well knew that the city’s economy had been supported for years by Southern visitors—planters from Charleston and Savannah who would while away their summers in Newport.  The War was especially hard on the city’s Irish residents, who were mostly recent immigrants, and did not feel that they had much of a stake in the War.  Still, after the fall of Fort Sumter, many Irish Newporters enlisted and fought bravely for the North.  Over time, though, the city’s Irish grew disillusioned and were less and less willing to shed their blood in what was seeming to be a war without end.