Thomas Francis Meagher ( ; 3 August 18231 July 1867) was an Irish nationalist and leader of the Young Irelanders in the Rebellion of 1848. After being convicted of sedition, he was first sentenced to death, but received transportation for life to Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) in Australia. In 1852, Meagher escaped and made his way to the United States, where he settled in New York City. He studied law, worked as a journalist, and traveled to present lectures on the Irish cause. He married for a second time in New York. At the beginning of the American Civil War, Meagher joined the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of brigadier general. He was most notable for recruiting and leading the Irish Brigade, and encouraging support among Irish immigrants for the Union. By his first marriage in Ireland, he had one surviving son; the two never met. Following the Civil War, Meagher was appointed Montana's Territorial Secretary of State by President Andrew Johnson, and served as acting territorial governor. In 1867, Meagher drowned in the Missouri River after falling from a steamboat at Fort Benton, Montana. His death has been disputed by historians, with varying hypotheses including weakness from dysentery, intoxication, suicide, and murder. A 2016 analysis by Timothy Egan, in The Immortal Irishman, suggested Meagher may have been murdered by Montana political opponents. Family Thomas Francis Meagher was born on 3 August 1823 in Waterford City in what is now the Granville Hotel on the Quay. From the age of two he lived with his family at Derrynane House in nearby Number 19, The Mall. His father, Thomas Meagher (1796–1874), was a rich merchant who had retired to enter politics. He was twice elected Mayor of the city, which he represented in Parliament from August 1847 to March 1857. He had lived in the city since he was a young man, having migrated from Newfoundland in present-day Canada. The senior Meagher was born in St John's, Newfoundland. His father, also named Thomas (1763–1837), had emigrated as a young man from County Tipperary just before the turn of the 18th century. Starting as a farmer, the grandfather Meagher became a trader, and advanced to merchant, and shipowner. Newfoundland was the only British colony where people of Irish descent constituted a majority of the population. The senior Thomas Meagher married a widow, Mary Crotty. He established a prosperous trade