One of my favorite books is called This Was Andersonville by John McElroy, subtitled The True Story of Andersonville Military Prison as told in the personal recollections of John McElroy, sometime Private, Co. L, 16th Illinois Cavalry. The book originally appeared as a series of articles in the Toledo Blade shortly after the close of the War Between The States. It was put into book form in 1866, my copy is a reprint from 1957.

Chapter VII entitled Maggots, Lice and Raiders, describes the behavior of the N'Yaarkers, otherwise known as Raiders. McElroy describes them variously as bold, unscrupulous, energetic scoundrels, ruffians~~you get the point. They made it a practice of preying upon the other prisoners, stealing their belongings, etc.

OK, the point. McElroy makes reference to Brennan on the Moor in this chapter. I thought at least some of you might like to see it. The entire book is worth reading, if you can find it. I don't know what availability there might be after 35 years or so since I bought mine.

"Two songs had long ago been accepted by us as peculiarly the Raiders' own, as someone in their crowd sang them nearly evening, and we never heard them anywhere else. The first began:

In Athol lived a man named Jerry Lanigan;
He battered away till he hadn't a pound---

The other song related the exploits of an Irish highway man named Brennan whose chief virtue was that "What he robbed from the rich he gave unto the poor," And this was the villainous chorus in which they all joined and sang in such a way as suggested highway robbery, murder, mayhem and arson:

Brennan on the moor!
Proud and Undaunted stood
John Brennan on the moor.

They howled these two songs nearly the livelong night. They became eventually quite monotonous to us who were waiting and watching. It would have been quite a relief if they had thrown in a new one every hour or so by way of variety."