Chapter 226: Chapter 195: Until Every Brit is Gone

New Edinburgh, Oregon Territory, the United States of America
May 22nd, 1835

Dean O'Hogan was huddled in a sitting room with twenty other Irish-Americans in a large house near the edge of New Edinburgh. The house was purposely kept dark, with only a pair of lanterns revealing the Irish men's faces in the middle of a quiet, moonless night. The smell of tobacco and whiskey flowed freely through the room, with nearly everyone drinking or smoking as they waited for their orders. Half a dozen men played the card game New York Poker, gambling gold Eagle coins commonly seen throughout the American West. Unlike the others, O'Hogan was quietly in the corner of the room by himself, as he only knew three individuals in the house. However, they were all busy making the final preparations for tonight's raid, which left him alone to stew in his thought.

"Are you Mr. O'Hogan?" A high-pitched voice asked.

The Irishman turned around to see a wide-eyed teen with red hair and freckles. The boy was no older than sixteen, and O'Hogan frowned at his presence. The raid they were planning was dangerous and was certainly going to turn violent. Why was the kid here? Everyone else was in their mid-twenties or thirties and very far from home. Perhaps he was someone's cousin or nephew?

"I am," O'Hogan answered, "Why are you asking?"

"So you are the Corporal Dean O'Hogan? Recipient of the Medal of Honor? The one of twelve?"

O'Hogan grimaced at the raw reminder of his experience during the Anglo-American War, "Kid..."

"You and your regiment were outnumbered 300 to 5,000! And you held out from the British for two days to stop them from marching straight to Greensville..."

"Stop," The former soldier unconsciously gripped his revolver's handle and took a deep breath, "Don't talk about the war in front of me."

It seemed as though the kid noticed O'Hogan's grip on his pistol and slowly backed off, "I...I'm sorry, Mr. O'Hogan! I won't bother you again!"

As he scampered off, the former soldier of the United States Army took his hand off his firearm with a sigh. The boy's mentions of his 'heroics' from the war awakened memories that he wanted to bury: the dirty trenches, the broken bunkers, the thousands of bodies, and the continuous thunder of artillery and guns.

The governor had all but begged his unit to fight despite the overwhelming odds against them, as the National Guard force sent to fight them were massacred, leaving the city-wide open. The highest commanding officer in the vicinity, one of the few survivors of the Akansa River Massacre, commanded the 1st Irish Volunteer Regiment to defend their positions with their lives, or until reinforcements arrived to relieve them. His unit was a militia unit, not an official army unit. Yet they were the only ones between the British and Greensville, and they vividly remembered the Razing of Timstown. They were all good shots and armed with their own rifles, but they faced down 5,000 heavily armed British soldiers with artillery. Still, they dug in, creating trenches and bunkers to delay the invaders as long as possible, which the unit did for two days. Hundreds of good Irishmen had died defending their home and killing Tories. Only three of them were veterans; the rest were all civilians risking their lives to fight a demon they thought they left behind in Europe.

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Yet, they didn't have to if a sudden British incursion into Kentucky didn't delay the reinforcements.

Waking up among dead bodies and discovering that he was one of the twelve that survived the brutal British assault that ran up short outside of Akansa's state capital was a horrific recollection. He remembered limping his way back to American lines and being met with surprise as the soldiers expected none of the Irish soldiers to have survived. Yet, twelve out of the three hundred did, and nearly all of them were rewarded medals and honors for their heroics. None of them mattered to O'Hogan; he lost his friends and his wife that day. His teenage son managed to flee to American lines, but his wife was killed in Louisiana.

Later, he was told that the 1st Irish Volunteer Regiment took down a thousand British soldiers in the intense struggle, saving Greensville and the American Midwest. But those lavish words of praise rung hollow, especially as he watched thousands die regardless of his heroics. The number of dead civilians and maimed soldiers he witnessed kept him up at night, and those sights were all too common in a bloody war of desperation and survival.

He continued to fight in the war as a member of the Army and was honorably discharged after finishing up in Oregon. In Oregon, he witnessed the final remnants of the British Empire within North America; British settlers living out their lives without a care for the world until the war was directly upon them. And it sparked a fire in him. The British soldiers were gone, but their influence remained. British people remained, and that had to be rooted out by force. Just looking at the British settlers that remained sickened him. They were all reminders of the dead, of pain.

"Listen up!" Benjamin Dorrian, one of O'Hogan's friends, whispered as he entered the sitting room, "We're heading out in five minutes. Grab all your gear and prepare the torches. You know where the Tories live, and you know what to do with them. Just follow the plan, and we'll be safe. The local garrison forces have been bribed, and they won't care about some dead Brits refusing to leave American lands anyway. Now prepare yourselves; it's time for the Final Reckoning."

O'Hogan grinned in the darkness and looked over his mask. The mask was simple yet elegant. It was red in color and was barely able to cover his upper face. But it was the mask that they agreed to wear. It was to be a symbol for the future: a symbol of revenge and blood. The British had spilled the blood of many Americans and many Irish. Now, they were going to pay.

He slipped on his mask and waited for Dorrian to announce their departure. The tall, lanky Irishman looked over the group with a Lee Rifle in his hand and his mask shadowing his eyes, "Until every last British man, woman, and child is purged from these lands... Our fight is not over! Most of you have fought in the war and witnessed the unspeakable atrocities the British have committed to America's people. And yet, thousands remain in these territories, hoping that they would be ignored and that they would be able to sow the seeds of another war or an uprising! If the government is unwilling to do anything, we will take matters into our own hands and spark a movement to root them out! Díoltas!"

"Díoltas!" The group replied in unison. It was the perfect motto for the group: revenge.

The gunmen marched out of their safe house and into the neighborhoods of the British settlers. O'Hogan spotted a man walking out of one of the marked houses and fired his revolver without hesitation.

The others followed suit and barged into homes marked with a red X on their doors as the man fell. The torches were used to provide sight and light the houses on fire. The flames lit the entire affair, as the Irishmen killed over a hundred British civilians within a span of three hours. By the time the sun rose into the sky, New Edinburgh was partially in flames, and hundreds were wounded or dead. The fire had spread to other parts of the town and burned down the houses of Americans and British alike.

Fifteen bodies were found hanging from trees, all of them mutilated and killed in brutal fashion. A sign was staked in front of the trees that read, "They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper."

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