Kerwin, Michael (1837–1912), soldier and Fenian, was born 15 August 1837 in Co. Wexford. Emigrating with his parents to Philadelphia in 1847, he was educated at a private academy in the city, before taking up apprenticeship as a lithographic printer. Picking up the rudiments of military training in a city militia during the late 1850s, he enlisted as private with the 24th Pennsylvania infantry regiment (the ‘Paddy Owens’) in April 1861 shortly after the outbreak of the civil war. Weeks later he received a commendation after volunteering to cross the Potomac river to evaluate the strength of the Confederate forces around Martinsburg. In September 1861 he became captain in the newly-formed 13th Pennsylvania cavalry, and in July 1862 was promoted major after distinguishing himself in action. His heroic rearguard defence at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, in early October 1863 against the leading columns of General Robert E. Lee's army, which had outmanoeuvred the union forces, saved the bulk of the retreating federal army. Made colonel late in 1863, he served under General Philip Sheridan, and was shot three times in the failed attack on Richmond in June 1864. In February 1865 General Ulysses Grant chose him to pierce confederate lines and link up with Sherman in North Carolina. After the confederate surrender (April 1865) he administered nine counties about Fayettville, NC, for some months, and was mustered out of the army in July 1865. He had joined the Fenian Brotherhood in about 1862, and was one of the most experienced and distinguished veterans to offer assistance to John O'Mahony (qv) when the war ended.
Travelling to Ireland in August 1865, he was placed on the IRB military council the following month. In late November 1865 he participated in the decision to replace James Stephens (qv) with F. F. Millen (qv) as head of the IRB's military wing. Opposing the efforts of Stephens in early January 1866 to postpone a rising, he added his voice to those of disgruntled Dublin centres desperate for action, and offered to take the personal responsibility for the rising. Arrested on 17 February 1866 on the suspension of habeas corpus, he bided his time in Mountjoy jail for five months, forbearing to take advantage of the British offer to release American citizens until it was clear that no rising was likely to occur. Escorted to a transatlantic steamer at Kingstown in July 1866, he returned to New York, his passage paid by Delia Parnell, mother of Charles Stewart Parnell (qv).
He was employed in the New York custom house in the 1870s, and in the early 1880s was proprietor of the New York Tablet. He was then chief of the registry division of the state post office, and in 1889 was appointed collector of internal revenue in the state service. From July 1894 he held the pension agency of the New York police commission. He joined Clan na Gael, and as leader of its ‘military board’ (1880–86) was responsible for financing J. P. Holland's (qv) submarine experiments and several dynamite operations in England. It appears nevertheless that he increasingly advocated political rather than military action in these years. He died 20 June 1912 at his home at 485, West 145th St., New York, was buried first in Woodtown cemetery, and later reinterred in Arlington national cemetery.
He married twice, and was survived by his second wife and a daughter from his first marriage.