Actually, Lonesome in Massachussets, it was much cheaper to employ Irish immigrants than to keep slaves. You damn Yankees could just fire them and let them starve in the streets when they weren’t profitable. Which you did.
My great-grandfather emigrated from Dublin to New York in 1860, and showed up in time for First Manassas, with the New York Volunteer Infantry. He was reported to have deserted on the March to Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863. As far as I know he never starved, and was working as a stationary engineer in Brooklyn in 1890. My great-great-grandfather was Captain of the New York Municipal Police Second Precinct during the July 1863 Draft Riots in New York, and his officers might well have been battling his future grandson’s deserter father-in-law.
Life is complicated.