Charles Hart (1824-1898) was a Dublin solicitor's son who played a minor part in the Confederate movement in 1848. Influenced by his brother-in-law, John Blake Dillon, he spent the revolutionary months in the United States as a Confederate agent, propagating the Irish cause and meeting American politicians, Irish-Americans and the new crop of 'exiles'. His hitherto unpublished diary gives an intimate picture of the Young Irelanders, news of their failed revolution, and a vivid account of American politics and social mores, and landscape. A highlight was his meeting with Wolfe Tone's widow,...