sentences:  Collins was born into a large Irish Catholic family in Algiers, Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.His father, Jeremiah Bernard Collins, had left Ireland as a young boy to join the rest of the family in Cincinnati, Ohio.Family legend has it that he served as a drummer boy in the Civil War, and at age 16, helped to drive a herd of horses into Texas to replace the cavalry mounts that had been lost to the war.