Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Secrets of the Civil War: The War Within a War

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

Today on Here’s Where It Gets Interesting, we’re going to touch on a war you probably didn’t know happened. During the seemingly all-consuming Civil War, there was another entirely different series of skirmishes and battles happening in America. It only lasted 6 weeks, but had devastating consequences. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Written and researched by: Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, Amy Watkin, and Mandy Reid Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to Episode 8 of Secrets of the Civil War. Imagine what it may have been like to be a young man or a boy, really, at age 16 or 17 on his way to enlist in the Union or Confederate Army. It might have been thrilling for him to romanticize his would-be heroics in the battle action to come. For a more pragmatic potential soldier, the unknowns of war must have felt a little more petrifying. Either way, I bet the image of a soldier you pictured was a white, bright-eyed boy wholly invested in the cause. But what would have compelled someone outside of those parameters, say a Chinese immigrant or a Cherokee man, to fight in the American Civil War? I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.

On July 12, 1863, the New York Times ran a short and surprising headline. It read, China at Gettysburg. What followed was a detailed biography of one of the thousands of men who perished at the Battle of Gettysburg. Here's an excerpt. of the thousands of men who perished at the Battle of Gettysburg. Here's an excerpt. Among the killed at Gettysburg was a young Chinese man known as John Tomney. He was one of the bravest soldiers in the bravest of brigades, the Excelsior. He seemed to not know what fear was and was the universal favorite of all his fellow soldiers. The Excelsior Brigade was, in fact, very brave. The Union military unit fought at three of the most difficult battles of the Civil War at

Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and, as mentioned, Gettysburg. The Excelsior Brigade was led by by General Daniel Sickles, an interesting figure in American history who, in 1859, had been the first person in the United States to use temporary insanity as a legal defense. What caused him to need a legal defense in a court of law? he shot and killed his wife's lover in broad daylight just down the street from the White House. The name of his wife's lover, you ask? Philip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, writer of the Star-Spangled Banner. Sickles was acquitted, and a few years later, he found himself on the battlefield at Gettysburg, badly in need of medical attention. General Sickles had his lower right leg amputated after he was hit by a 12-pound cannonball. He instructed the doctors to set aside the leg they had amputated so he could put it inside a small coffin and donate it to a museum. His shattered leg bones

are still on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. It's one of the most frequently requested sites at the museum. And during his lifetime, Sickles himself visited his leg every year on the anniversary of their parting. Totally normal. Not at all weird or creepy. Not at all weird or creepy. So think about it. Think about joining the hell of a bloody war when you looked different than your fellow men in arms. When you were born in a different country. When English was not your first language. And then add this.

And then add this. Add that your general had committed murder and then made field doctors put his amputated leg in a little coffin. I mean, these feel like necessary notes that fully round out the wartime experience for someone like John Tomney, who, by the way, also ended up surviving capture. Here's how the New York Times tells the story. Tomney was taken prisoner and soon became a lion in the rebel camp. He was brought before General Magruder, who was surprised at his appearance and color. at his appearance and color. When Tomney told him he was from China, Magruder was very much amused and asked him how much he would take to join the Confederate army. Not unless you make me a brigadier general, said Tomney. After he was released from a Confederate prison, Tomney spent time in New York City caring for sick and wounded soldiers. Records say that he regularly purchased small treats for the men who were confined and recovering.

He was transferred to the Excelsior Brigade and joined them in several battles. John Tomney, at age 20, was killed on July 2, 1863, in Gettysburg. The New York Times article ends by saying, Tomney's case is peculiar as he was the only representative of the Empire of China in the finest army on the planet. in the finest army on the planet. But John Tomney, in fact, was not the only Chinese American to fight in the war. In the 1860s, it's estimated that only around 200 people of East Asian descent lived in the eastern United States. Most East Asians who had immigrated to the U.S. were on the west coast. The numbers may be wrong though because records on East Asian people were not kept accurately. Unofficial documents Asian

or Asian American didn't fit into any of the racial categories listed. The army itself often enlisted soldiers with Asian descent as white and replaced their birth names with American monikers, like, for example, John Tommy. which is probably why it was not widely known in the 1860s that there was another Chinese man who fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, the highest ranking Chinese American soldier in the Union Army, a soldier named Joseph Pierce. Joseph, which was not his birth name, was born in China and when he was 10, he was sold by his father to a sea captain named Amos Peck III in hopes that he'd find a better future outside of the then war-ravaged China. The men on Captain Peck's ship called the boy Joe, which is how he got the name Joseph. When he arrived in the United States, Franklin Pierce was the president, and so he took Pierce for his last name. Amos Peck took Joseph home with him to

Connecticut, where he grew up and was educated in the Peck household. In 1862, at age 21, Joseph enlisted with the 14th Connecticut to show his support for the Union. He fought in the Battle of Antietam and the Battle of Gettysburg, the two bloodiest battles of the Civil War. At Gettysburg, he was likely on the front line at Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863, which was the battle's climax. If the Confederate Army had won, it would have continued its invasion of Union territory. Instead, the charge was unsuccessful, and it forced the Confederates to retreat south and end their summer campaign. Despite heavy losses at Gettysburg, Joseph survived and was promoted to corporal a few months later.

When he died in 1916 at the age of 73, his obituary did not mention his Chinese heritage, his rank, or even his service during the Civil War. It said only that he was well-known and liked. Joseph was buried with a basic gravestone that did not include any of the military accolades he'd earned. The racism against Chinese Americans had reached a boiling point, and Joseph may have preferred to fly under the radar. Historians now believe that nearly 60 Chinese Americans served in the Civil War, which sounds like a small number until you remember I said there were only about 200 recorded Chinese Americans living in the eastern United States at the time. Five fought for the Confederacy and 53 for the Union. But beyond that, much of their contributions are unrecorded and unknown. We do know that even though the 1862 Homestead Act included a provision that promised citizenship

to honorably discharged foreign veterans, Chinese Americans were not included. The Naturalization Act in 1790 defined naturalization standards in the United States and limited it to white immigrants only. The government doubled down on that act in 1882 by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned immigration from Asian countries altogether and specifically named Chinese immigrants as ineligible for naturalization. It meant that most Chinese veterans of the Civil War, like Edward de Cahota, who went on to serve in the U.S. Army for another 20 years, were repeatedly denied citizenship for the country they called home and defended with their lives. For the most part, we have been talking about the Civil War as a two-sided conflict. In some ways, it seems like the clearest conflict in American history. Union versus Confederate. The blue versus the gray. Abolition versus enslavement.

But we've learned that it was far more complex than just North versus South, as people had varying degrees of political and personal values that didn't always align with their geographical location or regional culture. What many of us have never learned was that the Union was fighting a second war. A war within a war. While it battled against the Confederacy. To explain, I need to back up a little bit. The first reservation for Indigenous people was established in 1786. When we consider that, it means that controlling and eliminating Indigenous

people was pretty high on the to-do list for the fledgling country of America. Start a revolution against Great Britain, 1775. Publish a Declaration of Independence, 1776. Win the Revolutionary War, of Independence, 1776. Win the Revolutionary War, 1783. Officially remove Indigenous people off of land that white European settlers viewed as desirable, 1786. And if you've been listening to this podcast, you are well aware that by the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson was right in the thick of it. Jackson's administration passed the Removal Act in 1830, which forced Indigenous people to leave the United States and settle west of the Mississippi River in what was then called Indian Territory, located in what is now Oklahoma. To understand the gravity of that, let me reframe it this way. The Removal Act forced indigenous people to leave the United States completely.

Oklahoma was not a state. Missouri was the western border of the United States at the time. So the government was not saying, oh, here, please just move a little to the west and enjoy these beautiful lands within our country's borders. No. They were saying, we want to make money off of this land that y'all are on and you're leaving. We're sending you to land that is not part of our country. And that we think is barren and not valuable. So, best of luck to you.

is barren and not valuable, so best of luck to you. At the time Jackson signed the Removal Act, about 125,000 indigenous people lived on millions of acres of land east of the Mississippi River, land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. Millions of acres that were stolen from them. Many in the Cherokee Nation challenged the legislation in U.S. courts. In 1832, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokees, but some indigenous groups still signed treaties that gave the federal government the legal authority to assist them in their move to Indian Territ territory. Plus, many states didn't care. They just simply refused to recognize the Supreme Court's decision. I mean, there was even a time when Andrew Jackson himself was like, if the Supreme Court wants to do that, let him come

down here and enforce it. I mean, that's the president of the United States refusing to comply with the rule of law. The best known example is the president of the United States refusing to comply with the rule of law. The best known example is the removal of the Cherokee Nation, whose people were hunted, assaulted, imprisoned, and murdered by state and federal troops. And those who survived were forced on the 1,000-mile march out of Georgia and into Indian territory. It's estimated that about one-third of Cherokee people died on the Trail of Tears as they were forcefully removed from their homelands. Thirty years later, when the Union and Confederacy started looking around for new men who could fight and bulk up their troop levels, they approached the indigenous people and said,

hello, excuse me, would you like to come fight for our side? And you know what? Many Native Americans did. What may surprise you is that most Native Americans who fought in the Civil War fought for the Confederates. Approximately 3,500 Native American people fought with the Union, but close to 8,000 fought with the Confederacy. Why? Maybe partly because the Trail of Tears story I just told you is missing a chapter. On that trail with over 100,000 forcibly removed Indigenous people were their Black enslaved people. It seems almost impossible to fathom how could the people who had been so dehumanized by the American government own people themselves? And the answer stretches way back to something George

Washington enacted, the civilization policy. own land, abandon their matriarchal farming practices for the European patriarchal system in which women worked in the home while the men farmed, and those who did these things successfully were considered by white people in power as, again, air quotes, more civilized than the indigenous populations who rejected those changes. Another benchmark of European sanctioned civilization? The enslavement of Africans. And before we use our modern lens to pass judgment, let's remember that indigenous communities were essentially being told,

to pass judgment. Let's remember that indigenous communities were essentially being told, be more like us so we don't kill you, by a group of people who had already killed thousands of their ancestors, brothers, mothers, etc. Adding another layer to the complexity of indigenous soldiers joining the Confederacy was the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. They had survived removal from their ancestral homelands, but there was still extreme animosity towards the federal government because of it. So why wouldn't they want the chance to fight against the union that had punished them so brutally? There's another factor that may have influenced many soldiers' decisions. By 1862, many indigenous people had lost faith in President Lincoln, if they never had it, because of the United States Dakota War and its aftermath. During the seemingly all-consuming Civil War, there was another entirely different war going on in America. It only lasted six weeks, but it had devastating consequences.

I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. devastating consequences. laughs. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. your podcasts. Between 1837 and 1858, the Dakota people signed a series of treaties trading Dakota land for money and food. The Dakota lands were what we would consider the present day Midwest, like Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska, all the way

to Canada. With the treaties in place, the federal government encouraged white Europeans to go forth and spread out into the Dakotas. The state of Minnesota was admitted to the Union in 1858. Three years later, the federal government was focusing all of their resources on the Civil War and stopped honoring their treaties to provide food. The Dakota people were starving as more people moved into the area, shrinking their hunting and fishing grounds. Tensions were high. They erupted in the summer of 1862 when a Dakota hunting party of four young men stole eggs from settlers. What may have started as a need for food ended in bloodshed. Five white people in Minnesota's Acton Township were killed. The hunting party returned to their village where, under pressure from many angry and

hungry people, the Dakota chief Little Crow made the decision to continue the raids on settler communities. In the end, he led an attack. Traitors were killed and women and children were taken captive. It was the catalyst for an outright war. But because the Union's troops were otherwise engaged with battling the Confederacy, the government was slow in their response and let the small volunteer forces in Minnesota tackle the majority of the fighting. For six weeks, about a thousand Dakota fought against the state militia, but were ultimately outnumbered when former Minnesota Governor Henry Hastings Sibley led over 1,400 troops to end the Dakota siege at Fort Ridgely. There were several more small battles waged, but starving and dying. More small battles waged, but starving and dying. The Dakota people were no match for the federal reinforcements that finally made their way to Minnesota.

They surrendered by the end of September. Somewhere between 300 and 500 Dakota men were arrested and tried by a military commission later that year. Some trials took less than five minutes, and by December 303, Dakota men were sentenced to death, and many others were sent to prison. Historians note that the military commission who put these Dakota men on trial was deeply flawed. First of all, the commission was made up entirely of men who had just fought in the U.S.-Dakota War, so there was very clearly a huge amount of bias. These were not fair trials. Not to mention the fact that the U.S.-Dakota War was fought between two sovereign nations, which means that the trial proceedings should have followed a specific set of rules, which they didn't. The Dakota had no legal representation provided for

them, and the trials were held in English with no interpreter for the Dakota people. President Lincoln personally reviewed the convictions of the 303 Dakota men who'd been sentenced to death, and while he ultimately pardoned most of them, 39 Dakota were scheduled for execution. One of the condemned men wrote a letter to his father-in-law saying, I have not killed, wounded, or injured a white man or any white persons. And yet today I am set apart for execution. One of the 39 men was given a last minute reprieve. So on December 26th, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota in the largest mass execution in American history.

History now shows that at least two of these executed men were innocent. One man answered to a version of his own name and was mistaken for someone else. The other had already been acquitted. The men who had received a commuted sentence were sent to Camp McClellan in Iowa, where they would remain imprisoned for four years. Additionally, the non-combatants, or Dakota people who did not fight in the U.S.-Dakota War, were forced to move to Pike Island near Fort Snelling in what is now St. Paul, Minnesota. St. Paul, Minnesota. Somewhere between 1,600 and 3,000 elderly Dakota people, Dakota women and Dakota children, were held in a concentration camp through the winter of 1862 and 1863. Nearly 300 of them died from harsh conditions and disease. To be clear, this was not a death camp like the concentration camps in Nazi Germany, but a concentration camp is by definition an internment center for holding people,

usually political prisoners or minority groups, and the Dakota were absolutely being contained by the government against their will. In April 1863, Minnesota voided all of its treaties with the Dakota and sent those who survived through the winter to the Crow Creek Reservation, an area of land in present-day Nebraska that was in the middle of a drought. In the first six months, over 200 Dakota died, many of which were children. Federal legislation was passed that made it illegal for the Dakota to live in Minnesota. Even though it's no longer enforced, the law has never been repealed or overturned. While the Dakota waged war with the Union, the Cherokee Nation was politically divided over getting involved in the Civil War. The Kichwa Society, a group of Cherokee who were invested in the nation's sovereignty and neutrality, were led by Principal Chief John Ross.

They felt that the Cherokee Nation did not need to invite any more difficulties with the federal government. On the other hand, a wealthy group of Cherokee enslavers, who called themselves the Treaty Party, aligned themselves politically with the Confederacy. These two Cherokee factions feuded heavily, and Chief Ross felt forced to make a choice to keep the peace within his tribe. He gave in to growing pressure and signed a treaty with the Confederate States of America. By the time the Union won the war in 1865, the Cherokee Nation was barren and devastated. Principal Chief John Ross died five years earlier in August of 1866 while he was in Washington, D.C. trying to negotiate the Cherokee Nation Treaty with the United States. The war exacted a terrible toll on Indigenous people. For example, one-third of all Cherokees and Seminoles in Indian Territory died

from violence, starvation, and war-related illness. Despite their sacrifices, Indigenous people would discover that their tribal lands were even less secure after the war. But there were breakout stories that emerged as well, like an entirely indigenous regiment formed in 1863 that fought for the Union and Company K of the first Michigan sharpshooters. They were vital in both the Battle of the Wilderness and the Siege of Petersburg. And Antoine Scott, an indigenous soldier from that unit, was twice nominated for a Congressional Medal of Honor. At the Confederate surrender at Appomattox in 1865, Seneca Nation leader E. Lee S. Parker was the highest-ranking Indigenous person in the Union Army, a lieutenant colonel.

He served as General Ulysses S. Grant's secretary and drafted the terms of surrender. A popular story tells how Confederate General Robert E. Lee noticed that Parker was Indigenous and remarked, I'm glad to see one real American here. Parker shook his hand and said, we are all Americans. Since most indigenous soldiers had sided with the Confederacy, new treaties between their nations and the United States needed to be formed after the war, including enacting their own Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln's 1863 version didn't cover Indian territory,

so even though 4 million enslaved people in the South had been set free, there were still African American people owned by indigenous people who needed their own freedom act. This led to the Reconstruction Treaties of 1866, which ended slavery within the indigenous nations and reduced the land in the Indian Territory to half of what it had been before the Civil War began. Join me next time as we take a look at abolitionists and the secrets they kept hidden behind the walls and under the floorboards. I'll see you then. Thank you for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting.

This episode is written and researched by Sharon McMahon, Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, Amy Watkin, and Mandy Reed. Our executive producer is Heather Jackson. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder. And it's hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button on the podcast platform of your choice. We also benefit so much from ratings, reviews, and sharing on social media. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you again soon. Thank you. items are recovered and transformed into new products. Recycling right is important and impactful. Let's work together and make a difference because small actions lead to big change. For more tips on recycling, visit toronto.ca slash recycle right.