The Overlooked Role of Asian Soldiers in the Civil War

Asian immigrants and Asian Americans played a significant role in the Civil War, serving on both sides of the conflict. In 1861, when the war began, the vast majority of Asians in the United States lived on the West Coast. Among the few hundred documented in the East, many had arrived aboard European and American trading ships—likely trafficked as laborers—while others had been sponsored by missionaries or born on American soil.

Their presence on the battlefield reflected an investment in their adopted country where they saw opportunity, even though European immigrants dominated society, most Black people were enslaved and their own legal and social status remained uncertain.

Despite their small population size, Asian immigrants’ and Asian Americans’ participation in the war was striking. Of a U.S. population exceeding 31 million in 1860, at least 35,000 Chinese immigrants lived in California, while fewer than 200 resided east of the Mississippi. Yet as Ruthanne Lum McCunn, author of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the Civil War, has noted, “The number of Asian men who volunteered to serve in the war, proportionately speaking, is remarkably high.” 

Why enlist? For some, military service offered a path to belonging. The Militia Act of 1862 provided a path to citizenship for some through honorable military discharge. In practice, many immigrants struggled to provide the required documentation, and later laws like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act closed the door to citizenship entirely.

Historians have identified several hundred Asian and Pacific Islander servicemen in the war. Recent research associated with the National Park Service (NPS) has documented roughly 330 individuals—about 100 in the army and 230 in the navy and one serving in both. Some were recruited, others volunteered. Some fought in white regiments, others in segregated units. Because military records rarely noted race and many soldiers adopted Anglicized names to fit in, the true number is likely higher. 

“People are often mistaken in thinking that it was just whites who fought in the Civil War,” says Irving Moy, a contributor to the NPS project and author of the 2010 book An American Journey: My Father, Lincoln, Joseph Pierce and Me. “President Lincoln said [America] was ‘the last best hope of earth’, a place to come for a better opportunity. Like any minority, [Asian soldiers] just wanted to be accepted and have a place in the American dream.” 

Here are a few of their stories.  

Thomas Sylvanus enlisted in the Union Army in August 1861, not long after his 16th birthday, joining Company D of the 81st Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. His official record bears an unusual mark. When he was being counted for the 1860 census the year prior, the census taker stumbled when noting his race. With just three choices—White, Black or Mulatto—the official didn’t think Sylvanus quite fit any of the categories. So he ended up just writing what appears to be an exclamation point. 

The confusion came because the teen was Asian. Born in China as Ching Lee—on the all-American date of July 4, 1845—he was brought to the United States at age seven and groomed to become a missionary. Instead, he dedicated himself to military life. Even after being discharged for disability in 1862, he reenlisted in Company D of the 42nd New York Volunteers, defending the Union in notable Virginia campaigns, including the Battles of Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor. Captured and incarcerated at the notorious Andersonville Confederate prison, he eventually earned an honorable discharge in 1866.

By far, the best-known Asian-born Civil War veteran is Joseph Pierce. Amid the famine and upheaval of China’s Taiping Rebellion (1850-64), Pierce (whose birth name is unknown) was sold at age 10 to American sea captain Amos Peck for $6. “The conditions must have been so horrible that the father was so desperate, he sold his son,” says Moy, who regularly portrays Pierce in Civil War reenactments. 

The upside? Peck’s abolitionist family treated the young boy as one of their own, raising and educating him in their well-to-do community in Connecticut. At some point—perhaps because his Chinese name was unknown or hard to say—he became “Joe,” taking on the last name of then-President Franklin Pierce. 

On July 26, 1862, following the example of one of the Peck sons, he enlisted in Company F of the 14th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry. With the army split into white and Black regiments, the military didn’t know how to classify him. But Pierce, who ultimately fought in a white unit, was “pretty well accepted,” says Moy.

The regiment saw extensive combat, participating in dozens of battles and skirmishes, including Antietam, Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. In November 1863, Pierce was promoted to corporal—the highest known rank achieved by any Chinese American in the Union Army—and was present with his unit at Appomattox Court House when General Robert E. Lee surrendered. 

He returned home in June 1865, became a naturalized citizen, married a white woman named Martha Morgan and worked as a silver engraver. But after a provision of the Chinese Exclusion Act forced him to register with the government in 1894, he feared deportation. According to the New England Historical Society, his community of many decades rallied to support him. He died in 1916 in Meriden, Connecticut.

Edward Day Cahoda’s early life is less clearly documented. Born in China, he was later brought to Gloucester, Massachusetts, by a sea captain named Sargent Day. He took “Day” as a middle name and “Cohoda” from the ship that carried him.

Cohoda enlisted in Company I of the 23rd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and served for 16 months, fighting in battles including Cold Harbor, Petersburg and Appomattox Court House. His survival bordered on remarkable. As his daughter Lucy later wrote, he emerged from the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff with seven bullet holes in his clothes. “None touched his flesh,” she noted. 

At Cold Harbor, one of the war’s deadliest battles, Cohoda recalled a bullet grazing his hair. “I wasn’t hurt, but it was a close shave, and General ‘Baldy’ Smith, who saw the thing, said, ‘If you were human you would be dead,’” according to McCunn’s Chinese in the Civil War: Ten Who Served.  

Cohoda returned home in June 1865, but reenlisted multiple times, ultimately serving for three decades. Though denied citizenship, he remained deeply patriotic. “Every night as the flag was taken down, he would salute that flag,” Moy says. “He loyally served his country until the very end, even though he wasn’t treated equally.”

Cousins Christopher and Stephen Bunker, born in Mount Airy, North Carolina, were two of the 22 children of Chang and Eng Bunker, the famous conjoined twins from Siam (modern-day Thailand). Raised in a slaveholding southern family, the Bunker cousins were staunch Confederates. 

Christopher enlisted in the 37th Battalion Virginia Cavalry in April 1863 and took part in the Burning of Chambersburg, a surprise midnight attack on the Pennsylvania town. Captured and imprisoned at Camp Chase, the largest federal military prison at the time, he endured harsh conditions and later wrote that he resorted to eating rats. He was released in an 1865 prisoner exchange.

Stephen joined the same unit in 1864 and was wounded in battle near Winchester just a few months later. Despite his injuries, he remained in active service until the war ended, eventually returning to his North Carolina home.

A month after the Civil War broke out at Fort Sumter, John Tomney enlisted with Company D of the 1st Regiment, Excelsior Brigade (later the 70th New York Infantry). Little is known about his early life but his service record reflects determination and resilience. 

He fought in key campaigns, including the Second Battle of Bull Run, Fredericksburg and the Mud March. During one skirmish, he resisted capture in a confrontation with a Confederate doctor, but was ultimately taken prisoner. After being exchanged for Confederate soldiers held in the North, he returned to care for wounded comrades before rejoining the fight. Promoted to corporal, Tomney later fought at Chancellorsville and was killed at Gettysburg, where he’s remembered as a hero.

Other Asian participants in the Civil War include Dzau Tsz-Zeh, Hong Neok Woo, Antonio Dardelle, Felix Balderry, Kwong Lee, Tong Kee Hang, Marshall Tsao, and John Akomb—along with hundreds more whose stories are only now coming into focus.