RPTM Podcast Episode 46: The American Civil War Part Three

"Fortunate Son" is a song by the Creedence Clearwater Revival released on their fourth studio album in November 1969. It soon became an anti-war movement anthem and a graphic symbol of the counterculture's resistance to US military involvement in the Vietnam War and solidarity with the soldiers fighting it. CCR's lead singer John Fogerty  says he based the lyrics on "... the old saying about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them."  The song has broadly featured in pop culture portrayals of the Vietnam War and the anti-war crusade. Harkening back to our rhyming analogy from George Lucas, we can pull very similar correlations between that song and the American Civil War. 

It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me
I ain't no furtunate one, no

War has been waged by the poor and minorities throughout history. This has become an almost inescapable lens to view the world from. So too, does the American Civil War need such a treatment. Growing up, I consumed media, especially between binge sessions of video games. One movie that I watched often was a VHS copy of 1989's Glory. It's a historical war drama film about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, one of the Union Army's earliest African American regiments in the Civil War. It stars Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, and Morgan Freeman as members of the 54th and their heroic actions at the Second Battle of Fort Wagner. This tale profoundly affected me and was one of the first depictions of the dichotomy of war to your humble narrator. To me, this is not something as superficial as representation in media but rather an accurate portrayal of what minorities have been dealt with in the United States. Despite their absence from American textbooks, this country has been watered in the spilled blood of blacks, Asians, women, and homosexuals, and they deserve a headstone like the rest of the fallen.

HIGHLIGHTS

• By the War's end, more than 180,000 African Americans, mainly from the South, battled with the Union Army and Navy as US Colored Troops and sailors.
• On April 2, 1863, in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, about 5,000 people, mostly poor women, smashed into shops and began taking food, clothing, shoes, and even jewelry before the militia arrived to restore order. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of items were looted. 
• Approximately 70 Chinese and Filipinos enlisted in the Union Army and Navy during the American Civil War. Smaller numbers serve in the armed forces of the Confederate States of America. Of those who did, only a handful received the honor of their pension, benefits, or citizenship service.
• t has been theorized that as many as 292 Muslim last names appear in muster rolls. Further, as many as 15% of enslaved Africans brought to America are thought to have practiced Islam. 
• Roughly 3,000 Jews fought on the Confederate side during the American Civil War, and 7,000 fought on the Union side. Jews also played leadership roles on both sides, with nine Jewish generals serving in the Union Army.
• Who were gay service members and who weren't in the American Civil War is a tricky question since the words "homosexual" and "heterosexual" weren't part of the American dictionary until thirty years after the war ended. Regardless, not having a word like "homosexual" during the Civil War to describe same-sex attraction among soldiers does not nullify its use to define them today.

CHAPTERS
0:37 Intro
3:17 African Americans and the Civil War
10:52 Women and the Civil War
18:33 Asian Americans and the Civil War
23:24 Muslims and the Civil War
28:53 Jews and the Civil War
32:06 Homosexuals and the Civil War
35:25 Outro

RESOURCES
Contraband (American Civil War)
Contraband (American Civil War)
Second Battle of Fort Wagner
Dorothea Dix
History of women in the United States
Who was Mary Edwards Walker?
Southern bread riots
Thomas Sylvanus
Military history of Asian Americans
Profiles in Patriotism: Muslims and the Civil War
Islam in the United States
History of Jews in the United States
Jews in the Civil War
A Queer Civil War Soldier’s Story