J. R.

Kealoha
J. R. Kealoha (died March 5, 1877) was an American Union Army soldier of Native Hawaiian
descent. Considered one of the "Hawaiʻi Sons of the Civil War", he was among a group of more
than one hundred documented Native Hawaiian and Hawaiʻi-born combatants who fought in
the American Civil War while the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was still an independent nation.

Kealoha enlisted in the 41st United States Colored Infantry, a United States Colored Troops
regiment formed in Pennsylvania. Participating in the Siege of Petersburg, he and another
Hawaiian soldier met the Hawaiʻi-born Colonel Samuel Chapman Armstrong, who recorded
their encounter in a letter home. With the 41st USCT, Kealoha was present at the surrender of
Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court
House on April 9, 1865. After the war, Kealoha returned to Hawaiʻi. He died on March 5, 1877,
and was buried in an unmarked grave in Honolulu's Oʻahu Cemetery.[1][2]

The legacy and contributions of Kealoha and other Hawaiian participants in the American Civil
War were largely forgotten except in the private circles of descendants and historians, but in
later years there was a revival of interest in the Hawaiian community. In 2010, these "Hawaiʻi
Sons of the Civil War" were commemorated with a bronze plaque erected along the memorial
pathway at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.[3] In 2014, through
another local effort, a grave marker was dedicated over J. R. Kealoha's burial site, which had
remained unmarked for 137 years.[1][2]

Life

After the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi under King Kamehameha
IV declared its neutrality on August 26, 1861.[4][5] Many Native Hawaiians and Hawaiʻi-born
Americans (mainly descendants of American missionaries) abroad and in the islands
volunteered and enlisted in the military regiments of various states in the Union and the
Confederacy. Native Hawaiians participating in the American wars during its period of
independence was not unheard of. Individual Native Hawaiians had served in the United States
Navy and Army since the War of 1812, and even more served during the American Civil War.[6]
Many Hawaiians sympathized with the Union because of Hawaiʻi's ties to New England through
its missionaries and the whaling industries, and the ideological opposition of many to the
institution of slavery.[7][8][9]

Nothing is known about the life of J. R. Kealoha before the war. He enlisted in 1864 as a private
and was assigned to the 41st Regiment United States Colored Troops (USCT), a colored
regiment formed in Camp William Penn, Pennsylvania, between September 30 and December
7, 1864, under the command of Colonel Llewellyn F. Haskell.[1][10][11] Most Native Hawaiians
who participated in the war were assigned to the colored regiments because of their dark skin
color and the segregationist policy in the military at the time.[9][12] Kealoha is one of the few
Hawaiian soldiers of the Civil War whose real name is known;[13] many combatants served
under anglicized pseudonyms because they were easier for English-speaking Americans to
pronounce than Hawaiian language names. They were often registered as kanakas, the 19th-
century term for Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, with the "Sandwich Islands" (Hawaiʻi) noted
as their place of origin.[9]

From October 1864 to April 1865, Kealoha fought in the Richmond–Petersburg Campaign,
better known as the Siege of Petersburg.[1][2][14] During the campaign, Kealoha and another
Hawaiian named Kaiwi, of the 28th Regiment United States Colored Troops, came across
Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a son of an American missionary posted in Maui.[9][12][15]
Armstrong wrote of the encounter in a letter home that was later published in the Hawaiian
missionary newspaper The Friend in 1865:

Yesterday, as my orderly was holding my horse, I asked him where he was from. He said he
was from Hawaii! He proved to be a full-blood Kanaka, by the name of Kealoha, who came
from the Islands last year. There is also another, by the name of Kaiwi, who lived near Judge
Smith's, who left the Islands last July. I enjoyed seeing them very much and we had a good
jabber in kanaka. Kealoha is a private in the 41st Regiment US Colored Troops, and Kaiwi is a
Private in the 28th U.S.C.T., in the pioneer corps. Both are good men and seemed glad to have
seen me.[16]

Kealoha survived months of trench warfare during the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign and
fought with the 41st USCT at the Battle of Appomattox Court House; he was present at the
surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia at
Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.[2][14] The 41st USCT regiment was mustered out of
service on November 10, 1865, at Brownsville, Texas, and was discharged December 14, 1865,
at Philadelphia.[10][11] Kealoha's enlistment of service is not present in any existing records or
history from the 41st USCT regiment. Historians Justin Vance and Anita Manning speculate
that "it is possible that his service is noted under a different name" or his name was never
recorded because only the muster-out rolls from the regiment were returned to the Adjutant
General's office after the unit disbanded.[1][11]

After the war, Kealoha returned to Hawaiʻi. He died on March 5, 1877, and was buried with
eighteen other Native Hawaiians in an unmarked grave in Section 1, Lot 56 of the Oʻahu
Cemetery, Honolulu.[1][17] During the Hawaii Territorial period, Kealoha's Civil War service
was recorded by the United Veterans Service Council (UVSC), a precursor of the United States
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which included his name in their records as a "Deceased
Veteran" and listed the location of his burial.[1][18]