# James Wood Bush

By [Malcolm Baldwin](https://paragraph.com/@malcolm-baldwin) · 2022-07-03

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**James Wood Bush** (c. 1844 – April 24, 1906) was an American [Union Navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Navy) sailor of [British](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_people) and [Native Hawaiian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Hawaiians) descent. He was among a group of more than one hundred Native Hawaiian and Hawaii-born combatants in the [American Civil War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War), at a time when the [Kingdom of Hawaii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Hawaii) was still an independent nation.

Enlisting in the Union Navy in 1864, Bush served as a sailor aboard [USS _Vandalia_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Vandalia_\(1828\)) and the captured Confederate vessel [USS _Beauregard_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Beauregard_\(1861\)), which maintained the [blockade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_blockade) of the ports of the [Confederacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_States_of_America). He was discharged from service in 1865 after an injury, which developed into a chronic condition in later life. The impoverished Bush was unable to return to Hawaii for more than a decade, during which time he traveled through [New England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England) and much of the Pacific. Back in Hawaii, he worked as a government tax collector and road supervisor for the island of [Kauai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kauai), where he settled down. In later life, he converted to [Mormonism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormonism) and became an active member of the [Hawaiian Mission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints_in_Hawaii). After the annexation of Hawaii to the United States, Bush was recognized for his military service, and in 1905 was granted a government pension for the injuries he received in the Navy. He died at his home on Kauai on April 24, 1906.

For a long period after the Civil War, the legacy and contributions of Bush and other documented Hawaiian participants were largely forgotten except in the private circles of descendants and historians. There has been a revival of interest, especially through the efforts of his great-grandniece Edna Bush Ellis and others in the Hawaiian community. In 2010, the "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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Memorial_Cemetery_of_the_Pacific) in [Honolulu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu).

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*Originally published on [Malcolm Baldwin](https://paragraph.com/@malcolm-baldwin/james-wood-bush)*