page_title: Chang and Eng Bunker
section_title: Civil War metaphor
hierarchical_section_title: Chang and Eng Bunker / Settling and later years (1839–1874) / Civil War metaphor
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: The political "Siamese" twins, the offspring of Chicago miscegenation Abstract: The unlikely teaming of military leader George B. McClellan with Peace Democrat (Copperhead) George Hunt Pendleton as presidential and vice presidential candidates in the 1864 election is ridiculed here. The artist charges McClellan with disloyalty to his former troops by virtue of a "peace at any price" campaign. In the center McClellan (left) is attached to the side of his running mate by "The Party Tie." McClellan says apologetically to the two Union soldiers at his left, "It was not I that did it fellow Soldiers!! but with this unfortunate attachment I was politically born at Chicago!" The Democratic national convention took place in Chicago on August 29, 1864. The soldier with his arm in a sling responds angrily, "Good bye little Mac' if thats your company! Uncle Abe gets my vote," The soldier at far left says, "I would vote for you General, if you were not tied to a "peace" Copperhead, who says that Treason and Rebellion ought to triumph!!" Pendleton addresses the two "Copperheads" at his right: Clement Laird Vallandigham, author of the Democrats' peace plank, and Horatio Seymour, governor of New York and chairman of the Democratic national convention. Pendleton says, "I dont care how many letters Mac writes, if it brings him votes; for every vote for him, count one for me!!" Vallandigham concurs, "Yes Pen, that's the only reason that I support the ticket; if you are elected both Jeff [Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy] and I will be triumphant!" Seymour (far right) replies, "With Pendleton as Vice: Val [Vallandigham] secretary of State; Wood [i.e., Fernando Wood, an organizer of the Peace Democrats] in the treasury, and I Govr. of New-York, we will have peace at any price the rebels choose to ask for it." The cartoon appeared late in the brief 1864 campaign. Physical description: 1 print on wove paper&#160;: lithograph&#160;; image 38.4 x 49.5 cm. Notes: Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston&#160;: G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1864-10.; The Library's impression was deposited for copyright on October 5.; Title from item.
context_page_description: Chang and Eng Bunker were Siamese-American conjoined twin brothers whose fame propelled the expression "Siamese twins" to become synonymous for conjoined twins in general. They were widely exhibited as curiosities and were "two of the nineteenth century's most studied human beings".
  The brothers were born with Chinese ancestry in today's Thailand and were brought to the United States in 1829. Physicians inspected them as they became known to American and European audiences in "freak shows". Newspapers and the public were initially sympathetic to them, and within three years they left the control of their managers, who they thought were cheating them, and toured on their own. In early exhibitions, they appeared exotic and displayed their athleticism; they later held conversations in English in a more dignified parlor setting.
  In 1839, after a decade of financial success, the twins quit touring and settled near Mount Airy, North Carolina. They became American citizens, bought slaves, married local sisters, and fathered 21 children, several of whom accompanied them when they resumed touring.
context_section_description: Throughout the Civil War, the twins' conjoined state served in several metaphors. In July 1860, the Louisville Journal chided divisions in the Democratic Party by making the twins out to represent rival factions within the party, split on the extent to which slavery should be federally protected. However, the Bunker brothers were long-time supporters of the Whig Party, and a neighbor wrote to The Fayetteville Observer that they "are not now and never have been Democrats [and] they say they never expect to be Democrats". This neighbor also said that in the 1860 presidential election  both twins supported the Tennessean John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, a candidate popular in northwestern North Carolina whose platform included both support of slavery and of preservation of the union.
  More prominently, many newspapers fictitiously wrote that Chang and Eng were at odds with each other on the issue of secession, personifying fears of sectional violence. The New-York Tribune ran a colorful allegory that claimed to be an account of a dispute between the twins while they were at Barnum's American Museum. It says that Chang, the quarrelsome one, wants the ligament connecting them to be painted black (signifying the key issue of slavery) but that Eng does not. Chang says that his "union" with Eng is to be "dissolved", while a "Dr. Lincoln" [President Lincoln] reasons that a separation surgery would be "dangerous for both parties"".
  According to Orser, "The united brothers had become symbols the American union and the promise it offered to its citizens." Orser adds that reports of conflict between the Bunkers did have some grain of truth: the brothers had legally divided their property, land and slaves, and they had created separate wills, formalizing the divided way they had lived since marriage.
caption: "The Political 'Siamese' Twins, the Offspring of Chicago Miscegenation":
  This cartoon objects to the 1864 Democratic ticket that combined two men with differing views: George Pendleton opposed the Civil War; George McClellan did not support a ceasefire.[67]
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