In other words, if I redo using this second Git Clone, will any residual be left from the first Git Clone and its associated commits, pulling and merging?
No, you won't see anything from the first repo.
Are all commits, etc. just local?
Yes. Local to your local repo: as long as those commits aren't pushed somewhere (or fetched), they remain only in said local repo.
If you create a second repo, cloning the same upstream repo as the first one, it won't see anything done in the first local repo.