Southern Unionist

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The term Southern Unionist, and its variations, incorporate a spectrum of beliefs and actions. Some, such as Texas governor Sam Houston, were vocal in their support of Southern interests, but believed that those interests could best be maintained by remaining in the Union as it existed. Some Unionists initially opposed secession (especially in the states of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia), but after it came, served in the Confederate armies, or supported the Confederacy in other ways, usually out of a sense of duty to their states. Others refused to fight, went or stayed north to enlist in the Union Army, forming dedicated Unionist units, or launched insurgencies behind Confederate lines. Some remained in the South and tried to stay neutral. The term could also be used for any Southerner who worked with the Republican Party or Union government in any capacity after the war ended in 1865.

A study of Southern Unionists in Alabama who continued to support the Union during the war found that they were typically "old fashioned" or conservative "Jackson" Democrats, or former Whigs, who viewed the federal government as worthy of defending because it had provided economic and political security. They saw secession as dangerous, illegitimate, and contrary to the intentions of the Founding Fathers, and believed that the Confederacy could not improve on the United States government. The desire for security was a motivation for Unionist slaveholders, who correctly predicted that secession would entail a war that the South could not win, ultimately leading to the loss of their slaves. Others saw the end of slavery as preferable to the end of the Union, or saw slavery as doomed in the long run and preferred to see it go peacefully and be compensated for their loss than have abolition imposed by a Northern army. The Southern ideals of honor, family, and duty were as important to Unionists as to their pro-secession neighbors. They believed, however, that rebelling against the United States, which many of their ancestors had fought for in 1776 and 1812, was the unmanly and dishonorable act.{{cite journal | jstor=30039841 | title=Civil War Unionists and the Political Culture of Loyalty in Alabama, 1860-1861 | author=Storey, Margaret M. | journal=The Journal of Southern History |date=February 2003 | volume=69 | issue=1 | pages=71–106 | doi=10.2307/30039841}}

In 2003, historian James Alex Baggett profiled more than 1,400 Southern political activists (742 Southern Unionists, and 666 Redeemers who eventually replaced them) in three regions (the Upper South, the Southeast, and the Southwest). He coded them as follows:

Baggett claimed that each activist's score was roughly proportional to the probability that the activist was a Southern Unionist. Baggett further investigated the lives of those Southern Unionists before, during, and after the war, with respect to birthplace, occupation, value of estate, slave ownership, education, party activity, stand on secession, war politics, and postwar politics.{{cite book | last=Baggett| first=James Alex| date=2003| title=The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction| url=http://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-scalawags/| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160413030810/http://lsupress.org/books/detail/the-scalawags/| archive-date=13 April 2016| access-date=9 Jul 2016| location=Baton Rouge, LA| publisher=LSU Press| isbn=9780807130148}}

Before the war there was widespread belief in the North that the states that had not yet seceded might be persuaded to stay within the Union. This idea was predicated on the fact that many believed that the newly elected President Lincoln would declare a relaxed policy toward the South that would ease tensions. Given the fact that there were a good number of Southern Unionists known to be found in the South it was hoped that this deliberate policy of non-provocation would subvert extremists from irreversible action. Admirable though their sentiments might have been, the claims of these Northerners were greatly embellished. In fact, there were fewer Unionists in the South than many Northerners believed, and they tended to be concentrated in areas such as northwest Virginia,Foner, Eric, Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution – 1863–1877, Harper, 2002, pg. 39 East Tennessee, and parts of North Carolina where slave owners and slaves themselves were few. Furthermore, in the states that had already seceded, irreversible action had already taken place; federal buildings, mints, and courthouses had been seized.

Many Southern soldiers remained loyal when their states seceded.{{cite web | url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/the-general-in-his-study/ | title=The General in His Study | publisher=The New York Times | work=Disunion | date=2011-04-19 | access-date=April 19, 2011 | author=Pryor, Elizabeth Brown}} During the war, many Southern Unionists went North and joined the Union armies. Others joined when Union armies entered their hometowns in Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, and elsewhere. Around 100,000 Southern Unionists served in the Union Army during the Civil War, with every Southern state except South Carolina raising official organizations of white troops.{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/lincolnsloyalist0000curr | url-access=registration | quote=except South Carolina. |title=Lincoln's Loyalists: Union Soldiers from the Confederacy | publisher=UPNE | first=Richard Nelson | last=Current | year=1992 | page=[https://archive.org/details/lincolnsloyalist0000curr/page/5 5]| isbn=9781555531249 }} Though no regiments of Southern Unionists were formed in South Carolina due to a smaller unionist presence, the Upstate region of the state would be a haven for Confederate Army deserters and resisters, as they used the Upstate topography and traditional community relations to resist service in the Confederate ranks.Carey, Liz. (July 5, 2014). [https://archive.independentmail.com/news/local/the-dark-corner-of-south-carolina-ep-413292035-345851752.html/ The dark corner of South Carolina]. Independent Mail. Retrieved October 30, 2023.

The Southern Unionists were referred to in Henry Clay Work's song "Marching Through Georgia":

{{Poem quote|Yes and there were Union men who wept with joyful tears,

When they saw the honored flag they had not seen for years;

Hardly could they be restrained from breaking forth in cheers,

While we were marching through Georgia.}}

Southern Unionists were extensively used as anti-guerrilla forces and as occupation troops in areas of the Confederacy occupied by the Union. Ulysses S. Grant noted:Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, 1885, vol 2. chapt. 68, p. 636. [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4367 Project Gutenberg online edition]

{{quote|We had many regiments of brave and loyal men who volunteered under great difficulty from the twelve million belonging to the South.}}

• {{annotated link|List of Southern Unionists}}
• {{annotated link|East Tennessee Convention}}
• {{annotated link|Wheeling Convention}}
• {{annotated link|Nickajack}}
• Copperhead, a Northerner sympathetic to the Confederacy

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• {{cite journal |last=Alexander |first=Thomas B. |year=1961 |title=Persistent Whiggery in the Confederate South, 1860–1877 |journal=Journal of Southern History |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=305–329 |doi=10.2307/2205211|publisher=Southern Historical Association |jstor=2205211 }}
• {{cite book |last=Baggett |first=James Alex |title=The Scalawags: Southern Dissenters in the Civil War and Reconstruction |year=2003 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |location=Baton Rouge, LA |isbn=0-8071-2798-1 }}
• {{cite book |last=Butler |first=Clayton Jonah |title=True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction |year=2022 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |location=Baton Rouge, LA }}
• {{cite book |last=DeSantis |first=Vincent P. |title=Republicans Face the Southern Question: The New Departure Years, 1877–1897 |year=1959 |publisher=Johns Hopkins Press |location=Baltimore, MD }}
• {{cite journal |last=Donald |first=David |year=1944 |title=The Scalawag in Mississippi Reconstruction |journal=Journal of Southern History |volume=10 |issue=4 |pages=447–460 |doi=10.2307/2197797|publisher=Southern Historical Association |jstor=2197797 }}
• {{cite journal |last=Ellem |first=Warren A. |year=1972 |title=Who Were the Mississippi Scalawags? |journal=Journal of Southern History |volume=38 |issue=2 |pages=217–240 |doi=10.2307/2206442|publisher=Southern Historical Association |jstor=2206442 }}
• Fleming, Walter L. (1906). Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial. 2 vols. Uses broad collection of primary sources; vol. 1 on national politics; vol. 2 on states.
• Foner, Eric (2009). Give Me Liberty! An American History, second ed.
• {{cite book |last=Franklin |first=John Hope |title=Reconstruction after the Civil War |year=1961 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=Chicago |isbn=0-226-26079-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/reconstructionaf00fran|url-access=registration }}
• Garner, James Wilford (1901). Reconstruction in Mississippi. Dunning school monograph.
• Holden, William Woods (1911). [https://web.archive.org/web/20060623150026/http://docsouth.unc.edu/holden/holden.html Memoirs of W. W. Holden]. North Carolina Scalawag governor.
• Keegan, John (2009). The American Civil War: A Military History. Random House.
• {{cite journal |last=Kolchin |first=Peter |year=1979 |title=Scalawags, Carpetbaggers, and Reconstruction: A Quantitative Look at Southern Congressional Politics, 1868–1872 |journal=Journal of Southern History |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=63–76 |doi=10.2307/2207902|publisher=Southern Historical Association |jstor=2207902 }}
• {{cite book |last=McKinney |first=Gordon B. |title=Southern Mountain Republicans, 1865–1900: Politics and the Appalachian Community |year=1998 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |location=Knoxville |isbn=1-57233-009-0 }}
• {{cite book |last=Pereyra |first=Lillian A. |title=James Lusk Alcorn: Persistent Whig |year=1966 |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |location=Baton Rouge, LA }}
• {{cite book |last=Perman |first=Michael |title=The Road to Redemption: Southern Politics 1869–1879 |year=1984 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |url=https://archive.org/details/roadtoredemption0000perm|url-access=registration }}
• {{cite book |last=Rubin |first=Hyman |title=South Carolina Scalawags |year=2006 |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |location=Columbia, SC |isbn=1-57003-625-X }}
• {{cite journal |last=Tunnell |first=Ted |year=2006 |title=Creating 'the Propaganda of History': Southern Editors and the Origins of Carpetbagger and Scalawag |journal=Journal of Southern History |volume=72 |issue=4 |pages=789–822 |doi=10.2307/27649233|jstor=27649233 }}
• {{cite book |last=Wiggins |first=Sarah Woolfolk |title=The Scalawag in Alabama Politics, 1865–1881 |year=1991 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |location=Tuscaloosa |isbn=0-8173-0557-2 }}

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• [http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~arcivwar/loyal.htm Excerpts from The Southern Loyalist]
• [http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/civil_war_history/v046/46.4huston.html Southerners Against Secession: The Arguments of the Constitutional Unionists in 1850–51]

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Category:American Civil War political groups

Category:Reconstruction Era