It was not your previous posting that caused me to write my message, but an earlier vague posting about the sentiments of North Alabama yeoman farmers and a number of disproven or naive stereotypes regarding the choices made by the lower and middle-classes in the South.

I am very happy to see Don Umphrey posting on this thread, as I know him to be a balanced and thoughtful historian and author. He is one of my most trusted authorities on Southern Unionists. I'm sure you know, some of the rhetoric that can be generated from this discussion can be highly volatile and emotional. I just wanted to press lightly on the "brake pedal", so that if we pursue this important discussion, we do it in a respectful and scholarly way that honors the memories of our ancestors and their personal choices.

As I have a number of Southern Unionists in my own ancestry, I have discovered a multitude of reasons for their enlistment in the federal army. Some are honorable and proud reasons, others not so much. For this reason, when I read clearly uninformed statements that attempt to apply a single or simple explanation to a very complicated and personal issue, in many cases that is unknowable to us today, I felt it necessary to offer some boundaries for the discussion.

Have you visited "Tombstone", yet?

Jim