Bryan,

I agree, with Dr. Shea, that some may have been motivated by "patriotism". I also, believe this phenomenon of "Southern Unionism" is clearly at its strongest in the "hill country" throughout the Southern states, the Ozarks and Boston Mountains in Arkansas, the Appalachian and Smokey Mountains in East Tennessee, Western North Carolina and North Alabama. Some have explained these areas as strongholds of Jacksonian Unionism and others state it was due to the small and less-productive farms, i.e., no slaves, that dominated these areas. No explanation has ever fully satisfied me, as to the "single" reason why these areas produced so many Unionists.

In my own family, I have East Tennessee Unionists and Confederates in the same family. I can attribute these East Tennessee Unionists as Jacksonian Unionists and their motivations being political; however, I have another group of Eastern Kentucky Unionists in my family, who appeared to be in the service of whomever was dominant in the region at the time. Early in the war many of them were in Confederate units, but later, show up in local militia units and regular army units that stayed close to home. My Eastern Kentucky ancestors appeared to have no political motivations. They probably wanted to be left alone and only enlisted for personal benefit or protection.

Most of my Western Arkansas ancestry simply fled the area and the lawlessness that prevailed there during the mid and later stages of the war. Of course, I related a story earlier, of a ggg-grandfather, who was too old to be conscripted by either army, but enlisted "temporarily" in the 13th Kansas Infantry (US) and then deserted with his family to the Indian Territory, as soon as he got a chance.

I don't know if we can ever understand these mens' motivations, except on an individual level. Certainly there is no simple answer as to why they served, but there are some interesting parts of it, like what the mountains had to do with it.

Jim