The Arkansas in the Civil War Message Board

Re: Southern unionist.
In Response To: Re: Southern unionist. ()

I think a lot of it had to do with geography and how that impacted peoples' lives. As you already noted, slave ownership was concentrated in the lowlands of the South. This was, of course, not by accident. It's hard to grow many cash crops in the poor soil of the upcountry. The land just did not lend itself to that. Consequently, it was harder for the hill folk to identify with the cotton culture of the lowlands. And so when it came to war, these people were less inclined to support something that seemingly had little impact on them. Indeed, many of them simply wanted to be left alone.

Tied to this issue was an economic divide between the uplands and lowlands. The majority of the state's economic wealth resided in the cotton culture of the lowlands. Consequently, that's where most of the political power rested too. The planter class wielded an incredibly disproportionate share of the power within the state. Between 1840-1860, ten percent of the population controlled seventy percent of the wealth. Numbers like that are only bound to create a great deal of antagonism between the parties.

Further reinforcing this divide was the pre-war migratory patterns into the state. The majority of the residents in the upland counties came from Upper South states--mostly Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Conversely, those in the lowland counties tended to be from states in the Lower South (Alabama, Mississippi, etc.) As a result, when these people came into the state, they brought with them the way of life that they were accustomed to.

And I'm not so sure that I would say that the people in the uplands were so much in favor of the Republican Party and its policies as much as I would say that they did not support secession. From their vantage point, the United States government had done nothing that had negatively impacted them. We have to remember just how remote and rural these areas were at the time. For most people, what happened in Little Rock had little bearing on them, let alone what happened in Washington, D.C.

As has been the case throughout history, crises sometimes make strange bedfellows. I mean, heck, if it hadn't been for the Nazis, would we have ever aligned ourselves with the Soviet Union?! Not that I'm comparing the two issues, but you get the idea. So it shouldn't be too surprising to find southerners who split with other southerners on what was such a volatile topic. I think we sometimes lose sight of just how divisive the war was. The war was incredibly complex and the situation on the ground was very fluid, to say the least. There are no short and easy answers to explain things. A decision to maintain allegiance to the national standard while others around you were throwing it away was undoubtedly a highly individualistic decision. Consequently, I think it difficult to paint the picture of southern Unionism with any kind of broad strokes.

Now, to be sure, there were "Unionists" of all different stripes. Many were genuinely loyal to the United States. Others, because of circumstances, found their way into the Union army. Others still were simple opportunists. As far as motivations go, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to say what motivated men to join the Union army. Unless someone left letters, diaries, etc. to make their feelings and opinions known, I think it folly to try and say what was in someone's head that lived nearly 150 years ago.

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Re: Southern unionist.
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Meant for you, Bill
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