For that matter, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis would have described themselves as Union men up to and even after Lincoln's election. One of the more prominent newspaper editors in west Alabama, William H. Fowler, carried the phrase, "'Save the Union' - Henry Clay" on the masthead of his newspaper, the Independent Monitor of Tuscaloosa. Fowler later became a Confederate battery commander and was later entrusted with assembling all Confederate military records from the state.

Up until the final weeks of 1859, a careful reading of contemporary sources will place a large majority of Southerners in the Unionist category, particularly those who resided in the upper South.