Dennis -

My profiles of companies from Barbour County AL yielded different results. The earliest volunteer companies included higher numbers of men born outside of the Deep South states. Dividing the county into classes by profession, over 40% of the merchants, clerks and skilled craft workers in Barbour County had been born in Europe, Canada or one of the Northern states. Lower numbers of white collar professionals came from outside the region, but still a large number.

These classes got my attention because they were so heavily represented among two types of volunteers -
1) Men elected as officers
2) Early war volunteers

Education counted highly towards making a man an officer candidate, so that may account for the high number of clerks, merchants and attorneys who became volunteer officers. Also, a man would have to be known to others in order to be elected. Clerks, merchants and attorneys were likely to be known from face-to-face contact by those doing business in town. In contrast, farmers and others who had little reason to be known by a broad number of men were less likely to be elected as officers.

Early war volunteers included a high percentage of town residents. Town residents were most likely to be civic leaders. This type of man supported and promoted the early volunteer organizations.

As for foreign-born, you probably have the Irish laborer in mind. These could be found in almost any of the town companies, but I could detect no particular trend. To be fair, place of birth wasn't the purpose of my study, but I did note it.