Len,

My East Tennessee ancestors were really divided. In fact, I'm currently helping my mother preserve some pre-Civil war letters between these people that use terms such as, "Breckenridge Man" and clearly predict the divisions upcoming in this family. There were no slave owners in the group and the Unionists appear not to be abolitionists, rather, they might be described as Jacksonian Unionists. This part of my family primarily lived in Hamilton County (Chattanooga), TN and Jackson County (Stevenson), AL. If it's of any interest, some of the family names in this part of my ancestry are Masterson, Willoughby, Jones, Davis, Johnston, Ritchie...

One of the interesting stories is that my Willoughby ancestors, who were Confederate and living outside Stevenson, Al, were in horrible shape after the deaths of the father and oldest son. Stevenson, along with Bridgeport, AL were occupied shortly after Shiloh and remained in Union hands throughout the war. The Union army visited their home often and took everything they had to eat, except for a bag of feed corn usually reserved for the livestock. Hearing of the hardships of his sister Melinda Masterson Willoughby, my uncle, Monroe Masterson, a Captain in the 5th Tennessee Infantry (US,) traveled to the area and retrieved the starving family. Through 1870, Melinda remained in close proximity to Monroe in Chattanooga and finally, relocated to the Fort Smith, AR area in the early 1870's.

In spite of their political differences, it seems some of them still honored and loved their families on the other side.

Jim