"As for blaming the current infrastructure on the pro-rebel feelings, who controlled the destiny of those states for decade upon decade?" [Chase]

East Tennessee has voted solid Republican since the Civil War. The counties there have been in control of their destiny ever since. A great destiny compared to many other places in the South. To blame the poverty of small enclaves of this area on the pro-Confederates is incorrect. The cities of East Tennessee, the county seats, prosperous and powerful in their state, have as much to do with the economic welfare of rural people that surround them as does the state house.

[Kentucky] I cannot believe that 15 counties out of nearly 120 in Kentucky has ruled the state for 140+ years just so effectively to make life miserable in the other 105 counties Kentucky. This is ridiculous.

[Tennessee] Unionist Eastern Tennessee takes up a very large 1/3 of the state. It would be very difficult for the state government to ignore a section this large. When did the the other two thirds of the state become 'heaven on earth' compared to the Unionist section? Memphis and Nashville historically have not been known as great municipalities of wealth and power. The State of Tennessee it is just another Southern state with lots of rural people. So the state's 'destiny' was shared between Unionist and Confederate decendants, for the most part, equally.

[Let's keep this on track]

"the only unionist areas to suffer from the war were those in the South...east KY, east TN,etc. Talk about Reconstruction. From what I've seen these areas got Confederate Reconstruction...crummy roads, utilities, work projects, whatever. Talked to a few old times and they agreed that those parts of the State got the shaft from their states governments." [Chase]

This is a very incorrect and ignorant statement. The simple fact is the local Governments (descendants of the Unionist) in these areas were in control of 'crummy roads, utilities, work projects, whatever' not Confederates. There is no law or legislation that states that these areas would be purposely excluded from any improvements because of what happened in 1861-65. The entire rural South (including Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia), until the T.V.A. and New Deal and World War II, saw very limited improvements such as these. The facts prove that Eastern Tennessee got the lion's share of infrastructure and quality of life improvements well before most ex-Confederate rural areas. Kentucky was simply not a Confederate state, so it does not apply.

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David Upton