Personally, with my research of the Pinywoods area, my feeling is that within the larger communities of each of those counties, the people were generally Southern loyal to the end. Out in the less populated farm country a minority of those could be, as I said, loyal to no political platform. In fact, a lawless, or better, a collection of isolated poor social groups did exist who lived as they wished. Notorious Sullivan's Hollow comes to mind in south Smith County. The majority of these poor Pineywoods families were descendents of west Georgia, and Carolina peoples who moved to these vacated Choctaw lands in order to get away from the encroaching civilization and take advantage of vast amounts of cheep land.
I've seen them lately described as unionist and even as laughable abolitionist in recent writings. I don't think attaching political idealogies to these people is historically correct. They were rebels within a rebeleous state, who didn't like being told what to do. Their territory being a perfect spot for deserters to hide.
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David Upton