Arkansas seceded because there was wide-
spread opposition to forcing states that
seceded to rejoin the Union. Despite its rel-
atively small population, the only Confed-
erate states to provide the Union with more
soldiers than Arkansas were Tennessee and
North Carolina. In mountainous north-
central Arkansas, the war degenerated into
a no-quarter-given conflict between bands
of unorganized individuals.
Possibly as a result of hostility to the Fed-
eral government stemming from their
forced removal west of the Mississippi,
leaders of the Indian Territory’s slave-own-
ing Five Civilized Tribes signed treaties with
the Confederacy. Indians opposed to the
Confederacy who fled to Kansas joined a
Union Home Guard, which fought mainly
in the Indian Territory but also served in
Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri. The last
Confederate general to surrender was a
Cherokee, Stand Watie.
In late 1863, there was a failed attempt
to create a Union army unit in mountain-
ous North Georgia. This effort was
renewed in 1864 with limited success
despite the $300 bounty. Some of the men
who were recruited formed Georgia’s only
white Union Army unit, the 1st Georgia
State Troops Volunteers. This battalion of
about 200 men was organized to guard the
railroad from Chattanooga to Atlanta. It
was deemed utterly useless and disbanded
after some of its men fled rather than
defend Dalton when Confederate troops
sought to retake the city.
Some of the men who were recruited in
North Georgia were enrolled in Union
Army units in Tennessee. Nearly half the
men in the 5th Tennessee Mounted (Union)
Infantry were Georgians. Eight poor North
Georgia farmers on their way to Cleveland,
Tennessee, to join the 5th Tennessee were
intercepted near the state line by Confed-
erate guerillas and shot.
The men belonging to the Union’s 1st
Louisiana Battalion Cavalry Scouts were
among the troops Union Maj. Gen.
Nathaniel P. Banks commanded in the
Union’s failed Red River campaign. A
New York soldier described the Loyalists
who came in from the swamps and pineywoods to take the oath of allegiance. They
looked, he said, more like ragamuffins
than men, clothed in every style of gar-
ment from the soiled coat of the gentle-
man to the hunting shirt of a backwoods-
man or a full Confederate uniform.
Reportedly, they “entered the residences
of planters, carrying off whatever they
needed or could appropriate, and in many
instances offering violence and insults.”
After Banks withdrew from Alexandria,
the personal property of many Unionists
was destroyed and their homes burned.
Some Unionists were also murdered.
Pro-Union sentiment in Alabama was
strongest in Winston County, a mountain-
ous North Alabama county that in 1860
had 14 families who collectively owned
122 slaves and 637 families who owned
none. A stronghold of Andrew Jackson
Democrats, it began to call itself the “Free
State of Winston” after the war began.Indicative of the strength of Unionists, who
were often called Tories, is the fact that a
pro-Union candidate in Winston won elec-
tion to the secession convention by a vote
of 515 to 128.
Most of the representatives to the seces-
sion convention from North Alabama
voted against secession. Some refused to
sign the ordinance of secession. During the
war several prominent North Alabamians
fled behind Union lines, which as early as
1862 extended into North Alabama. Oth-
ers were prevented from going over to the
enemy by being arrested for treason. Win-
ston County’s delegate to the state’s seces-
sion convention was briefly jailed for trea-
son because he was so outspoken in
opposing secession.
When Union troops first appeared on the
scene in 1862, North Alabama Unionists
began recruiting troops for the Union from
among the thousands of men hiding in the
mountains of North Alabama either
because they were deserters from the Con-
federate Army or to avoid being con-
scripted into it. A Peace Society organized
behind Union lines helped elect a new gov-
ernor of Alabama in 1863. By 1864, North
Alabama Unionists were already discussing
reconstruction
During the war, as many as 10,000 Con-
federate deserter and loyalist bands
roamed and pillaged throughout North
Alabama. Confederate deserters were also
numerous in Unionist southeastern
Alabama. Pillaging by loyalist and seces-
sionist bands and Federal troops hurt the
Confederacy by causing some North
Alabama soldiers to desert the Confeder-
ate Army to go home to protect and sup-
port their families. William H. Smith, a
future Reconstruction governor of
Alabama, sought to escape conscription by
serving in a civil office. After fleeing behind
Union lines to escape arrest, he recruited
Southerners for the Union.
The 1st Alabama Cavalry, Sherman’s
headquarters escort during his march
through Georgia, was formed first in- Companies of the 1st Tennessee and
Alabama Independent Vidette Cavalry
were organized in Alabama and Tennessee.
This well-armed Hispanic American soldier was a
member of one of four Union cavalry units raised
in Texas during the Civil War. The largest such
unit, about 500 men, mustered in at New Orleans
in November 1862.Q-Spr16 Southerner v Southerner *Ads_Layout 1 1/14/16 12:35 PM Page 19