It’s bad enough to hear some contemporary Southerners speak of Northerners as if it was still the time of the Civil War, but it’s even worse to hear Southerners speak of the people of the North from the time of the war, as if they could not, in the least bit, identify with the culture of the South. By doing so, what they reveal is either an unawareness of the facts or, perhaps “Civil War forgetfulness.” In the end, the result is an inaccurate and unfair stereotype of who the Northerner was… a blanket statement that falls far from the truth.
After all, the reality of it is that there were quite a few Southerners, in the North at the time of the war, and in the Union army.
In Lincoln’s Loyalists, Richard Nelson Current avoided trying to put a number on the Southerners who were in the ranks of the Union army… and no, I don’t mean those who joined units formed in the South, but in units from the respective Northern states, as they were formed in those states. I understand why he did this. It’s a huge task to go into each and every soldier’s record from the Union army and figure out who was born in the South and who was not… and in some cases, the records won’t reveal the place of birth. Nonetheless, I’ve identified Southerners who were born in Virginia, who enlisted in units 1) after those units were in Virginia, and 2) as the units were formed in the North… after the Southern family relocated to the North. Some relocated to the North before the war, some at the onset of the war, and some several years before the war. These people understood the culture of the South… the way of life, etc., etc. It’s likely that they even lived in the North, culturally, as Southerners. They could speak quite knowledgeably about the South. If we include those who were only one generation removed from being Southern, their parents having been Southerners, the number of those who had connections with the South is even greater.
In fact, I’m even aware of Southerners who divided from each other on account of… slavery.
In Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, there was a congregation of Baptists in what is now Page County. Sometime after 1800, this congregation, the Mill Creek Baptist Church, began to have a number of disagreements over slavery. According to Harry M. Strickler’s Short History of Page County, the dissenting group thought in harmony with what became a basic belief of the 1806 Ohio Association, that being… “We do not wish to correspond with any Association or Church that do, in principle, hold involuntary slavery.” Elder John Koontz, a convert from Lutheranism (baptized in Fauquier County in 1768), and from whom I’m twice descended, believed that such things were matters for individual conscience and should not be a part of church doctrine.
The "White House", near the S. Fork, Shenandoah River, Page County, Va.
Even so, in 1805, the congregation split. One portion began holding worship services at the White House, just west of Hamburg, while the other portion (approximately fifteen members from 6 families) moved to Fairfield County, Ohio. Among this number were also three ministers, Lewis Seits, Samuel Comer, and Martin Kauffman.
In fact, for those with anti-slavery sentiment, the move was fitting, as, under the Ordinance of 1787, slavery had been prohibited north of the Ohio River. Additionally, following the battle of Fallen Timbers, in 1794, and after the Treaty of Greenville, in 1796, settlement in that area had finally become relatively safe from Native American incursions. At the time of the move, Fairfield County was only five years old and had been only the eighth county to be formed in the Northwest Territory.
Once in Ohio, the former members of the Mill Creek congregation established the Pleasant Run Baptist Church, in Lancaster. The church was first constituted in 1806, and, on April 19 of that same year, the congregation met “according to appointment and opened our meeting with prayer and praise. Second – proceeded to business, with choosing our Moderator, Martin Coffman. We ended our meeting with prayer and thanksgiving.”
Though only started with fifteen members, Strickler notes, “Many from Virginia followed these Baptist brethren to Ohio.” By 1809, the congregation had nearly eighty members and was one of four churches to become part of the Scioto Baptist Association (named for the nearby Scioto River).
Various surnames of the membership can also be seen in the history of Page County, Virginia – Beaver, Coffman, Comer, Geiger, Hiestand, Hite, Huffman, Pence, Ruffner, and Spitler. There are also other names in the cemetery (Baptist Corners cemetery) that reveal names that are usually identified with Page County, Virginia’s neighbor to the west… Shenandoah County.
There are also Page County names tied to other churches in Fairfield County, Ohio. In the Dovel family cemetery, in Pickerington, Ohio, there is a grave for John E. Dovel, private from the 113th Ohio Infantry, who died as a POW in Louisville, Kentucky. His parents, Jacob B. and Elizabeth Dovel, were born in the Page Valley of Virginia in the 1810s.
Not too terribly far away, in Champaign County, Ohio, there are several with Virginia roots… and some who later served the Union, being themselves only one generation removed from Virginia. Christian Norman served in the 45th Ohio Infantry. His father, Benjamin Norman/Nauman, was born in the Page Valley.
In Carroll County, Ohio, there is George M. Roudebush, a private in the 157th Ohio Infantry. His father, Abraham, was born in Rockingham County, Virginia.
Down the Ohio River, and across in Gallia County, West Virginia, we have Charles C. Aleshire, and his brother, Edward S. Aleshire, sons of Reuben Aleshire, born in 1808, in what is now Page County, Virginia.
Off to the west, in Indiana, I know of the grave of Hiram Jackson Foltz, born in Indiana, a son of Henry J. Foltz and Veronica Hollingsworth Foltz… both of the Page Valley. Hiram served in the 85th Indiana Infantry. Hiram’s brother, James, was born in Page County, Virginia in 1833, but he too served in blue.
These are just a few of the Southerners, and sons of Southerners, who relocated to the North… and ended up serving in blue. They are also some of my cousins… and first cousins of a good number of those who served in gray, back in Virginia.
I’d say that, even though most listed here were one generation removed, they still grew up in their parents’ homes… in which Southern culture could still be easily recognized. So, were they really so out of touch with what it was like to be Southern? Had they lost their “sense of place”? Perhaps they had a new “sense of place”. Still, I don’t think they were so detached from the place in which so many of their people had settled, lived, and died, for so many years before.
They were not as out-of-touch with the South as some suggest.
Cenantua's Blog 
Mike Simons
November 15, 2010
Yet they went against their kin and State and followed the Union. Scallywags’ the whole lot of them. They all should have been more like Gen Lee.
Robert Moore
November 16, 2010
Really? Is that the best you can do here, Mike? You spend less than 2 minutes typing an emotionally filled response that blasts these people, based on… what exactly? Yet, in developing this post, I spent a considerable time pondering… not just the work as presented, but the people involved at the time. You so quickly dehumanize them and even even go the point of smearing them with a derogatory name (what in the world is that about?!), and yet you apparently know nothing about these people. Prior to reading this, did you even know that so many might actually exist? You didn’t give a lot of thought to your response, and most certainly gave no thought to the people of the South, whether they supported the Union or not. What gets me is that these people may have actually been inspired by something greater than Union in their decisions to serve in blue. They were products of slave culture, and may have felt they were fulfilling more than a duty to Union… and perhaps a duty to their system of beliefs, even if it meant going against their cousins. Maybe they thought they were fulfilling a higher moral duty. Did you totally miss the mid-section of this post, about the split in the Baptist church and why it happened?
To be honest, I find it even more atrocious to think of the Southerners who abused their neighbors in the almighty name of the “Cause”. Neighbors…not people who had moved away some ten or forty years prior to the war, but people that remained in the South… people with whom the “Causers” grew up… that they knew… that they dealt with on a regular basis.
So tell me… you actually think that all those Southerners who didn’t opt to wear blue thought just like Lee? Please… show a little more appreciation and respect for the diversity of opinion and beliefs in Southerners who lived at the time… even among those who did end up wearing gray.
What might amaze those who accuse me of “Southern bashing” is that I can and do actually respect the decision of common Southerners who opted to serve the Confederacy… and no, it wasn’t because Lee decided to do what he did, or necessarily because of the same reasons behind Lee’s decision. What amazes me are those who disrespect another form of “rage against the machine”… in other Southerners for their decisions not to be Confederate. That took even more guts. In fact, I need to keep myself in check on historical objectivity because I think Southern Unionists were even more courageous than those who joined the “Cause”.
Ultimately, I can empathize with those who have the courage to be hold to their personal values that may be against the grain of the majority… or the powers that be in power at a particular time, whether they opted to take sides with the Confederacy, or opted to remain devoted to their ideas of what Union meant… to them at that time.
As for Southerners who went North in years before the war, and decided to wear blue… they provide an interesting case study, and I’m sure had a range of opinions of their cousins back home, and the decisions of those cousins to side with something that was set on dividing the Union. They don’t deserve to be dismissed with contemporary emotions built on a monolithic Lost Cause ideology.
Kevin
November 16, 2010
Well said, Robert, and thanks for this post.
Robert Moore
November 16, 2010
Thanks, Kevin!
Dick Stanley
November 22, 2010
Care to quantify “quite a few”? I think they were only the exceptions that proved the rule.
Also I believe that while Southern Ohio was anti-slavery in the late Eighteenth century, it was not therefore pro-integration. Freed blacks were no more welcome to live, testify in court or vote there than in the South or, for that matter, much of the rest of the North.
As for Southerners badmouthing Northerners today, and, say, back 3 or 4 decades, when they do and are not merely joking they really mean the Boston-New York-Washington, D.C. liberal news media and publishing industry.
Northerners today have learned from that industry about Southern stereotypes but they have little or no Civil War-era ancestry of their own.
Robert Moore
November 22, 2010
Quantify? Hmmm… you want specifics or an estimate? Obviously, it’s impossible to give an exact number. My point was if I could find this many in my tree alone and from one county alone (and I haven’t finished looking), the numbers certainly stand to grow when looking at the trees of many a Southern family. That being said… I’m reserving the rest of the story (and stats) for another post.
O.K., as for Ohioans not wanting blacks in their neck of the woods and so forth, that’s an old line of fall-back for SCV’ers when anyone suggest some sort of kindness on the part of Northerners to blacks. I know the tactic, and I’m sorry to say that it’s likely that I used it in my SCV days. Of course, you are no longer in the SCV, so I’m not sure why you needed to bring it out as a counter to what I said. Frankly, I didn’t even go down that path. As I mentioned, these people left Virginia because they had different opinions of slavery than those who decided to stay. I am focusing, specifically, on Southerners who relocated to the North… people who were exposed to slavery, and likely had a different perspective of those in the North. Are you saying that they were no different in their perspective? If so, please cite examples.
Northerners today… and the liberal thing… o.k., maybe from your perspective, but from mine, I’ve seen different. Yes, I’ve seen it said jokingly as well, but I’ve also seen it being said by some who are quite serious. If from North of the Mason-Dixon = Yankee = “go home”… and not at all kidding.
Robert Talbott Griffin
February 10, 2011
Sir,
This a question that you may have the answer.
At what point after the “WAR” did southern boys begin joining the US Army in large numbers?
I have always thought about that. Just think, it’s 1880, and nephew Jack is coming home on leave wearing that damn blue uniform. Maybe they were so sick of what the war had done to them and their families, they just didn’t give a damn.
Thank You,
Bobby Griffin, Baltimore
Robert Moore
February 14, 2011
Some Southerners joined in years after the war, but the first real reflection of Southerners in the ranks came with the Spanish-American War. That number increased in the First World War. In both events, enlistments were “event-driven”.
jgo
May 15, 2011
Several of the old copyright-expired histories I’ve read over the last several years mention that a majority of early Ohio settlers were from the south, largely because of the lands set aside for VA veterans of the French & Indian Wars and American Revolution. The Northwest Territory was, like TN and KY, ceded from VA.
I know of slave-holders who freed their slaves, who then went with them to Champaign/Logan/Clark county Ohio. And when John Randolph freed his slaves in his will, the judge/executor of his estate purchased lands in Ohio for them before they were relocated in about 1833.
OT3H, I’ve recently read John T. Foster & Sarah Whitmer 1999 _Beechers, Stowes and Yankee Strangers: The Transformation of Florida_ in which they cover the post-war move of Harriet Beecher and her brother Charles, and others who were not exactly “carpet-baggers” to Florida.