… well, part of the reason…
I read the occasional comments, here and there, on the Web (especially in so-called “Southern Heritage” forums), from people today who… and I paraphrase… “don’t understand how they (Southerners, today) could turn against their own heritage… denying the story of their Southern ancestors who ‘fought nobly for the South’”. Of course, they mean… having fought “nobly for the Confederacy”.
Well, for some… some people could care less about their heritage. That’s just a fact of life. Others, yes… it’s true… think that those who donned gray, fought for a bad cause. Yet, there are others, still, who have had a revelation of the truth… and it usually doesn’t fit the Southern = Confederate story line that so many would like us to believe… having come to realize that… great-great grandpappy didn’t fight for the Confederacy after all… or, even if he did, there are indications there that… maybe… just maybe… at heart (evidence pointing to the contrary, for example), he didn’t really support the Confederacy. Even more interesting are the numbers of Southerners who are coming to realize that some of their people even wore blue. While I haven’t kept “the wires hot” over at my Southern Unionists Chronicles Blog, lately, I do get comments, from time to time, that show me such revelations… and they’re great to hear. No, not because they “bash the Confederacy”, but because people are starting to learn that the story isn’t as they may have heard… or the story that they have come to believe as Southerners. In more rare cases, some people don’t take it too well, and have, in a few cases, fired out, in their comments, at some of my posts.
As I’ve said before, the Lost Cause legacy has contributed more to revisionism than some would like to admit… though some like the revisionists story turned in a different direction. It’s not just my opinion, but it’s demonstrated fact.
Incidentally, and getting back to the title of this post… content over at Southern Unionists Chronicles ranks in the top five whenever anyone searches for “Southern Unionists” in a Google search… and Southern Unionists content in this blog also shows up regularly among the top most returns. But, to be clear, however… it’s not that I love adding Southern Unionist content to the Web just to get in the top numbers of the search engine list for that subject, but it’s because I get to hear feedback from others who have discovered Southern Unionist ties in their own families… and they enjoy the fact that the history of the South is really much more rich than so commonly told. Good stuff…
Bill Newcomer
February 1, 2012
My interest and concern comes from observing the lingering influence of the Lost Cause Legacy up here in the “north”… The cause as presented implies a picture of a “southern solidarity” that does not fit the historical facts. The facts of a southern Unionism as represented in the Union cavelry regiments from east Tennesee, the succession of the Virginia counties that now make up West Virginia, as well as the stories you tell here and at Southern Unionist Chronicles, as well as those told by other bloggers, expose the fallacy of the popular assumption of a “southern solidarity” with regard to the Confederacy.
As a Michigan “yankee” whose ancestors wore Union blue in the conflict, that is a side of southern history I was not so aware of until more recent years. I suspect a vast majority of my fellow “northern yankees” are also unaware of the scope and importance of that side of southern history also… Thank you for sharing…
Robert Moore
February 2, 2012
Thanks much for your comments… as well as being a regular follower!
Cyndy Cox
February 2, 2012
I enjoyed this because these soldiers are often left out in the South. One of my ancestors, William E Milburn who was born in 1797 served in the Union Army. He was a Methodist minister who was expelled from the church and placed under house arrest for his anti-slavery views. He served as Chaplin in the 8th Reg. Tennessee Cavalry.
Mike Simons
March 5, 2012
I enjoy reading bout southern boys in blue because it gives us all a clearing view of how complex the South was before and during the war. Growing up in Arkansas you heard a Solid South view except they would say for the Yankee NW corner of the state.
Janet
March 17, 2012
Jessie Hainning Rupert
Please add her name to your list of Union Sympathizers in the Valley. She married into the Henkel family in June 1861. Her story is very well documented. The New Market County Historical Society has posted an article on her.
The Henkel Correspondence on the site “Physicians Lives in the Shenandoah Valley” gives some subtle clues on her personality. An undated letter from Confederate Dr. Caspar Henkel, probably in January 1862, on settling accounts: “I am inclined to think you will have some difficulty about Rupe’s amt if you do not settle it now when it is convenient. I do not see how there can ever be very kind feeling for persons who think so differently about our present troubles. You very well know she [wares] the pants & we all know what her views are.”
Robert Moore
April 2, 2012
Yes, I’m familiar with Rupert’s story and hope to blog something about it in the next month or so.
Richard
July 6, 2012
Came across this quote while reading Lincolns Loyalists. There day will come.
They were most efficient defenders of the Republic
whose loyalty was almost martyrdom.
History will do them justice,
when it shall come to be fairly & fully written.
-Charles H. Foster February 28, 1866
Robert Moore
July 7, 2012
Thanks for sharing this, Richard.