Hawk1981
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- Apr 1, 2020
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During the secession crisis and subsequent Civil War the Southern upcountry yeomen discovered themselves as a political class. From the earliest days of settlement, there had never been a single white South. In 1860 a majority of white Southerners lived not in the plantation belt but in the upcountry, an area of small farmers and herdsmen who owned few slaves or none at all. In these yeoman areas, the elections for delegates to secession conventions in the winter of 1860-61 produced massive repudiations of disunion and from the outset of the war disloyalty was extensive in the Southern mountains.
From its beginnings the Confederacy suffered from a rising tide of intense domestic hostility, a violent inner civil war, brought on largely by those most responsible for the Confederacy’s creation. Planters excused themselves from the draft in various ways, then grew far too much cotton and tobacco, and not nearly enough food. Soldiers went hungry, as did their families back home. Women defied Confederate authorities by staging food riots from Richmond, Virginia, to Galveston, Texas. Soldiers deserted by the tens of thousands, and draft evasion became commonplace. By 1864, the draft law was practically impossible to enforce and two-thirds of the Confederate army was absent with or without leave. Many deserters and draft dodgers formed armed bands that controlled vast areas of the Southern countryside.
The struggle of Southern Unionists not only helped weaken the Confederate war effort but bequeathed to Reconstruction explosive political issues, and unresolved questions. Their loyalty to the Union did not imply abolitionist sentiment during the war or a commitment to the rights of blacks thereafter, although they were perfectly willing to see slavery sacrificed to preserve the Union. Southern white Unionism was essentially defensive, a response to the undermining of local autonomy and economic self-sufficiency, along with a keen dislike for the ruling class that brought about the devastating impact of the war.
From its beginnings the Confederacy suffered from a rising tide of intense domestic hostility, a violent inner civil war, brought on largely by those most responsible for the Confederacy’s creation. Planters excused themselves from the draft in various ways, then grew far too much cotton and tobacco, and not nearly enough food. Soldiers went hungry, as did their families back home. Women defied Confederate authorities by staging food riots from Richmond, Virginia, to Galveston, Texas. Soldiers deserted by the tens of thousands, and draft evasion became commonplace. By 1864, the draft law was practically impossible to enforce and two-thirds of the Confederate army was absent with or without leave. Many deserters and draft dodgers formed armed bands that controlled vast areas of the Southern countryside.
The struggle of Southern Unionists not only helped weaken the Confederate war effort but bequeathed to Reconstruction explosive political issues, and unresolved questions. Their loyalty to the Union did not imply abolitionist sentiment during the war or a commitment to the rights of blacks thereafter, although they were perfectly willing to see slavery sacrificed to preserve the Union. Southern white Unionism was essentially defensive, a response to the undermining of local autonomy and economic self-sufficiency, along with a keen dislike for the ruling class that brought about the devastating impact of the war.