Unionists and Unionism in the Confederacy

Dr. Butler, (Nau Center, UVa) tells a fascinating story about the history and memory of regiments such as the Unionist 1^st Louisiana Cavalry, 1^st Alabama Cavalry, and 13^th Tennessee Cavalry (Bradford’s Battalion) and about Unionists and Unionism in parts of the Confederacy, where their presence has previously been overlooked, or ignored. He examines the lives of the white Unionists in these Confederate states, to reveal who they were, why and how they took their Unionist stand, and what happened to them as a result.

In the deep South, unconditional white Unionists represented a small percentage of the total population. Most of these Unionists were very different from one another, yet by their unconditional loyalty they had an importance out of proportion to their numbers.

Butler gives us many captivating profiles of several individuals. For example, Henry Taliaferro, the only one of William Sherman’s students at the Louisiana State Military Academy (i.e. LSU), who joined the 1st Louisiana Cavalry, Algernon Badger, who ended the war as colonel of that regiment, David Snelling, who acted as one of Sherman’s guides during the March to the Sea, and William Bradford, whose battalion of white west Tennesseans who was massacred along with many African American troops at Fort Pillow by Nathan Forrest’s soldiers.

While Southerners, and apologists for the Confederacy, have understated the extent of white Unionism, Northerners assumed that white Unionists were more numerous than they actually were, and postwar were surprised at their seeming lack of support for the newly freed people during Reconstruction. To Confederates, white Unionists were “Tories” and traitors not only to the Confederacy, but also to the white race.

Butler also finds that these white southerners Unionists were surprising diverse in many ways, particularly in terms of crossing lines.

However, Butler argues that these same white Southern Unionists greatly helped build the “New South”, helping, to thwart “Radical Republican” programs during Reconstruction, which would lead to the Jim Crow era. Many of these men who were Unionists during the war, cooperated with the KKK in the post war era. This helps explain why the descendants of these white Unionists allowed the experience of their service to the Union to be forgotten in national memory.

Because True Blue focuses on white Union men, it thus fails to look at the role of white Unionist women, though Butler points out that women provided support to the war effort by carrying information, acting as spies, sheltering fugitives, or serving as guides and nurses.

A volume in the LSU series "Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War", True Blue is well-written and very readable, with many interesting anecdotes helping to illustrate Butler’s case, which is supported by copious notes, and is a must read for the serious scholar of the war, and will prove an interesting one for the arm chair student as well.

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