Knoxville Loyalty

[jimwinsor]

In the 1861 campaigns, I notice that Knoxville TN has 100% CSA loyalty. In reality, that area of east TN was a hotbed of Unionism, requiring anti-partisan campaigns by the CSA.

[PhilThib]

Could you provide more info on that, I'd be glad to include it back into the setups ?
Was it still the case in 1862, 1863 ?

[jimwinsor]

Yeah, pretty much pro-Union throughout the war; a brief summary can be found here: http://www.lib.utk.edu/~outreach/utkpubs/infoissues/civilwar.html

[LMUBill]

It was about 50/50 support. Typically you would have one side's forces move in and all of their supporters would come out of the woodwork. Once they left or were run out and the other side came in then all of their supporters would come out of the woodwork.... and usually went after the other side's supporters.

As a generalization, the mountain areas and areas in some of the larger cities were usually where all the Unionists were located. The larger farm areas and business-types in the cities usually went with the CSA. Although there were usually supporters of both types all over. Scott County, Tennessee, even went so far as to officially secede from Tennessee went Tennessee went with the CSA.

I had an ancestor on one side of the Clinch River who went fought the USA and another who lived directly across the river who fought with the Confederacy, although that one crossed the Virginia border (about 2 miles away) and fought with the 50th VA.

That is why you had such a large amount of bushwacker/partisan (or whatever you want to call it) activity in the area.

[frank7350]

sorry...dunno how we missed that in beta

[Chris0827]

Western Virginia, Eastern and Northern kentucky, Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, and Northern Georgia all had a significant pro-Union population. We need to find out what percentage of the southern voters were in favor of seccesion in each area to accurately model this. Unfortunately I've never seen that information online.

[LMUBill]

There was a website that used to have the county-by-county voting for Virginia but it was deleted by the web host (AOL) and the site's owner hasn't ever re-uploaded it.

Here is that site's home page.....
Virginia Civil War Home Page

Here is a brief article about East Tennessee..... http://www.tngenweb.org/campbell/hist-bogan/secession.html

Let me dig around a little bit and see what I can find.....
See if this works.
Tennessee Secession Vote

[PhilThib]

Yeas, getting the list of our counties and the Reb/Union percent would be excellent to fine tune the scenarios... I may even add some partisans/bushwacking activity by event script there if I can get that kind of knowledge...

[LMUBill]

If you want some historical accuracy the most notorious of the bushwackers around here was Champ Ferguson. But if you include him he lived along the TN-KY border (and has historical markers in both states) so you would have to tweak the rules about being in a home state giving him an advantage.... maybe make it into certain regions.

[Le Ricain]

The May 23rd 1861 Secession for VA by county.

http://www.newrivernotes.com/va/vasecesh.htm

It is interesting to note that Loudoun county which provided the pro-union partisan unit, Loudoun Rangers, voted in favour of secession. The county was divided over the issue.

[Wolfpack]

I hope this will not be used to strictly reflect anything in game, but a list of secessional voting in North Carolina can be found here:

http://members.aol.com/jweaver303/nc/convvote.htm

I cannot vouch for the authenticity of these numbers, but it was all I could find on short notice. As with the rest of the south, and some border states that eventually stayed with the Union, all counties were split to varying degrees on the issue of secession, just as the northern counties would have been split if they were to have been asked to vote on whether or not it was worth going to war to keep the "rebels" in the Union. What is important to keep in mind is this: North Carolina was one of the last states to secede, and by a slim margin, with much of WNC remaining pro-Union. However, after the decision was made, many, if not most, who did not want to see their state secede, defended her and her decision with their lives. North Carolina did not secede hastily, nor unanimously, but in the end she provided some of the best equipped soldiers to the Confederate Army, and sacrificed more lives than any other state in the Confederacy.

Voting whether or not your state should go to war, and whether or not you will support your state should it go to war against your wishes are two different things.

[Le Ricain]

Wolfpack,

Am I correct in reading from your link that the North Carolina vote produced 85 pro-Union and only 35 pro-secession delegates? How did NC leave the Union?

At least in Georgia, they apparently rigged the vote. Researchers in the 1970's discovered that several thousand more voters took part in the secession referendum than had in the 1860 presidential election. Adding up the results as reported in the various newspapers showed that the secession proposal had been narrowly defeated. The official count at the time had the secession motion passing by 5,000 votes. As Boss Tweed once said, 'Voters don't count. It is the votes that count and we count the votes'.

[christof139]

Many areas of the South voted against Secession, and after Ft. Sumter was attacked, votes were again held to determine whether to seceede or not in the States that had not already seceeded. Nearly the entire Shenandoah Valley region voted against secession, including I do believe Stonewall Jackson's home county.

Many people did not want to seceede, including many Southern leaders and politicians such as Sam Houston of Texas etc.

IOTW, secession was not a universal attitude in the South, and there acually was not any great hatreds or dislikes between the people of the North and South.

Chris

[Wolfpack]

Le Ricain, as I said, I can't vouch for the authenticity of the numbers, but I was wondering as well. As Christof mentions, there may have been a secondary vote. I need to do more research on this.

[Wolfpack]

Le Ricain, I found this posted on http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/civilwar/about_section1b.html

On February 28, North Carolina voters rejected a call for a convention to discuss the state's relationship with the Federal government. However, support for the Union eroded rapidly in April with the firing on Fort Sumter and with Lincoln's demand that North Carolina and the other states furnish troops to force the seceded states back into the Union. The announcement of a Federal blockade of the Southern coastline followed shortly. Under these circumstances, the majority of white North Carolinians felt they had little recourse but to align themselves with the newly formed Confederacy. Governor John W. Ellis, who favored secession, summoned a special session of the legislature, which authorized a state convention to meet in Raleigh. On May 20, 1861, the convention dissolved North Carolina's association with the United States.

The link in my initial post appears to be a breakdown of the initial (Feb) call for convention, before Ft Sumter and Lincoln's call up.

At this time I cannot find any other county breakdowns of NC secession voting that might represent the later (May) vote that resulted in the convention and following secession.

[Le Ricain]

Le Ricain, I found this posted on http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/civilwar/about_section1b.html

On February 28, North Carolina voters rejected a call for a convention to discuss the state's relationship with the Federal government. However, support for the Union eroded rapidly in April with the firing on Fort Sumter and with Lincoln's demand that North Carolina and the other states furnish troops to force the seceded states back into the Union. The announcement of a Federal blockade of the Southern coastline followed shortly. Under these circumstances, the majority of white North Carolinians felt they had little recourse but to align themselves with the newly formed Confederacy. Governor John W. Ellis, who favored secession, summoned a special session of the legislature, which authorized a state convention to meet in Raleigh. On May 20, 1861, the convention dissolved North Carolina's association with the United States.

The link in my initial post appears to be a breakdown of the initial (Feb) call for convention, before Ft Sumter and Lincoln's call up.

At this time I cannot find any other county breakdowns of NC secession voting that might represent the later (May) vote that resulted in the convention and following secession.

Thanks for the search as it answers my question. Interesting to note that initially there was little support for secession. Ft Sumter, of course, would have changed everything...makes sense. I wonder if they bothered with another state-wide vote.