Link: The Proposed "State of Nickajack"...

GreatMarch

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A little insight into extreme northern Alabama:

LINK
I have seen you post information on this subject before and, an honest question, would you say that this is a passion to find information on the pro union activities of North Alabama (particularly northern Walker County and Winston County) or is it something that is romanticized? I am not trying to be a butt asking that but I have seen you post information before and I had read and been told things that makes many of these people not the kindest of neighbors or people. Granted, every society has bad elements who will commit the most heinous of acts for their personal gain. My late maternal grandparents (both born in nineteen teens) came from towns that stretch between Walker and Winston Counties and things that their families knew and passed down along with research from others points to some pretty bad people who were not so much pro Union but looking out to gain their own fortunes at anyone else's expense. I don't say that to paint with a broad brush. This even hits my ancestry as there was a distant relative of my maternal grandmother who served as a Union spy during the Civil War (possibly did it for his own financial gain or did it out of pro union sympathies-who knows) who was lynched by members of one of these North Alabama pro union gangs thinking they had just caught some guy with a little wealth (cash on his person and riding a healthy horse). Granted, I am sure that he would not divulge that he was a spy with not knowing who the men were he was dealing with, but he also had no Confederate military papers, no uniform, nor a branded or marked Confederate horse. The murder was done strictly for gain of his possessions.
 

TIDE-HSV

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I have seen you post information on this subject before and, an honest question, would you say that this is a passion to find information on the pro union activities of North Alabama (particularly northern Walker County and Winston County) or is it something that is romanticized? I am not trying to be a butt asking that but I have seen you post information before and I had read and been told things that makes many of these people not the kindest of neighbors or people. Granted, every society has bad elements who will commit the most heinous of acts for their personal gain. My late maternal grandparents (both born in nineteen teens) came from towns that stretch between Walker and Winston Counties and things that their families knew and passed down along with research from others points to some pretty bad people who were not so much pro Union but looking out to gain their own fortunes at anyone else's expense. I don't say that to paint with a broad brush. This even hits my ancestry as there was a distant relative of my maternal grandmother who served as a Union spy during the Civil War (possibly did it for his own financial gain or did it out of pro union sympathies-who knows) who was lynched by members of one of these North Alabama pro union gangs thinking they had just caught some guy with a little wealth (cash on his person and riding a healthy horse). Granted, I am sure that he would not divulge that he was a spy with not knowing who the men were he was dealing with, but he also had no Confederate military papers, no uniform, nor a branded or marked Confederate horse. The murder was done strictly for gain of his possessions.
The short answer is "no." I don't know where on earth the stereotype of pro-Union people being a bunch of trash or criminals comes from. They were after all the majority, not the minority. The secession and following war were seen as a futile and self-serving movement for south Alabama slaveholders, who were a minority of the state at the time. It was a difference of opinion over the value and ideal of union, pure and simple. There were, as in most human conditions, an equal number of upstanding citizens and miscreants on each side. I didn't post this as an advocate for either point of view. I posted it as a matter of interest because I was unaware that such a state was ever proposed, although it did represent sentiment in this area. BTW, my father was born in 1895 and my grandfather Self in 1860. When I was growing up, these matters were discussed almost as a matter of current events. I have my great grandfather's diary from 1867, describing conditions immediately following the war...
 

Tidewater

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The was a book I read a while back called The Heart of Confederate Appalachia by Inscoe and McKinney.
The authors drew a distinction between eastern Tennessee Unionists and western North Carolina Unionists. The former genuinely preferred the Union. The latter were just wanted to be left alone and, due to military draft and Confederate taxes-in-kind, were anti-Confederate (but if they had been under Union occupation and suffered Union military draft and Union taxes in kind, would probably have been anti-Union.
Not sure how north Alabama Unionists fit into that.
It is interesting to me that all the counties north of a line from Talladega over to Tuscaloosa (except for Calhoun County) were opposed to immediate unilateral secession. Then, if you realize that most of the agricultural exports of northern Alabama (corn and mules) went north on the Tennessee River, and secession would have put a tariff barrier between north Alabama farmers and their Tennessee & Kentucky customers, it makes a bit more sense that they were reluctant to abandon the Union.

Just went and checked, and there were 14 slaveholding families (out of 651 families) in Winston County in the 1860 census.
 

Tidewater

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The short answer is "no." I don't know where on earth the stereotype of pro-Union people being a bunch of trash or criminals comes from.
Boy, I do. Democrats were the pro-secession party and they liked to foster the idea that everyone favored secession in 1861. University of Alabama's Professor George Rable (emeritus now, I believe) wrote in Confederate Republic about the southern search of unity, calling secession a "revolution against politics."
Plus, the unbelievable misconduct by the Republicans after the war made it darn hard for anyone to admit they had sided with the Union in 1861-1865. Not saying families like the Selfs did not speak approvingly of Union war service in north Alabama counties, but go to Montgomery and sing the praises Republicans in 1870, and you'd likely find someone to take issue with that interpretation.
Anyway, the idea that every Unionist was white trash was a Democratic party invention after the war. "Every decent white man supported the Confederacy. Only the miscreants were disloyal to Alabama..." It was not true, but that was the myth.
Plus, there were some ne'er-do-wells amongst those dodging the draft, and those dodging Confederate conscription officers were cast as "anti-southern" and criminal.
 

TIDE-HSV

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The was a book I read a while back called The Heart of Confederate Appalachia by Inscoe and McKinney.
The authors drew a distinction between eastern Tennessee Unionists and western North Carolina Unionists. The former genuinely preferred the Union. The latter were just wanted to be left alone and, due to military draft and Confederate taxes-in-kind, were anti-Confederate (but if they had been under Union occupation and suffered Union military draft and Union taxes in kind, would probably have been anti-Union.
Not sure how north Alabama Unionists fit into that.
It is interesting to me that all the counties north of a line from Talladega over to Tuscaloosa (except for Calhoun County) were opposed to immediate unilateral secession. Then, if you realize that most of the agricultural exports of northern Alabama (corn and mules) went north on the Tennessee River, and secession would have put a tariff barrier between north Alabama farmers and their Tennessee & Kentucky customers, it makes a bit more sense that they were reluctant to abandon the Union.

Just went and checked, and there were 14 slaveholding families (out of 651 families) in Winston County in the 1860 census.
Good question. I would venture that the north Alabama Unionists probably fit in the mold of the East TN, or, at least those living north of the TN River would. I would say that it was a mix of self-interest (trade, as you say) and ideology. In the case of the GGF, whose diary I have, I know that it was ideology, since he held slaves himself. He was a UVA graduate and his thinking, like most of that time, was heavily biblically-influenced. His favorite term for the Confederates was "vipers." In the end, I think that the north Alabamians just didn't feel that much commonality with the south Alabamians, with whom they had been grouped whimsically by pen on paper at a point in history. They came by a different migration route and were separated ethnically, primarily Scot/Irish, as opposed to primarily English. I grew up with the north/south Alabama schism being a fact which was discussed regularly...
 

TIDE-HSV

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Boy, I do. Democrats were the pro-secession party and they liked to foster the idea that everyone favored secession in 1861. University of Alabama's Professor George Rable (emeritus now, I believe) wrote in Confederate Republic about the southern search of unity, calling secession a "revolution against politics."
Plus, the unbelievable misconduct by the Republicans after the war made it darn hard for anyone to admit they had sided with the Union in 1861-1865. Not saying families like the Selfs did not speak approvingly of Union war service in north Alabama counties, but go to Montgomery and sing the praises Republicans in 1870, and you'd likely find someone to take issue with that interpretation.
Anyway, the idea that every Unionist was white trash was a Democratic party invention after the war. "Every decent white man supported the Confederacy. Only the miscreants were disloyal to Alabama..." It was not true, but that was the myth.
Plus, there were some ne'er-do-wells amongst those dodging the draft, and those dodging Confederate conscription officers were cast as "anti-southern" and criminal.
That's not what I meant. I'm well aware of the great consolidation following Reconstruction when people whose antecedents were Union found it convenient to forget that heritage. What I was referring to was his description of all such people as being criminals or nearly so. I never heard that growing up. He obviously did...
 

sabanball

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Interesting to consider how this (pro-unionists throughout the area) could have impacted Streight's Raid through the area in 1863 (2 years after the Free State of Winston is declared)



Streight's Raid took place from April 19 to May 3, 1863, in northern Alabama. It was led by Union Col. Abel D. Streight, whose goal was to destroy parts of the Western and Atlantic Railroad, which was supplying the Confederate Army of Tennessee. The raid was poorly supplied and planned, and ended with the defeat and capture of Streight and his 1,700 men at Cedar Bluff, Alabama, by Confederate Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest who had 500 men. Streight was additionally hindered by locals throughout his march, while pursued by Forrest, who had the advantage of home territory and the sympathy and aid of the local populace, most famously Emma Sansom.
Probably a long complicated list of happenings, lost to history, not in that quote from wiki.
 

TIDE-HSV

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Interesting to consider how this (pro-unionists throughout the area) could have impacted Streight's Raid through the area in 1863 (2 years after the Free State of Winston is declared)





Probably a long complicated list of happenings, lost to history, not in that quote from wiki.
Later in the war, but my family was spared of Union troops' foraging because they were Union. At any rate, I would imagine that an armed raid would be resisted throughout this region. That is the nature of the Scot... :D
 

Tidewater

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That's not what I meant. I'm well aware of the great consolidation following Reconstruction when people whose antecedents were Union found it convenient to forget that heritage. What I was referring to was his description of all such people as being criminals or nearly so. I never heard that growing up. He obviously did...
I think it was the ne'er-do-well component of draft dodgers. There were gangs of ne'er-do-wells all over the South in 1865 (I think over half the paper strength of the Confederate army was AWOL in 1865), who were neither pro-Union or pro-Confederate, but who just wanted to stay out of the army and had to support themselves by stealing. In the Deep South, that mostly meant avoiding Confederate conscription. From that point it is easy to lump a legitimate pro-Union soldier in with the less noble draft dodger/thief, since they both declined to turn up for Confederate enlistment.

You bring up an interesting point. For those areas of the slave states that were quickly occupied by Union forces (say the western slopes of what is now West Virginia or coastal NC or SC), and were theoretically subject to Union conscription officers, did draft dodging have the same moral cast as draft dodging in areas that remain under Confederate control until the end? Did a man who dodged the draft in the Outer Banks of NC or in Beaufort, SC or the Ohio River counties of WV earn an aura of a modern-day Robin Hood, or was he seen as the same as the draft dodger of Tuscaloosa County?
 

Tidewater

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Interesting to consider how this (pro-unionists throughout the area) could have impacted Streight's Raid through the area in 1863 (2 years after the Free State of Winston is declared)



Probably a long complicated list of happenings, lost to history, not in that quote from wiki.
For one thing, Streight started his campaign with two men per horse, hoping to pick up horses in northern Alabama. Starting out a long ride with half the necessary horses was not a wise move.
 

TIDE-HSV

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I think it was the ne'er-do-well component of draft dodgers. There were gangs of ne'er-do-wells all over the South in 1865 (I think over half the paper strength of the Confederate army was AWOL in 1865), who were neither pro-Union or pro-Confederate, but who just wanted to stay out of the army and had to support themselves by stealing. In the Deep South, that mostly meant avoiding Confederate conscription. From that point it is easy to lump a legitimate pro-Union soldier in with the less noble draft dodger/thief, since they both declined to turn up for Confederate enlistment.

You bring up an interesting point. For those areas of the slave states that were quickly occupied by Union forces (say the western slopes of what is now West Virginia or coastal NC or SC), and were theoretically subject to Union conscription officers, did draft dodging have the same moral cast as draft dodging in areas that remain under Confederate control until the end? Did a man who dodged the draft in the Outer Banks of NC or in Beaufort, SC or the Ohio River counties of WV earn an aura of a modern-day Robin Hood, or was he seen as the same as the draft dodger of Tuscaloosa County?
I have a hard time regarding them in 1865 all as "ne'er do wells" or draft dodgers. Most were really deserters who knew they had families starving back home and dropped their arms to quit a war they didn't have a personal interest in to return and try to salvage their farms. Mostly people tended to ignore drifters they knew were deserters. Have you read "Cold Mountain"? It's an excellent, well researched account of the era and the predicament of these men...
 

TIDE-HSV

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Facebook "friend of a friend" just posted that the first Congressional Medal of Honor winner from Madison County was Richard Taylor, who won it fighting in the Union Army...
 

cuda.1973

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Thanks for posting this. When I tell folks, who do not know the history of Alabama, that the "confedera-sah" (Cartman-ese, for those not familiar with it) was not all that popular with the dirt farmers, of Northern Alabama................well, the looks of disbelief I get...................

Or, quite possibly, they have no grasp of geography, and how certain agricultural activities revolve around that.
 
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