Loyalty and loss : Alabama's Unionists in the Civil War and Reconstruction / Margaret M. Storey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Storey, Margaret M., 1969-

Series:

Conflicting worlds

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Unionists (United States Civil War)--Alabama.

Unionists (United States Civil War).

Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877)--Alabama.

Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877).

Alabama.

Alabama--History--Civil War, 1861-1865.

History.

Physical Description:

xv, 296 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2004]

Summary:

A previously hidden corner of history reveals that the Palmer family of Alabama named their children after northern Union heroes like Sherman and Grant rather than Confederate favorites such as Jackson and Lee. Margaret M. Storey's welcome study uncovers and explores those Alabamians who, like the Palmers, maintained allegiance to the Union when their state seceded in 1861 -- and beyond.

Though slavery was widespread and antislavery sentiment rare in Alabama, there emerged a small loyalist population, mostly in the northern counties, that persisted in the face of overwhelming odds against their cause. Storey's extensive, groundbreaking research discloses a socioeconomically diverse group that included slaveholders and nonslaveholders, business people, professionals, farmers, and blacks. Narratives of their wartime experiences, culled by Storey from the papers of the Southern Claims Commission -- a federal agency established in 1871 to consider the wartime property damage claims of loyal white and black southerners -- indicate in astonishingly rich detail the chaos and destruction that occurred on the southern home front.

Storey considers the political, social, and military aspects of unionism in Alabama. And by examining the years 1861-1874 as a whole, she clearly connects loyalists' sometimes brutal wartime treatment with their postwar behavior. Ties among kin and neighbors as well as between masters and slaves shaped and sustained unionists' ability to oppose the Confederacy and aid the North. After the war, those same ties fueled loyalists' resistance to Democratic control and gave rise to their demands that only the "truly loyal" receive authority in the South.

By extending the study of unionism into the Deep South, Storey sheds important light on the internal strife of the Confederacy as well as the nature of resistance itself.

Contents:

1. "Flag of Our Fathers": The Political Culture of Loyalism 18

Political Ideology 20

Social and Cultural Contours of Unionism 37

2. "To Evade the Conscript": Resisting the Confederate Draft 56

Treason and Sedition 59

Conscription: Enforcement and Resistance 66

Lie-Outs and Their Collaborators 74

3. "The Loyal Alabamians Are Invaluable": Unionists, Slaves, and Federal Occupation 87

Boundaries of Union Occupation 90

Crossing the Lines 96

Escaping Slavery 111

Foraging and Destruction 123

4. "Wild Justice": Unionists, Slaves, and the Federal Counterinsurgency Effort in North Alabama 133

Confederate Guerrillas and Their Aims 136

Aid, Comfort, and Intelligence 140

Guides and Scouts 151

Unionist Partisan Fighters 159

5. "Stripped Twice By": The Limits of Presidential Reconstruction 170

The 1865 Constitutional Convention 174

Return to Rebel Rule 178

Search for Justice 187

6. "The Day of Our Ruin": Radical Activism and Klan Backlash 196

Political Organizing under Congressional Reconstruction 200

The 1867 Constitutional Convention 205

"The Day of Our Ruin" 215

Appendix 1 A Note on the Sources 237

New Counties and Their Predecessors, 1865-1874 242

Appendix 2 Questions Used in Interrogation by the Southern Claims Commission 244

Appendix 3 Demographic Tables 254.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-286) and indexes.

ISBN:

0807129356

OCLC:

53145395