Union (American Civil War)

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During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the United States, the twenty-three states that were not part of the seceding Confederacy. Although the Union states included the Western states of California, Oregon, and (after 1864) Nevada, as well as states generally considered to be part of the Midwest, the Union is also often loosely referred to as "the North", both then and now

Overview

Because the term had been used prior to the war to refer to the entire United States (a "union of states"), using it to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the pre-existing political entity. Also, in the public dialogue of the United States, new states are "admitted to the Union," and the President's annual address to Congress and to the people is referred to as the "State of the Union" Address.

During the American Civil War, those loyal to the Federal Government and opposed to secession living in the border states and Confederate states were termed Unionists. Confederate soldiers sometimes styled them "Homemade Yankees." However, Southern Unionists were not necessarily northern sympathizers and many of them -- although opposing secession -- supported the Confederacy once it was a fact.

Still, nearly 120,000 Southern Unionists served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and every Southern state, except South Carolina, raised Unionist regiments. Southern Unionists were extensively used as anti-guerrilla forces and as occupation troops in areas of the Confederacy occupied by the Union. Since the Civil War, the term "Northern" has been a widely used synonym for the Union side of the conflict. Union is usually used in contexts where "United States" might be confusing, "Federal" obscure, or "Yankee" dated or derogatory.

Union states

The Union states were:

• California
• Connecticut
• Delaware*
• Illinois
• Indiana

• Iowa
• Kansas
• Kentucky*
• Maine
• Maryland*

• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Missouri*
• Nevada

• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New York
• Ohio
• Oregon

• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Vermont
• West Virginia*
• Wisconsin

*Denotes a border state. In Kentucky and Missouri, pro-secession factions declared for the South and those states were claimed by the Confederacy, but Unionist state governments remained in power.

Kansas joined the Union on January 14, 1861, after the secession crisis had begun but before the outbreak of fighting. West Virginia separated from Virginia and became part of the Union during the war, on June 20, 1863. Nevada also joined the Union during the war, on October 31, 1864.

See also

• Guerrilla Warfare: American Civil War

References

• Current, Richard N. Lincoln's Loyalists: Union Soldiers from the Confederacy. Oxford University Press, rpr. 1994. ISBN 0-19-508465-9.
• Mackey, Robert R. The UnCivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865. University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8061-3624-3.

External links

• Pro-Union Southerners
• Southern Unionists - from a history of the 1st Alabama Cavalry, U.S. Volunteers

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Last updated on Sunday March 09, 2008 at 18:25:38 PDT (GMT -0700)
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