Union (American Civil War) - Unionists in South and Border States

Unionists in South and Border States

People loyal to the federal government and opposed to secession living in the border states (where slavery was legal in 1861)were termed Unionists. Confederates 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. East Tennessee never supported the Confederacy, and Unionists there became powerful state leaders, including governors Andrew Johnson and William G. Brownlow. Likewise, large pockets of eastern Kentucky were Unionist and helped keep the state from seceding. Western Virginia, with few slaves and some industry, was so strongly Unionist that it broke away and formed the new state of West Virginia.

Still, nearly 120,000 Southern Unionists served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and Unionist regiments were raised in every Southern state. Southern Unionists were extensively used as anti-guerrilla paramilitary forces. During Reconstruction many Unionists in the ex-Confederacy became Scalawags who supported the Republican Party.