Who Would You Fight For North Or South Where You Live Today...

Being a Brit I’d have to be an observer, I’d probably drink a lot of tea and enjoy the fact that I was neutral, I’d also travel around for a bit, maybe chill out with Grant over a whiskey and then hop over to the other side and enjoy a shad bake and a glass of Champaign with Pickett. You know, war is terribly good fun when you don’t have to get involved...what what.


Best response I've heard all day, lol!
 
I wouldn't call people who fight to enslave their fellow Southerners Patriots. I have mentioned them before and we're talking about a small amount of men.
Leftyhunter
I wouldn't call Union soldiers who enlisted to serve a stated goal of preserving slavery patriots either then, and they were a rather large amount of men.

As i pointed out earlier if one didn't want to defend slavery, running to Canada was the option.
 
I wouldn't call Union soldiers who enlisted to serve a stated goal of preserving slavery patriots either then, and they were a rather large amount of men.

As i pointed out earlier if one didn't want to defend slavery, running to Canada was the option.
After the Emancipation Proclamation all Union soldiers were fighting to free slaves in the South. After the EP slavery was not going to last to long in the rest of the US.
Leftyhunter
 
After the Emancipation Proclamation all Union soldiers were fighting to free slaves in the South. After the EP slavery was not going to last to long in the rest of the US.
Leftyhunter
Odd I always had the impression most enlisted in the first two years of the war......when both the president and congress had stated the goal wasn't to end slavery........Later in the war, they were being drafted...........
 
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If I were living in Lafayette County in North Mississippi in 1861 I would more than likely be a poor educated farmer or perhaps a skilled trade man who knew little if anything about the US Constitution. Politics to me would have been all about the local races and positions and perhaps a little interest regarding state politics.
If I were fortunate enough to be literate and I could read a local paper or mayhaps one from Jackson or Memphis, neither of which would have been in favor of staying in the Union. If all the local young men, who I had known since birth, along with my family members and others (perhaps a few of middle age) were joing the local militia company with family and community supporting and honoring them, DO YOU THINK I WOULD NOT JOIN UP?
Put aside all the noble thoughts you have stemming from what we know today, would you go against family and your neighbors?
Tough decision.
No excuses just an honest look at the circumstances surrounding the young on both sides in 1861
Regards
David
 
My family is German and Irish and comes from New York and Ohio. Even though I live in a border state now (albeit one where I can actually see Cincinnati), my people fought for the Union, and that’s where I’d cast my lot.

If nothing else, I’d be shivering in Fort Whittlesey or Fort Mitchel waiting on Bragg and Smith.........
 
No not at all. From that same article 24k North Carolina soldiers deserted and five thousand black North Carolina men joined the USCT. Also the article notes many North Carolina troops were drafted . We also know there were Unionist guerrillas in Western North Carolina.
Add it all up and that's over thirty thousand men not a small percentage of North Carolina manpower.
Leftyhunter

No not at all. From that same article 24k North Carolina soldiers deserted and five thousand black North Carolina men joined the USCT. Also the article notes many North Carolina troops were drafted . We also know there were Unionist guerrillas in Western North Carolina.
Add it all up and that's over thirty thousand men not a small percentage of North Carolina manpower.
Leftyhunter
Seems many more Union soldiers deserted than Confederate did. Ouch!
 
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I live in Lampasas, Texas, which was then on the Comanche frontier. Since all of the Federal forts had been abandoned, leaving the settlements unprotected, I would volunteer for the Frontier Regiment, a unit of state troops raised to patrol the from the Red River to the Rio Grande to prevent Indian incursions. I would be doing my duty to defend my State and family without compromising my Unionist sentiments.
 
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