A foot in both camps?

[Steve Hale]

Is there anyone on here who had ancestors fighting for both sides?

 

[Rob9641]

Not me, but while mine fought for the Union, my late husband's fought for the Confederacy.

 

[Steve Hale]

Reason I ask is that, given the amount of hardship among ordinary working folk in many of the Southern States, I think there must have been a lot of migration to the more 'affluent' North, without knowing what was to come later. Families could well have become split...I know it happened in the Spanish Civil War and in Angola.

 

[johan_steele]

I've known quite a few over the years. The veterans got along w/ each other better after the war than some would like you to believe. Men who have shared the hell of war tend to get along better w/ each other than those who haven't.

 

[Steve Hale]

I've known quite a few over the years. The veterans got along w/ each other better after the war than some would like you to believe. Men who have shared the hell of war tend to get along better w/ each other than those who haven't.

So very true. I knew a guy who was a Paratrooper in the Falklands War, and after he left he went into Close protection work, private security, that kind of thing. He then found that he was being trained with a an Argentine who was down there as well. Far from any kind of antagonism, the two of them realised that they were pawns in a bigger game and understood those days when they just 'didn't want to talk about it.' I'm sure the old fellers in 1866 must have had similar feelings.

 

[Baggage Handler #2]

cousins/uncles yes. Directs, unknown. Some of the records are a little sketchy in the area of northern Virginia & Missouri from around that time. One or two appear to have moved north as orphans during the war.

English civil war, I believe so.

 

[James B White]

I did, but it's a different pattern than you're asking about. All were from slave states, but the states were border states, so my ancestors all made typical community decisions about which side to fight for. Those on opposite sides didn't know each other at the time. The families from opposite sides first intermarried around the early 20th century, still all in the general border states' region.

 

[PartywithArty]

All confederate here. I once though one of my Flynn ancestors was a yank,and was just as proud of his as i am my confederates,but later found the flynn i had found was not the same flynn in my family tree...

 

[Red Harvest]

Is there anyone on here who had ancestors fighting for both sides?

Not direct on my side that I've found. Mine were primarily Missourian, fought for the Union. I expected a mix, but didn't see it even with cousins and such. If I go back far enough tracing the tree from Pennsylvania and Virginia back to pre-American Revolution I come up with various distant relatives that fought for the CSA in Virginia and I found a tentative link to a CSA Lt. Col. in Missouri.

One of my g-g-grandmothers was an orphan so I know nothing about her family.

I haven't researched my wife's side yet, but expect it to be primarily confederate.

 

[Nathanb1]

Is there anyone on here who had ancestors fighting for both sides?

Yes.

 

[pattyjo]

I had an ancestor who was from Maryland which I always thought was part of the South He was Union, I was talking to 2 women yesterday who say that MD is considered "The North" I never knew that, I always though of Maryland as a soutthern state Any thoughts on this? I know my relatives always considered themselves southerners, One girl said "Well down here in North Carolina we see MD as the north

 

[oldpete63]

Is there anyone on here who had ancestors fighting for both sides?

Yep - and the recent ones still do

 

[James B White]

I had an ancestor who was from Maryland which I always thought was part of the South He was Union, I was talking to 2 women yesterday who say that MD is considered "The North" I never knew that, I always though of Maryland as a soutthern state Any thoughts on this? I know my relatives always considered themselves southerners, One girl said "Well down here in North Carolina we see MD as the north

Depends on the definition of "southern." There's no universally agreed-upon one.

 

[Jayboss1]

In this area it's really not that uncommon. I suppose that's true in other border states too. I have close friend from Kentucky, he has several on both sides. He said there and West Virginia it's not uncommon to see families split up. Like I said border states would probably be the most plausible areas for some in each camp.

 

[Robtweb1]

I did. Look at the list in my signature. The 28th Louisiana and the 87th Illinois were both at Mansfield, LA during the Red River Campaign.

 

[wayne jackson]

yes,the manskers and jacksons

 

[tmh10]

I was born and raised in the state Of West Virginia, a state created as a result of the Civil War. Almost everybody here had family that fought on both sides and some that switched sides while it was going on.

 

[BevLind]

Researching my family, there seems to be confusion about one gg grandfather regarding this. He initially signed up in northern Alabama but was later captured and imprisoned by Union forces. The story that filtered down to us was that he "ended up" fighting for the Union. But research is ferreting out that he really did not. At the war's end, he signed a Union loyalty oath to secure his release, and he seems to have settled in Kansas after that for twenty years or so before returning home.

It's interesting that the story would end up in the family that he fought on both sides when actually this didn't happen.

Perhaps along the same lines, I did discover when researching this there was a Tennessee Union army that had easier access to potential Confederate volunteers in Tennessee. I've discovered some in the same family in northern Alabama joined these Union forces, while brothers and/or first cousins joined the Confederacy. There's a book that describes more about this army entitled "Homegrown Yankees: Tennessee Union Cavalry in the Civil War" by James Alex Baggett, in case you're interested.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

All Union on this side. It's not completely impossible that there may have been some distant relatives in Virginia and North Carolina in Confederate service, but none that I know of, and no direct ancestors.

My sister's husband's family are Georgians, though. I haven't asked, but I rather strongly suspect they wore gray at one point. (Some day I may sing 'Marching Through Georgia' to him if he annoys me... but he's not an annoying person, so it may never happen.)

 

[Dave Hull]

I have ancestors who fought on both sides, Virginia and New York, but those fellows were not related at the time. Nineteen confirmed members of my family fought for Virginia on my father's side and two confirmed members were New York Cav troopers on my mother's side.

I do not believe there were any more from my mom's side who might have fought in the war as the majority of the family at the time were in the Canadian Army, but there is a possibility.

On my dad's side it is quite possible more members of the family fought in the war and there are stories of a number of cousins who fought for the Union, but I have not been able to track them down and confirm it. It does make sense as the family was one of the founding families of what would later become Pendleton County WV and Highland County Virginia. At some point around 1840, the family started to migrate north west and ended up in Ohio, but we have not been able to get a good fix on the dates.

From my research doing our family tree, the family was very large from the late 18th- early 19th century, with an average of nine children per couple. It also appears as though 80% of the children born on my dad's side of the family were male, so there is an excellent chance we had close family members on opposite ends of muzzles.