Were Tennesseans less likely to fight?

lupaglupa

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Since I've been home during quarantine I've had more time to input family history and it's reminded me of an odd fact about my ancestors - the men from Tennessee rarely fought in the Civil War. On my Mississippi side everyone fought. I am hard pressed to find any male member of my family between 14 and 50 who didn't join a unit and go to war. But my Tennessee side is the opposite. I have maybe one or two soldiers in the group - and it's a lot bigger pool of people than my Mississippi relatives.

Is this just a quirk of my family? Or were men from Tennessee less likely to join up? If so, did that differ by region? My people all come from Middle Tennessee. They saw plenty of nearby action during the war. But they kept to their farms.

Anybody have info or speculation on this?
 
I was reading a book about Winston County Alabama. They have a statue of a soldier in their town square. Half of the statue is Confederate, the other half is Union. They give the names of all the fallen soldiers Union and Confederate. There were around twice as many men who joined the union. The author points out that 300,000 Southerners fought for the Union. From West Virginia to Alabama. Mostly Appalachian folk. There is a cemetery near the headwaters of the Emory River on the Cumberland Plateau, in the great state of Tennessee, that has Union Soldiers resting there. They must be local because the graves were well kept and they had American Flags at the head if each grave.
Thanks for posting info and image. I would like to see a close-up of the statue to see how it is half Union & half Confederate. I'm not that familiar with units raised in the far East end of Tennessee. I know many were pro-Union. Colonel Fielding Hurst was one of the most well-known pro-Union Tennesseans but he was from McNairy County. When Tennessee seceded, they knew of Fielding Hurst's position and they had him arrested. He was released and I believe they planned to arrest him again but he left the county to eventually organize a cavalry unit and eventually became commander of the 6th Tennessee Cavalry(US).

Hmm. How would they tear down 1/2 of a statue?
 
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I would like to see a close-up of the statue to see how it is half Union & half Confederate.
Supposedly, 1/2 of his uniform is Union and 1/2 is Confederate. In his hand he holds a broken sword. Ive been there, but at the time, I didnt know that the uniform was supposed to be 1/2 and 1/2, so didnt look that closely.
 
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There was a saltpeter mine in White County. Were your relatives employed there. If so, they might have been exempted?

That area is pretty isolated. Would of had very few Slaves or Government. Plenty of places to hide. It had Calvary action during the War. Your relatives probably had less reason to get involved than most.
There's coal in White County, but I never heard of the saltpetre mine. That area was rife with guerrilla activity.
 
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This topic puts me in mind of one of the most remarkable Tennesseans of the Civil War period. Jim Key, a slave, was Nathan Bedford Forrest's groom. He used the passes that Forrest gave him to smuggle fleeing slaves into Union lines. He scouted for the Yankee's in Middle Tennessee & at times helped the Confederates. He was threatened with hanging by both sides. When asked why he didn't just pick a side, Jim Key replied that neither side was wholly on his side. Key went on to become a successful entrepreneur & along with his horse of the same name, one of the most famous personages in the country.
 
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Hard to know. But if a man from Tennessee got to Ohio, he probably did not register to vote and was anonymous except to his employer, or the owner he was renting from. If he got as far as Wisconsin, Minnesota or Iowa, conscription did not hit those states as hard, because they could meet their quotas. If he got to Oregon, he was out of the war and many places in Texas resisted conscription, especially after July 1863.
I suspect that a lot of men figured out quickly, if they did not own any slaves, and were not interested in that business, they had no stake in the war.
I fail to see a connection
 
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This topic puts me in mind of one of the most remarkable Tennesseans of the Civil War period. Jim Key, a slave, was Nathan Bedford Forrest's groom. He used the passes that Forrest gave him to smuggle fleeing slaves into Union lines. He scouted for the Yankee's in Middle Tennessee & at times helped the Confederates. He was threatened with hanging by both sides. When asked why he didn't just pick a side, Jim Key replied that neither side was wholly on his side. Key went on to become a successful entrepreneur & along with his horse of the same name, one of the most famous personages in the country.

Kind of like the Ents in Lord of the Rings. I would love to read about Jim Key. Has a book been written?
 
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Kind of like the Ents in Lord of the Rings. I would love to read about Jim Key. Has a book been written?
Oh my yes, Beautiful Jim Key: The Lost History of a Horse & a Man Who Changed the World is an astonishing story. It really does read like a book of fantastic fantasy. Instead, the lives of the two Jim Key’s produced a train load of documentation. The book is in print. There is also a PBS program about them.

Known locally as Dr Key even before emancipation, he was a gifted horse doctor & whisperer. His adventures during the war included nearly getting hanged by both sides. He joined his nephews at Ft Donelson & brought them out with Forrest. Key & Forrest were both from Bedford Co TN, so the General could have known him personally & certainly by reputation. It is not at all remarkable that he would want Jim to be his groom. Key used the pass Forrest gave him to conduct escaping slaves & carry information into Union lines.

After the war, he not only supported his white family, he put his nephews through Harvard. He made a fortune from a horse lineament. In a turn of fate that belongs in a children’s book (there is one) he discovered that his horse could spell & do simple math... Say What!?

On Antiques Roadshow an acquaintance of mine had a trunk filled with show bills & other artifacts from the remarkable career of the horse Jim Key beginning at the World Fair in Saint Lewis valued. The two Jim’s were the top grossing attraction.

Dr Key’s fame led him into the nascent humane movement. Both Jim’s are buried in Shelbyville TN. Get the book, you are in for a treat. Morgan Freeman has agreed to play Jim in the movie, but of course everything is on hold for now.
 
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On Antiques Roadshow an acquaintance of mine had a trunk filled with show bills & other artifacts from the remarkable career of the horse Jim Key beginning at the World Fair in Saint Lewis valued. The two Jim’s were the top grossing attraction.
Oh Wow !! I saw that episode on YouTube several months ago. Already knew of Jim Key the horse, fascinating story of the man.
Thanks for adding this information. A story to be remembered.
 
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The only men Unionist troops with Sherman were the 1st Alabama Cavalry who served as his color guard highly doubtful that Sherman would bring troops along if he didn't trust them to fight wholeheartedly against the Confederacy.
Leftyhunter
This is the same unit, if I recall. It was composed of Union men from both state, but I could be wrong. Lea's unit had both states in its designation, but he seems to have done a lot of riding the back roads. I didn't get the sense he was escorting Sherman.
 
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Of the states that seceded (not including Missouri and Kentucky) Tennessee had the second highest free population in the Confederacy, but ranked fourth in the number of troops contributed to the Confederate armies. That may be partially because of the Unionist sentiment of East Tennessee, but I think the progress of the War was more responsible. By early June, 1862, Federal troops occupied Nashville, Memphis and the most populous 2/3 of the state. By September, 1863, almost the entire state was occupied. With Union troops in control, recruitment was hazardous, and conscription impossible. Raids by Forrest and, to a lesser extent Morgan, were the only real means of getting men out of Tennessee and into the Confederate armies. Those men who were inclined to support the Confederacy also had to face the issue of abandoning their families while under Federal occupation.
Agree it's hard to get much from occupied states, they have to almost have nothing to lose.
 
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Slave population map Tennessee.jpeg

Detail from county by county 1860 Census Map. Library of Congress

Tennesseans Fought Each Other
This map showing Tennessee's 1860 slave population as a percentage of the county population is also a good indication of the divide between Union & Confederate enlistments. The reverse of the trend was 22,000 USCT's that came from the darker gradations. Some of the saddest CW soldier letters home I have ever read were written by East Tennessee draftees in Vicksburg.

Almost from the first echo of firing on Fort Sumpter reaching Tennessee, neighbors began fighting with neighbors. Old social resentments turned murderous. Here in Rutherford County, families returning from church in a buggy were blown up by I.E.D.'s. Men were shot through a window at the table while bending their head to bless a meal. Union East Tennessee Cavalry stationed near Murfreesboro were brutal to both slave-holder & slave alike. The murderous campaign to protect the Nashville & Chattanooga from "banditti" makes for very grim reading.

Of course, after the war, the Klux & other bitter-enders murdered neighbors black & white while being hunted down in turn to be slaughtered themselves.

I have no idea how much the population of other states were inclined to fratricidal fighting, but I suspect that Tennessee is second to none in that category.
 
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Yes, I would suspect that they were second to none. I would also suspect Missouri and Eastern KY to be right up there with them. Though I am not that familiar with Missouri .
 
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View attachment 384983
Detail from county by county 1860 Census Map. Library of Congress

Tennesseans Fought Each Other
This map showing Tennessee's 1860 slave population as a percentage of the county population is also a good indication of the divide between Union & Confederate enlistments. The reverse of the trend was 22,000 USCT's that came from the darker gradations. Some of the saddest CW soldier letters home I have ever read were written by East Tennessee draftees in Vicksburg.

Almost from the first echo of firing on Fort Sumpter reaching Tennessee, neighbors began fighting with neighbors. Old social resentments turned murderous. Here in Rutherford County, families returning from church in a buggy were blown up by I.E.D.'s. Men were shot through a window at the table while bending their head to bless a meal. Union East Tennessee Cavalry stationed near Murfreesboro were brutal to both slave-holder & slave alike. The murderous campaign to protect the Nashville & Chattanooga from "banditti" makes for very grim reading.

Of course, after the war, the Klux & other bitter-enders murdered neighbors black & white while being hunted down in turn to be slaughtered themselves.

I have no idea how much the population of other states were inclined to fratricidal fighting, but I suspect that Tennessee is second to none in that category.
Well when on one hand you say for example "Union East Tennessee Calvary were brutal to slave owner and slave alike" and the entire state under occupation, consequently which would leave scales of justice rather skewed.....

Not sure I would call opposition to post war injustices "bitter enders" as it would seem they very easily could been motivated by post war current events as much as past ones.
 
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Well when on one hand you say for example "Union East Tennessee Calvary were brutal to slave owner and slave alike" and the entire state under occupation, consequently which would leave scales of justice rather skewed.....

Not sure I would call opposition to post war injustices "bitter enders" as it would seem they very easily could been motivated by post war current events as much as past ones.
Local diarist John Spence wrote about the East Tennessee Cavalry's brutality. The official record substantiates his account. Call them what you will, but gangs of men who murdered unarmed neighbors & freemen were hardly reacting to injustices of any kind. Perhaps violent reactionaries is a more accurate description.
 
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This is the same unit, if I recall. It was composed of Union men from both state, but I could be wrong. Lea's unit had both states in its designation, but he seems to have done a lot of riding the back roads. I didn't get the sense he was escorting Sherman.
It was very common for Union Regiments to have men from many different states including local Southeners. Sherman designated the 1st Alabama has his Color Guard but that's an honorific designation.
Leftyhunter
 
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Local diarist John Spence wrote about the East Tennessee Cavalry's brutality. The official record substantiates his account. Call them what you will, but gangs of men who murdered unarmed neighbors & freemen were hardly reacting to injustices of any kind. Perhaps violent reactionaries is a more accurate description.
I agree, but as long as things like that could occur officially or unofficially sanctioned by Unionist government.....and a Republican or Unionist likely to get favored treatment legally over a Democrat or ex confederate........it's not surprising resistance to it occured.
 
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Just to Set the Record Straight
Perhaps, because the behavior of the 13th East Tennessee Cavalry is so well known in this area,
I have not adequately described their behavior toward both blacks & whites.
This is a singular example of Tennessean vs Tennesseans.
"The Freedmen of Gallatin [TN] were victims of probably the worst sustained military brutality against blacks in the region, at the hands of the 13th Tennessee Cavalry--a regiment of East Tennessee unionists & by all odds the most malicious band of Negrophobes among the Federal occupiers. Entering Gallatin in May, 1864, apprehending scornfully that the previous garrison troops "had made the 'colored man & brother' think he was the whole thing." the soldiers of the 13th set about to teach the town's contrabands a lesson. "They are the meanest men I ever saw," wrote a Gallatin girl, who's diary chronicles their terrorism, "but they have on good trait, they make the the negroes 'walk a chalk.' Within a day of their arrival the troopers burned down a black school, vowing that "they will have none of that while they stay here." Two days later, a soldier shot & killed a contraband, & soon after soldier vowed to "kill every negro in Gallatin" as soon as they could get away with it. A few weeks later, the troopers set fire to a new schoolhouse which the blacks had courageously opened. The travail of the freedmen of Gallatin was simply the ugliest manifestation of a phenomenon prevalent throughout Middle Tennessee form 1862 to 1865." Steven V. Ash
 
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That would be very difficult as it was common for all regiments to have out of state troops. Even the Missouri State Militia had troops from Illinois.
The 20th Indiana had troops from Alabama ,the 6th Kentucky Union had troops from Tennessee etc.
It wasn't uncommon for men to serve in both the Confederate and Union armies. I have a thread "Who has Unionist ancestors" and some of our posters had ancestors who fought for both armies.
Leftyhunter
I have a distant ancestor from PA who enlisted in PA, died at Andersonville identified with a VT unit...and his pension records suggest NY. After some research, apparently, Union enlistment officers paid soldiers from other states to enlist/re-enlist in their state's units in order to meet enlistment quotas...so, it was not uncommon for Union soldiers to serve with units, other than their home state. Makes it difficult to do ancestry research.
 
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