Conference smurf::civil_war

    I don't have any specific stories to relate, but in my many years
    of study of the woah, I've always been impressed by the strong
    anti-secessionist forces that were present throughout the South.
    
    There were strong pro-Union newspapers that never failed to stop
    pinging on po' old Jeff Davis, and reminding their readerships of
    the stupidity of leaving the Union.  Then, of course, there was
    Governor Brown of Georgia, who to a large extent refused to cooperate
    with the Richmond government.
    
    I have formed the opinion that the South tolerated anti-war feelings
    to a much greater degree than the North.

    
    	At Bull Run (Manassas) Frederick Hubbard of the Washington
    Artillery of New Orleans, who wore gray, for the first time in seven
    years met Henry Hubbard of the 1st Minnesota infantry, who wore blue.
    The brothers were wounded, and by coincidence placed side by side
    in the stable which served as a hospital.
    
    	The climax of the war for the 7th Tennessee Regiment, Confederate,
    was the capture of the complete 7th Tennessee, USA - warriors,
    drummers, cooks and all.
    
    	During the battle of Gettysburg John Wentz, an eighty-seven-year
    old farmer, hid in the cellar of his home while, in the yard above,
    his son, whom he had not seen for twenty-four years, fought in gray
    with the Washington Artillery of New Orleans. By tradition, the younger
    Wentz entered the cellar, found his father sleeping, and left a note
    pinned to his coat.
    
    	Not far away, on the same landscape, was another divided 
    Pennsylvania family. John Culp, owner of Culp's Hill, had one son in
    gray and one in blue. Both took part in the bitter fighting for the
    slopes of the homeplace.
    
    	For the siege of Vicksburg, Missouri furnished thirty-nine
    regiments - seventeen Confederate, twenty-two Union.
    
    	General Patrick Cleburne, CSA, had one brother in the Southern
    army and one in the Northern.
    
    					The Alabama Slammer
    

    I believe the town in Alabama that "left" the Confederacy was Florence.
    
    Rich
    

    At The Wilderness, the 1st Maryland C.S. Infantry tangled head-on
    with the 1st Maryland U.S. Infantry.  There was a 1st Texas U.S.
    Cavalry, too, generally called the "First Texas Traitors."  Most
    of the those boys couldn't go home after the war.  A high percentage
    of the Germans in Texas were anti-secession, and though many of
    them fought for the South with great distinction, some were
    "volunteered" at gunpoint and defected at the first opportunity.
    
    Two legends from Chickamauga:  A farm wife returned to her farm
    after the battle and found her husband's corpse in the front yard
    and her son's in the back yard, one Confederate, the other Federal.
    During the battle a Rebel infantry regiment was frantically moving
    into line of battle while up the slope from them, a Federal battery
    was frantically wheeling into action.  It was sort of a "fast draw
    contest."  As the Rebs came from ready to aim, one lad in the front 
    rank threw up his rifle and knocked up the rifle of the man beside
    him. He shouted, "Don't shoot, John!  There's Father."  In the next
    instant the battery and the infantry both fired, and the result
    has not been published.
    
    Like I said, these were both legends, and may not be true.
    
    In the New Mexico campaign, the Federal commander, Col. E.R.S. Canby
    was the brother-in-law of the Confederate commander, Gen. Henry
    Hopkins Sibley.  Canby's wife was Sibley's sister, and was among
    the wives left by the retreating Federals in Santa Fe.  Mrs. Canby
    won the love of the Texicans by nursing their sick and wounded until
    Federal authority was restored and the Rebels sent east to prison.
    
    Wess

    
    	Stonewall Jackson was the symbol of Southern resistance, but his
    sister Laura, a Union sympathizer, remained unshaken in her devotion
    to the Old Republic, and was applauded for her stand by Federal 
    soldiers. She sent a message by a Union soldier to the effect that she
    could "take care of wounded Federals as fast as brother Thomas would
    wound them."
    
    	Jeb Stuart's chief of staff, Major H.B. McClellan, had four 
    brothers in blue and a first cousin, George B. McClellan, was twice
    commander of the army of the Potomac.
    
    	In Confederate eyes General Ben Butler, "The Beast of New Orleans,"
    was perhaps the most despicable enemy figure, yet Butler had been a
    proslavery Democrat, and it was he who had once tried to nominate
    Jefferson davis for the Presidency of the United States, a move which,
    if successful, might have averted war.
    
    	Captain John L. Inglis, an Englishman with the Confederacy, led his
    Florida company on a valiant charge, overran the Federal guns, and
    accepted the surrender of their commander, his brother.
    
    
    						The Alabama Slammer

    Admiral Farragot, USN, who was famous for saying, "...damn the
    torpedos, full speed ahead..." at the battle of Mobile Bay during the
    Civil War, was a Tennessean, from Nashville.
    
    
    Wild Bill

    Sam Houston was driven from the office of Governor of
    Texas because he refused to go along with secession.
    
    The Germans in the Texas Hill Country were very much pro-Union.
    

	Perhaps this belongs in the personal geneaology note, but it also
	seems to relate to the topic of this one.

	My great-great-great-grandfather, Minos Barzillai Feemster, was
	a Presbyterian minister in Shannon, Mississippi. Wishing to avoid
	the turmoil that eventually became the Civil War, he moved to
	Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1860. That wasn't far enough: in 1862,
	Federal raiders burned his church. His son (and my g-g-grandfather)
	Samuel King Feemster enlisted in the Confederate Army as a chaplain
	at the outbreak of hostilities and served for the entire war.

	Perhaps more interesting was William D. Feemster, uncle of Minos.
	He was also a minister, and founded a church at Caledonia, 
	Mississippi, after his original home of Bullock Creek, South
	Carolina proved inhospitable to his ideas. In 1842, he proposed
	an anti-slavery question to his congregation, and after it passed,
	the pro-slavery members gradually left. William died a couple years
	before the Civil War, and was succeeded by his son, Silas.

	Upon the outbreak of war, the younger men of the congregation left
	home at night and went North to avoid Confederate service, leaving
	just the elderly men, women, and children, who apparently were able
	to coexist with their neighbors. Silas died a few years after the
	war, and was succeeded as minister by one of his sons.

	The most fiery abolitionist was Zenas Feemster, brother of Silas
	and also a minister, who was a circuit rider in small Alabama towns
	just over the border. His health was too poor for military service,
	but as he was under 50 and otherwise eligible, he was ordered to
	sign a loyalty oath to the Confederacy. Refusing, he also went
	North, and subsisted on odd jobs such as clock repair. He returned
	to Caledonia after the war, but apparently his neighbors made it
	hotter for him than for Silas, since he was forced to move to a
	new settlement in Missouri. His daughter Tirzah Jane moved to
	Missouri with him, along with her husband, a Confederate veteran!

	Yet another great-great-grandfather, Reuben Fletcher Cope from East
	Texas, was drafted into Confederate service in Louisiana. Finding
	the hardships of a Rebel soldier too much for someone not even
	sympathetic to the cause, he deserted and crossed over to Union-held
	territory.

	Certainly, reading about my family shows a level of conscription 
	that doesn't make it into the popular histories (but that's yet
	another note!).