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There are examples. I don't have time to ennumerate the many instances of the violent repression of Southern Unionists. But in terms of the armed conflict, the secessionist militias on the border states pretty much dissolved when pressed and many of the members crossed over and joined Federal outfits. In the Indian Territory, the official regiment of the bogus Confederate Cherokee government crossed over at the first opportunity in late 1861 to fight against the secessionists. After the rebels rebuilt that regiment, they put the new recruits into the field in 1862, and they crossed over en masse and reorganized as a Union regiment. This sort of thing also happened in Arkansas. What you see about the MEMORY of the Civil War tells us nothing about the war itself. The ruling class down there imposed the entire rationalizing mythos of "the Lost Cause" on the section along with Jim Crow. I remember being on the Pea Ridge battlefield once and one of the rangers there was complainign that they can't do much as much reenacting as he'd like because people around there just won't wear the blue uniform. This was where three-quarters of the white population were actually Unionists. I've seen those statues on the courthouse lawns all over the South in counties where the majority of those who participated in the Civil War fought against secession. Most telling to me was what happened when the dead weight of the region's ruling class no longer bore down on the population. New Orleans provided one remarkable example, a case where the Federal authorities had to keep pulling in the white mechanics who were arguing that a new loyal state government there should include black suffrage and citizenship--and that was 1863. The conflict was the Second American Revolution on many levels, though often more in its promise than the delivery. But one aspect of thsi was what happened in the South. ML ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
