Union (American Civil War)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Union (Civil War))
Jump to: navigation, search
In this map:      Union states prohibiting slavery      Union territories      Border states on the Union side which allowed slavery      Kansas, which entered and fought with the Union as a free state after the Bleeding Kansas crisis      The Confederacy      Confederate claimed and sometimes held territories
In this map:      Union states prohibiting slavery      Union territories      Border states on the Union side which allowed slavery      Kansas, which entered and fought with the Union as a free state after the Bleeding Kansas crisis      The Confederacy      Confederate claimed and sometimes held territories

During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the United States, the twenty-three states that were not part of the seceding Confederacy. Although the Union states included the Western states of California, Oregon, and (after 1864) Nevada, as well as states generally considered to be part of the Midwest, the Union is also often loosely referred to as "the North", both then[1] and now[2].

Contents

Because the term had been used prior to the war to refer to the entire United States (a "union of states"), using it to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the pre-existing political entity. Also, in the public dialogue of the United States, new states are "admitted to the Union," and the President's annual address to Congress and to the people is referred to as the "State of the Union" Address.

During the American Civil War, those loyal to the Federal Government and opposed to secession living in the border states and Confederate states were termed Unionists. Confederate soldiers sometimes styled them "Homemade Yankees." Nearly 120,000 Southern Unionists served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and every Southern state, except South Carolina, raised Unionist regiments. Southern Unionists were extensively used as anti-guerrilla forces and as occupation troops in areas of the Confederacy occupied by the Union. Since the Civil War, the term "Northern" has been a widely used synonym for the Union side of the conflict. Union is usually used in contexts where "United States" might be confusing, "Federal" obscure, or "Yankee" dated or derogatory.

The Union states were:

*Denotes a border state. In Kentucky and Missouri pro-secession factions declared for the South and those states were claimed by the Confederacy, but Unionist state governments remained in power.

Kansas joined the Union on January 29, 1861, after the secession crisis had begun but before the outbreak of fighting. West Virginia separated from Virginia and became part of the Union during the war, on June 20, 1863. Nevada also joined the Union during the war, on October 31, 1864.

  • Current, Richard N. Lincoln's Loyalists: Union Soldiers from the Confederacy. Oxford University Press, rpr. 1994. ISBN 0-19-508465-9.
  • Mackey, Robert R. The UnCivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865. University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8061-3624-3.


Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_%28American_Civil_War%29"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.