The Failure of Limited War, 1861–1862

Abstract

For every inhabitant of the Confederate states, there were more than two Americans who lived in loyal states. There were thousands of citizens of loyal states, especially in the two largest border slave states, Kentucky and Missouri, who actively supported the Confederacy. But they were more than counterbalanced by the white southerners, especially in the mountainous areas of east Tennessee, western North Carolina, western Virginia and northern Alabama, as well as parts of Texas and Arkansas, who remained loyal to the Union. And then there were the more than three and half million slaves and 130,000 free blacks in the Confederacy who were at best a double-edged sword to the Confederacy. On the one hand, their labor freed white men to serve in the Confederate army, allowing for one of the most complete mobilizations of the military-age population in history (more than 80 percent). On the other, about 150,000 black men from the Confederacy were eventually to serve in the Union army.