True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Clayton J. Butler

Abstract

Reviewed by: True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Clayton J. Butler Jonathan A. Noyalas (bio) True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Clayton J. Butler. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022. ISBN 978-0-8071-7662-7. 248 pp., cloth, $45.00. On August 29, 1866, a newspaper correspondent in Madison, Wisconsin, reflected on the critical role Southern unionists played and the sacrifices they endured to ensure [End Page 110] the Union’s restoration. “What men merit more the esteem . . . of the country than these tried Unionists of the South,” the journalist pondered in the Wisconsin State Journal. While the experiences of Southern unionists largely fell into obscurity for more than a century after the Civil War’s guns fell silent, historians since the turn of the twenty-first century have made significant strides in chronicling the experiences and contributions of those who resided in the Confederacy, but ardently supported the Union. Clayton Butler’s recent volume, prodigiously researched and eloquently crafted, adds significantly to that historiography. Butler’s study explores the lives of unconditional white unionists in the Deep South, primarily through the service and experiences of three US regiments organized in the Confederacy—the First Louisiana Cavalry, First Alabama Cavalry, and Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry. The author freely admits that while this methodology excludes certain groups, namely white Southern unionist women, a close examination of the troops who served in these regiments reveals much about what fueled unconditional unionists’ allegiance, how they asserted themselves, how they were perceived in the Confederacy, and how Northerners regarded them. While the author addresses the complex factors that prompted individuals to unconditional unionism—class resentment, disagreement with secession’s legitimacy, economic factors, political considerations, and the belief that loyalty to the Union presented the best opportunity to safeguard slavery—much of this study’s core focuses on the challenges those unconditional unionists confronted. Butler cogently chronicles how some white unconditional unionists, such as those in New Orleans, maintained a low profile while Confederates occupied the city—out of a fear of reprisals. Others, particularly after Confederate conscription went into effect in the spring of 1862, believed the only way they could protect themselves and their families was to report for duty, thus creating the illusion of Confederate loyalty. The author rightly contends that this proved not only a useful mode of survival but offered unionists who resided in more remote parts of the Deep South an opportunity to get closer to Union lines, desert, and then offer their services to the United States. Other unionists, such as a contingent that resided in Texas and enlisted in the First Louisiana Cavalry, took a circuitous route through Mexico to reach New Orleans to join the regiment. Butler’s analysis of how unionists prior to enlistment balanced survival with allegiance is quite powerful. Hindrances, as the author clearly asserts, did not diminish once in the United States’ service. Union soldiers, such as those in the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, were massacred because of their unconditional unionism, along with US Colored Troops, at Fort Pillow in the spring of 1864. While Butler vividly recounts the many ways Confederates violently lashed out against Southern unionist soldiers, he states that although much admired by Northerners, at times Southern [End Page 111] unionists became the target of scorn from white Northern soldiers. For instance, when veterans of the Second Rhode Island Cavalry were ordered to merge with the First Louisiana Cavalry in the summer of 1863, some Rhode Islanders protested: they despised the idea of belonging to a regiment from a state that contributed so much to the Confederacy. Numerous trials, as the author notes in the book’s final two chapters, faced unconditional white unionists in the Civil War’s immediate aftermath. Some confronted attacks and destruction of property from former Confederates. On various occasions these reprehensible activities compelled some to move west and begin life anew. Butler also explores the divisions that formed among white unconditional unionists as to the merits of disenfranchising former Confederates and the necessity of suffrage for African Americans. Additionally, the author investigates how unionists in the period...