The film “The Free State of Jones” tells a compelling story about an underappreciated aspect of the Civil War. Furthermore, it's an aspect that modern neo-Confederate apologists would rather you never knew, so the fact that it is getting a wide theatrical release is (despite a decidedly mixed critical reception and the all-too-frequent shortcomings and inaccuracies of Hollywood ‘history’ films) a very good thing.
However, the story of Jones County is but one of many similar stories from the Civil War. White resistance to the Confederacy, within the Confederacy, was found across every Southern state. By highlighting this I do not mean to disregard the story of Black resistance — the slaves who escaped to Union lines seeking freedom, depriving the Confederacy of their captive labor; the slaves and free blacks who acted as scouts and guides for Union armies advancing into the South; and those who enrolled in the Union army, ultimately contributing hundreds of thousands of soldiers to the war effort. But that story is better known and easily understood — the motives of enslaved, oppressed people seeking freedom and rights are clear. Rather, I think the modern, romanticized myth of the “solid South” - the idea that secession and the Confederacy enjoyed nearly unanimous white support, motivated by “rights' rather than preservation of the slave system and White supremacy — has been cultivated so long by apologists for the Confederacy that it needs a thorough debunking. So, setting aside Jones County, Mississippi, itself, let's take a brief geographical tour across the South to discover the most notable of the other centers of armed White resistance to the Confederacy. I will focus on both individual resistance (in the form of White southerners enrolling in the Union army) and collective resistance (groups of Whites, acting on their own or in collaboration with Blacks, to control territory and deny it to the Confederacy).
Texas: Nearly 2,000 white Texans joined the Union army (this may not sound like a lot, but Texas was one of the less populous states in 1860). Anti-secession sentiment was particularly strong among German immigrants who had settled in central and southern Texas. Many had fled Europe following the 1848 revolutions and were strongly anti-slavery. In summer 1861, some of these immigrants formed a secret group, the Union Loyal League, and later organized the Hill Country Militia, with the goal of resisting the Confederate loyalty oath and later the draft, and supporting the Union army if it should enter Texas. Some decided to flee to Mexico to avoid Confederate martial law. In August 1862 a group of families totaling about 60 people were attacked by a company of Confederate cavalry, with half of them massacred and most of the rest taken captive. In October, over 150 draft resisters were arrested and tried for treason. 14 were hanged, and when the Confederate officer who had led the arrests was killed in an ambush, 19 more were hung. The mass hangings ultimately encouraged more resistance, with more white families fleeing the states to escape Confederate rule.
Arkansas: Over 8,000 white Arkansans joined the Union army. Anti-secession sentiment was strong in the Ozark Mountains of northwestern Arkansas, where there were relatively few slaves. Whites from this region formed irregular units called the ‘Mountain Feds,’ recognizing Union authority and pledging to resist or avoid the Confederate draft and to protect their region from Confederate intrusion. Arkansas was also home to a secret society called the Peace and Constitutional Society, whose members swore to resist the Confederacy and — like the German immigrants of the Texas Hill Country — to support the Union army when it entered the state.
Louisiana: Over 5,000 white Louisianans fought for the Union. Pro-Union sentiment was especially strong in two areas. The southernmost parishes of Louisiana, populated mainly by Cajuns with few slaves, had voted overwhelmingly to stay in the Union when the state held a secession referendum. Many Union recruits came from this area. The second area was north central Lousiana, which had also voted against secession. The term “Jayhawk" was originally used to refer to anti-slavery Kansans, but during the war “Jayhawker” also came into use in Louisiana to refer to guerrilla bands formed to protect Unionist citizens, raid and ambush Confederates, and act as guides and scouts for Union army forces entering the state.
Mississippi: About 500 White Mississippians joined the Union army. Jones County is located in southern Mississippi; however, much of the pro-Union sentiment centered in the northeastern part of the state, where in 1862 the Peace Society formed in secret to discuss ways of avoiding the Confederate draft.
Alabama: About 2,500 white Alabamans fought for the Union. As in Mississippi, a secret Peace Society emerged to resist Confederate authority. And some Alabama counties, such as Winston county in the northeast of the state, followed the example of Jones County. In Winston, a gathering of delegates passed a resolution to remain neutral in the war, and another stating that if a state could secede from the Union, then a county could secede from the state. When the Union Army entered northern Alabama in late 1862, many of the recruits for the First Alabama Cavalry came from Winston County. The unit was chosen by Union General William T. Sherman as his personal guard during his “March to the Sea" after the capture of Atlanta.
Tennessee: Some 31,000 white Tennesseans enrolled in the Union army. When the state General Assembly voted for secession in May 1861, a pro-Union convention was held in Knoxville where nearly 500 delegates rejected the resolution. One of the organizers proclaimed that ‘we have no interest with the Cotton States’ and could never be ‘the hewers of wood and drawers of water for a set of aristocrats and tyrants.’ In the state referendum on secession, Eastern Tennessee voted by a 2-1 margin in favor of the Union, and a second convention held in Greeneville, Tennessee petitioned Nashville for separate statehood for East Tennessee (not surprisingly, the Confederate state government ignored the petition). Scott County eventually acted on its own, with a county convention declaring that it was the ‘Free and Independent State of Scott.'
Florida: Over 1,000 White Floridians joined the Union army. A band of Confederate deserters formed the Independent Union Rangers in Taylor County at the start of 1863 and, supplied with food and arms from the Union naval squadron stationed off the Florida coast, spent the next two years in guerrilla warfare against the Confederacy. They attacked Confederate patrols, raided plantations, and passed intelligence to the Union. They also received help from local slaves who provided them information, acted as guides, and sometimes participated in raids.
Georgia: Fewer than 500 White Georgians enrolled in the Union army. As in other Southern states, a Peace Society formed in northeastern Georgia soon after secession. In 1864, whites in Pickens County organized a home guard to defend themselves against Confederates and to aid General Sherman’s advancing Federals. Other armed anti-Confederate groups operated in the pine barrens and swamps of southeastern Georgia.
South Carolina: There is no record of White South Carolinians joining the Union army. This is perhaps not surprising, considering that pro-secession sentiment was likely strongest in this state. But following the extraordinarily unpopular conscription act, bands of deserters and draft resisters eventually formed in the hilly northwestern section of the state around areas such as Spartanburg. Like similar bands elsewhere, they attacked Confederate patrols and raided supply depots.
North Carolina: Just over 3,000 North Carolinians fought for the Union. The mountains of western North Carolina became the stronghold of the Order of the Heroes of America, which (like the Peace Societies elsewhere) was a secret society dedicated to resisting Confederate authority, avoiding the draft, and aiding Union forces. Many residents of the area were Quakers or Moravians who were both pacifist and anti-slavery. Other Unionists were not quite so peaceable, and the Confederate government organized several expeditions against the armed resisters of Randolph County that erupted into guerrilla warfare, eventually involving troops from Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Some officers and men of Home Guard units (Confederate militia) actively undermined efforts to track and capture resister and deserters by sending advance warning of patrols and raids and by leading patrols away from known locations of deserters.
Virginia: Almost 32,000 white Virginians were enrolled as Union soldiers — compared to about 150,000 who fought for the Confederacy. Many of these men were from what became West Virginia, the creation of which is the story of Jones County writ large. In 1861 there were very few slaves in the western part of Virginia. The mountainous terrain was not suited to large-scale plantation agriculture and there were almost no large slaveholders. As elsewhere in Appalachia, pro-Union sentiment was strong. The west Virginians realized they had little common economic interest with the rest of the state, and that they were largely excluded from political influence in Richmond. Representatives from the western counties voted almost 2-1 against Virginia’s ordinance of secession, and when a statewide referendum was held in May 1861 the popular vote was over 60% against secession. A “Restored Government of Virginia” was formed and sent Senators and Representatives to the U.S. Congress, which seated them. These steps paved the way for the formation and recognition of West Virginia as a separate state in 1863.
It is important to note that being anti-secession did not necessarily mean being in favor of Black equality, or even being anti-slavery. To be sure, some White southerners — especially some religious groups like Quakers, and some immigrants like the Texas Germans — were generally anti-slavery. But the ideology of White supremacy was entrenched throughout the North and South by the 1860s. Aside from the Radical Republicans, almost no whites advocated a belief in racial equality. Even many abolitionists, while opposing slavery on moral grounds, nevertheless believed the races were unequal.
Nevertheless, it is no accident that pro-Union sentiment was strongest in areas that held relatively few slaves — the Appalachians from Virginia to Northern Alabama, including the future West Virginia, eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina; the Cajun parishes of Louisiana; the Ozarks of Arkansas; the Hill Country of Texas. A very important element in inciting desertion and resistance was the extraordinarily ill-advised Confederate Conscription Act of 1862. As the Confederacy was largely a government of, by, and for the 1% of their day — the socioeconomic elite of large slaveholders and plantation owners — the elite were exempted from conscription on the grounds that their contribution best lay in managing the stolen labor of their captives, rather than risking their elite necks on the battlefield. The economic dimension of this legislation was definitely not lost on the average white southerner, who owned no slaves (even though he or she benefited from the ideology and social structure of white supremacy). The perception among poor whites that they were in a “rich man's war and poor man’s fight," to perpetuate slavery for the benefit of the elite, was widespread. The Conscription Act demoralized the average soldier, encouraged desertion and civilian resistance, and led wartime North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance to call it “perhaps the severest blow the Confederacy ever received.”
Whatever their beliefs and feelings about race at the beginning of the war, White resisters often came to collaborate with Black resisters as the war dragged on. Just as they assisted the Union army as it drew near, both slave and free Blacks helped White deserters and resisters by sheltering them, providing intelligence, acting as guides, and sharing supplies. For many of the Whites, it must have represented the first time they had worked with Blacks towards a common end, knowing that the lives of both groups were in jeopardy due to their opposition to the Confederacy. If the Federal government had not abandoned Reconstruction and allowed the Southern White power structure to roll back civil rights and post-war striving for racial equality, it is possible that these shared experiences would have contributed much to racial reconciliation in those areas where resistance to the Confederacy had been strongest.
Overall, the contribution of pro-Union white Southerners to the war effort was great. The 85,000 or so White Southerners listed as enrolling in the Union Army, although including all enrollments throughout the war, nevertheless outnumber the field strength of any army the Confederacy ever assembled, including Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia during the Gettysburg campaign. Meanwhile, the deserters and draft resisters who formed anti-Confederate militia or irregular guerrilla units - the Hill Country Militia, the Mountain Feds, the Jayhawks, the Independent Union Rangers, and more - tied down thousands of Confederate regulars throughout the South, drawing these men away from the front lines where they could have been fighting Union troops. As is so often the case in guerrilla warfare, the heavy-handed efforts of the Confederate government and army to suppress these forces often alienated local populations and encouraged more desertion and resistance. The secret pro-Union civilian groups — the Heroes of America, the Peace Societies, the Union Loyal League — directly helped the Union war effort by providing aid and intelligence to Union raiders and armies, and indirectly helped it by denying vital supplies and manpower to the Confederacy.
As historical memory is distorted by the agendas of modern ‘conservatives’ with an interest in romanticizing the Confederacy as a widespread alliance against government overreach and in defense of individual ‘liberty’ and ‘state’s rights,’ it is more important than ever that such stories not be forgotten.
A few sources of information on White resistance: The books Bitterly Divided and Divided We Fall provide broad overviews. Victoria Bynum, author of The Free State of Jones, maintains a website about Jones — and Southern Unionists more broadly — at renegadesouth.wordpress.com.
Update: edited some minor (or not-so-minor) typos. ‘Raided” plantations, not ‘aided’!