Which Union ACW generals were most likely to wind up as Confederate generals, and vice versa? How would this have impacted the war?
I’m of the school that the Confederacy was doomed once the federal government decided to fight for real, and get public opinion in the northern states on its side, but its fun to speculate on the different routes that events could have taken to get there.
I went through the Wikipedia bios of all ACW army and corps commanders, or at least most of them (I may have missed a few Union commanders since there were so many of them), plus significant cavalry and naval commanders, and estimated their home states. The word estimated”i is used because even back then people moved around, and the state someone was born in was not necessarily the state where they grew up in or settled down in, and career soldiers were especially likely to move around.
Potential switchers pretty much fell into the following categories:
1. Confederate generals from northern states. There were more of these than commonly realized. They went with the Confederacy because of family/ career ties to the South and general sympathy for the South.
2. Union generals from northern states who had sympathies and personal ties to the South, so could have wound up in category #1.
3. Union generals who came from states that seceded but remained loyal to the Union. Obviously they could have gone with the seceding states.
4. Generals from the Upper South/ border states on both sides. This is by far the biggest category. CSA generals from upper south states probably would have stayed with the Union if their state had stayed with the Union.
5. Confederate generals who had a record of opposing secession or even had doubts about slavery, but this overlaps pretty closely with #4, with the notable exception of Albert Sidney Johnson, whose “home state”was Texas but was originally from Kentucky. Since he was originally from Kentucky, he can be included in category #4 but really is a special case.
That leaves the following categories of definite non-switchers:
1. Union generals from northern, non-slave states, with no ties to the South or evidence of Southern sympathies. This is most of them, but most definitely includes everyone from New England and upstate New York, and all the political generals except for Crittenden.
2. Confederate generals from the Deep South (the original seven states that seceded), except for AS Johnston as noted above who can be gerrymandered into Kentucky.
3. A weird category that can be labelled “southern born abolitionist/ Missouri”. There were a few Union generals born in the South, who grew up in the South, but who were abolisitionists/ radical Republicans. By 1860 they were all living outside the South, probably for that reasons. They consist of Birney, the son of the Liberty Party candidate for President, Fremont, who was born in South Carolina but who was the Republican candidate for President in 1856, and Hurlbut, who was from South Carolina but who can be listed as from Ohio. Barney can be counted as from Ohio and Fremont, more tentatively, as from California. These guys weren’t going to go with the Confederacy, though a timeline where Fremont does so, for some Fremont derived reason, would be a lot of fun. There were also a bunch of Union generals from Missouri, a slave state, but they consist of German liberal immigrants who settled in St. Louis and a son of a member of Lincoln’s cabinet.
Another exception that should be noted is Montgomery Meigs, US army Quartermaster General (succeeding JE Johnston), who was from Georgia and seems not to have been an abolitionist. He is the only senior officer from the Deep South that I could find who stayed with the federal government.
One thing I found is that the Confederacy had much more success in getting potential waverers on its side than the Union did. It seems that the vast majority of the Confederate army high command came from the eight Upper South/ border states, and nearly all of them were known to support secession. Pretty much all of these could have plausibly stayed with the federal government. Leaving out the three southern born abolitionists before mentioned, the CSA got all but a couple of these guys, and broke even with Maryland and Kentucky as well. They also got a few southern sympathizers from the North, and could have really plausibly gotten only one or two more.
So like with most ACW “what ifs”, divergences from OTL will favor the Union.
I’m of the school that the Confederacy was doomed once the federal government decided to fight for real, and get public opinion in the northern states on its side, but its fun to speculate on the different routes that events could have taken to get there.
I went through the Wikipedia bios of all ACW army and corps commanders, or at least most of them (I may have missed a few Union commanders since there were so many of them), plus significant cavalry and naval commanders, and estimated their home states. The word estimated”i is used because even back then people moved around, and the state someone was born in was not necessarily the state where they grew up in or settled down in, and career soldiers were especially likely to move around.
Potential switchers pretty much fell into the following categories:
1. Confederate generals from northern states. There were more of these than commonly realized. They went with the Confederacy because of family/ career ties to the South and general sympathy for the South.
2. Union generals from northern states who had sympathies and personal ties to the South, so could have wound up in category #1.
3. Union generals who came from states that seceded but remained loyal to the Union. Obviously they could have gone with the seceding states.
4. Generals from the Upper South/ border states on both sides. This is by far the biggest category. CSA generals from upper south states probably would have stayed with the Union if their state had stayed with the Union.
5. Confederate generals who had a record of opposing secession or even had doubts about slavery, but this overlaps pretty closely with #4, with the notable exception of Albert Sidney Johnson, whose “home state”was Texas but was originally from Kentucky. Since he was originally from Kentucky, he can be included in category #4 but really is a special case.
That leaves the following categories of definite non-switchers:
1. Union generals from northern, non-slave states, with no ties to the South or evidence of Southern sympathies. This is most of them, but most definitely includes everyone from New England and upstate New York, and all the political generals except for Crittenden.
2. Confederate generals from the Deep South (the original seven states that seceded), except for AS Johnston as noted above who can be gerrymandered into Kentucky.
3. A weird category that can be labelled “southern born abolitionist/ Missouri”. There were a few Union generals born in the South, who grew up in the South, but who were abolisitionists/ radical Republicans. By 1860 they were all living outside the South, probably for that reasons. They consist of Birney, the son of the Liberty Party candidate for President, Fremont, who was born in South Carolina but who was the Republican candidate for President in 1856, and Hurlbut, who was from South Carolina but who can be listed as from Ohio. Barney can be counted as from Ohio and Fremont, more tentatively, as from California. These guys weren’t going to go with the Confederacy, though a timeline where Fremont does so, for some Fremont derived reason, would be a lot of fun. There were also a bunch of Union generals from Missouri, a slave state, but they consist of German liberal immigrants who settled in St. Louis and a son of a member of Lincoln’s cabinet.
Another exception that should be noted is Montgomery Meigs, US army Quartermaster General (succeeding JE Johnston), who was from Georgia and seems not to have been an abolitionist. He is the only senior officer from the Deep South that I could find who stayed with the federal government.
One thing I found is that the Confederacy had much more success in getting potential waverers on its side than the Union did. It seems that the vast majority of the Confederate army high command came from the eight Upper South/ border states, and nearly all of them were known to support secession. Pretty much all of these could have plausibly stayed with the federal government. Leaving out the three southern born abolitionists before mentioned, the CSA got all but a couple of these guys, and broke even with Maryland and Kentucky as well. They also got a few southern sympathizers from the North, and could have really plausibly gotten only one or two more.
So like with most ACW “what ifs”, divergences from OTL will favor the Union.
