American Civil War question: Where there any mainly-southern regiments that didn't side with the Confederacy? If so, who were they.
I can see most regiments that consisted mostly of southerners either changing sides or dissolving as most of the rank and file changed sides. However, where there any southern-dominated regiments who didn't do this?
IIRC there were some in Virginia?
Indeed there were! Of course, the most obvious example of Southerners fighting for the North would be the former slaves that joined up with the USCT, but there were other regiments of white Southerners recruited into the Northern Army as well. These include, according to the Civil War Book of Lists:
- 31,872 from Virginia
- 31,092 from Tennessee
- 8,289 from Arkansas
- 5,224 from Louisiana
- 3,156 from North Carolina
- 2,578 from Alabama
- 1,956 from Texas
- 1,290 from Florida
- 545 from Mississippi
- ~400 from Georgia
This leaves only South Carolina as having failed to provide any white regiments to the Union (unsurprising considering it is the cradle of secession), but many of the first inklings of raising African American troops rose out of that state, so it is not like there was no contribution on their part.
As for specific organizations, two in particular come into my mind. First, there is the 1st Louisiana Native Guard. This militia unit initially served in the Confederate defense of New Orleans (albeit in a very tenuous manner due to the Creoles in the regiment), but following the fall of the city the unit, which had stayed behind as it was a city militia, promptly dissolved. Many of its former members would later rejoin together to form a new Unionist regiment also called the 1st Louisiana Native Guard, which would go on to serve with distinction at the Siege of Port Hudson. The other unit I'll mention is the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment, for the reason that they served as the escort unit for William T. Sherman and his headquarters in his famous March to the Sea. They were also hard-fighters whose colonel went on to become a U.S. Senator.