So then, what if Abraham Lincoln had elected to implement Benjamin Butler's proposal, and the states of the defeated Confederate States had been relegated to territories, renamed, divided and merged in the manner proposed by Butler? How much of an impact do you think this would have had- could it have succeeded in eliminated Southern State pride, and pride in the CSA, as Butler believed it would? Or would it have been more likely IYO to have led to a backlash of ramped-up anti-US sentiment, hostility, revanchism and racism from the peoples of the former confederacy?
Roughly 40% of the army officers and 60% of the navy officers from Confederate states stayed with the Union. I suspect neither they nor other southern Unionists would like the idea.