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A Little Known Civil War Fact About Virginia

posted 12 years ago by tbirdman-1
1 reply | jump to latest

At the beginning of and during the War Between The States
the good majority of Virginia's residents were loyal to
the Confederacy. However there were many living in
northern VA who were very loyal to the Union. Many of
these people respected Pres. Abraham Lincoln and did
not wish for the war to continue. Especially with many
family members having split loyalties to either the
north or the south. And to this day the good majority
of many northern Virginians are offended when being
stereotyped as "hicks, hillbillies and southerners."
Now consider the proximity of N. Virginia to this
nation's capital. Just a short distance to commute
to Washington, DC. And it is obvious as to why
residents of this area of Virginia are loyal to
the federal government.

Lorenzo Sunny Florida

I'm James "Sonny" Crockett!

[–] bryanac625 12 years ago

Tbirdman,
Interesting points you make here, though I'm not sure if I agree with them.

I don't know if being born and raised in Washington, D.C. qualifies me to challenge your conclusions on this history but to my knowledge, Northern Virginia was certainly very pro-Confederate- after all, don't forget the South's number one army was called "The Army of Northern Virginia."

The City of Alexandria and Alexandria County (Arlington County, as it is known today) were part of the District of Columbia until they were retroceded back to Virginia in 1846. A big reason, but not the only reason, these D.C. residents wanted to go back to Virginia was slavery. Alexandria was home to a booming slave trade. In 1850, slave trading was abolished in D.C. When that happened, no doubt proslavery advocates breathed a sigh of relief for beating the abolition by three years. Alexandria and Arlington County will never be part of D.C. again... but to this day, there are questions on whether or not that retrocession was actually legal. In any case, the Virginia Retrocession of 1846 marks the only successful secession on behalf of slavery in United States history.

You are right about divided loyalties. The most famous Northern Virginian was, of course, Robert E. Lee. When he chose to fight for the Confederates, his Unionist sister Anne Lee Marshall never spoke to him again. I think she died during the war so that didn't help matters at all.

But in terms of "many living in northern VA who were very loyal to the Union," I don't know about that without much knowledge of census data from that time and enlistment records. I do know that men were enlisted from all over Northern Virginia to form the 17th Virginia Infantry (maybe other units, too). And for what it's worth, Washington City, D.C. was a "border city" i.e., loyal to the Union but a slave city until 1862. And some Washingtonians were pro-Confederate and a number of men from D.C. fought for the South. In other words, the whole D.C. metro area we know now was a different place then: very pro-Confederate.

Northern Virginia today exists as a suburb of D.C. more than anything else. It is very big and multicultural, with people from many different countries with no connection to the Civil War at all. The biggest employer in the area is, of course, the Federal Government. I think that is why residents of Northern Virginia are, as you put it, "loyal to the Federal Government." But I don't think the same was the case in the Civil War.