A. Harris
Union soldiers in Alabama
Tue Oct 3 09:29:40 2000


Many southerners are surprised to learn they had a Union ancestor. BTW, the First was a hard-riding, hard-fighting, hard-foraging bunch. They had suffered at the hands of Rebels and were ready for payback. They were particularly hard on South Carolina and burned Barnwell (which they christened "Burnwell") to the ground. Even Sherman admonished Col. Spencer to rein his Southerners in.

The reasons are basically twofold. First was patriotism. Many found they could not fire on the Old Flag, which their ancestors had fought for, or the Constitution for which it stood. Second, was economic and social. Many myths have arisen since the War, one being that of the magnolia dripping Old South that everyone loved. There was little love lost between the planters of the Black Belt and the artisans and small farmers of the north. My great great grandfather, Pvt. Billington Sanders Hurst, was one such man. He owned 240 acres in St. Clair County and owned no slaves. Many men like him disliked the planters for their airs and their slaves for working cheaply and driving honest working men and farmers out of business. Few people know how close the vote for secession was in Alabama. There were NO votes for secession in Winston County. It was a well-known fact that the war was "a rich man's war, but a poor man's fight." Your ancestor and mine saw no reason to die for men who had no care for their welfare and whom they viewed as traitors, besides.

BTW, this split between the Black Belt and the the hills of the north continued until the 1907 Constitution came along. Prior to that, Alabama had a progressive constitution, but the newly emerging planters wished to derail the New South, and so a new constitution was in order. Basically, they stole the election in the Black Belt, where allegedly 80% of black voters cast votes to disenfranchise themselves. The idea of this constitution was to disenfranchise blacks and their allies, the poor whites. This was successful; black voter registration dropped by 90% and white registration by over 25%.

I have great pride in my ancestor, as I also do in his two sons, who served in the 19th La and 18th Alabama, CSA.

Glenda Todd McWhirter maintains an excellent site, but I can't get it to come up this morning.

• First Alabama (US) Site — Bob Hurst, Wed Oct 4 12:47
• 1'st Ala/Cav — Jack Baggett, Mon Nov 13 20:29
• early morning posting on Ala. Union — Bob Hurst, Tue Oct 3 09:33
• 1st Ala Union Cav — A McCabe, Wed Oct 4 12:26