Union (American Civil War)

Map of the division of the states during the Civil War. Blue represents Union states, including those admitted during the war; light blue represents Union states which permitted slavery (border states); red represents Confederate states. Unshaded areas were not states before or during the Civil War.

During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the United States, the twenty-three northern states that were not part of the seceding Confederacy. Because the term had been used prior to the war to refer to the entire United States (a "union of states"), using it to apply to the non-secessionist side carried a connotation of legitimacy as the continuation of the pre-existing political entity. Also, in the public dialogue of the United States, new states are "admitted to the Union" and the President's annual address to Congress and to the people is referred to as the "State of the Union" Address.

During the American Civil War, Loyalists to the United States living in the Border States and Confederate States were termed Unionists. Nearly 120,000 Southern Unionists served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and every Southern state, except South Carolina, raised 'Unionists' regiments. Southern Unionists were extensively used as anti-guerrilla forces and as occupation troops in areas of the Confederacy occupied by the Union.

Since the Civil War, the term has been a widely used synonym for the Northern side of the conflict, and has increasingly lost the more subtle historical connotations. It is usually used in contexts where "United States" might be confusing, "Federal" obscure, or "Yankee" dated or derogatory. Example uses:
* Union General Ulysses S. Grant
* Union Army of the Potomac
* Union cavalry

However, the term Union remains more popular with historians than it does with the general public.

References

*Current, Richard N. Lincoln's Loyalists: Union Soldiers from the Confederacy. Oxford University Press, rpr. 1994. ISBN 0195084659.
*Mackey, Robert R. The UnCivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865. University of Oklahoma Press, 2004. ISBN 0806136243.

See also

* Guerrilla Warfare: The American Civil War