Civil War Era Question?
I'm doing a family tree for a relative and I'm writing a bio on one of the ancestors and I'm trying to gather as much info as I can.
This person was born 1830 in Ballard County, KY.
He lived there his whole life until 1860 then he moved to Greene County, AR with his children and wife, and was "mustered into the war" in 1861 at Pocahontas, AR. He was a Confederate.
My question is what may have been his reason in moving to arkansas, was it to join the fight, or something else? I remember reading around that time that Kentucky was more neutral.
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
He could have had any number of reasons. I 1860, the nation was still recovering from the financial panic of 1857 so he may have thought his chances of having a better life would improve if he moved to Arkansas. He could have easily joined the war on either side in Kentucky and since the war didn't start until 1861 I'm going to speculate ( A dangerous thing to be sure) and say he moved to Arkansas for economic reasons.
I'm a native of Kentuck and had ancestors who fought in the Civil War as well. I can't quote you exact figures or give you blow-by-blow information but this is how it was in Kentucky during the Civil War:
90,000 men fought for the Union
40,000 men fought for the Confederacy
There is nothing written in stone about this fact, but in GENERAL, western Kentucky was more pro-Confederacy than the rest of the state (Ballard County sits in far-western Kentucky.
Much of south-central Kentucky and some parts of southeastern Kentucky were full of Union sympathizers. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican president. These counties have been consistently Republican since the Civil War. Jackson County, located in southeastern Kentucky, sent all of its men who volunteered to fight into the ranks of the Union Army--save for one man.
Lewis County, Kentucky, which is located in the northeastern part of the state, has the only known monument south of the Mason-Dixon line honoring Union soldiers.
Two notable Confederate generals (and graduates of West Point) were born in Kentucky--Alberst Sidney Johnston, who was born maybe 45 miles from where Grant was born (on the opposite side of the Ohio River) and John B. Hood, who was born somewhere around Mount Sterling or Owingsville.
He may have had Confederate sympathies but moved to Arkansas for different reasons.
I could have been a variety of reasons, the war is just one of them. It might be that Arkansas had more land and opportunity for him. He probably could have joined the confederacy no matter where he lived if he wanted to. Check to see if he, or any family member that was close to him, left a journal or check other records.