In 1860, the University of Virginia (UVA) was a bastion of pro-slavery ideology, filled with scions of the South’s most politically and economically elite families. Its students were overwhelmingly descendants of the southern gentry, with family histories often traced back to the pre-Revolutionary era. The vast majority of the students came from families that owned slaves, and thus “the university’s history was… tied inextricably to the history of the South.” Pro-secessionist sentiment, pro-slavery attitudes, and a culture steeped in the concept of southern honor were key principles for many of these students’ lives. Historians Maurie D. McInnis and Louis P. Nelson write that “in their classrooms, their social clubs, and at public speeches, students at the University were surrounded by conversations that only cemented the notions of mastery they had been taught at home.” Many of these early graduates of the University “became important southern politicians and intellectual leaders; they were congressmen and governors, leading voices in the proslavery movement.”[1] Thousands of UVA’s alumni and students became Confederate soldiers and sailors, with more than a dozen serving in the Confederate Congress or Jefferson Davis’s cabinet.[2]

Nevertheless, the University of Virginia had sixty-nine men, including students, alumni, and faculty, who fought for the Union during the American Civil War. These UVA Unionists served in both active duty and supporting roles in the army, navy, and various state militias. A disproportionate number of UVA’s Unionists served as officers, emphasizing their upbringing as members of the ruling class who went on to receive elite educations. In addition, a number of UVA-educated men served in the civil service or in elected office positions in the Federal government, most famously the Radical Republican Henry Winter Davis, a congressman from Maryland.[3]

Though few of them left behind direct statements as to why they sided with the Union rather than the Confederacy, it is clear from their wartime experiences that they were devoted to preserving the Constitution and the union of the states. For those from the North, their loyalty is easier to explain, as they sided with most of their peers and family members from their respective states in supporting the war effort to crush the rebellion. But this devotion to the Union cause sometimes existed in students who hailed from the South, who turned against the dominant culture of their immediate surroundings and the beliefs of their family and friends. In many cases, the UVA Unionists from the South exemplify the idea of “brother against brother” that has become solidified in Civil War mythology. Whether from the North or the South, each of these men is an outlier—set apart from most of his classmates, and faculty and alumni, by virtue of his loyalty to the Union.

The 1860-1861 term at UVA witnessed the political turmoil of the secession crisis, with hundreds of students leaving the University to enroll in the Confederate military. Six out of the total of sixty-nine UVA-affiliated Unionists attended the University during this time, including James W. Hancock, Francis F. Maury, Patrick Henry Darby, James Ancrum Winslow, and George Worth Woods (the sixth, a man named Clinton Clinebell, had supported secession while at UVA).[4] Despite the fact that “both inside the classroom and out, students received constant reinforcement in the lessons of the proslavery movement that argued for a natural hierarchy based on race,” Hancock, Darby, Winslow, Maury, and Woods did not accept the argument that secession was necessary to protect the southern “way of life.”[5] While there may have been other students who did not necessarily support secession at UVA at that time, these were the only ones to fight for the Union.

Most of the other Unionists attended or worked at UVA before the war. Fifty-two antebellum alumni and four antebellum faculty members served in the Union military. Henry V. Morris briefly taught drawing at UVA in the mid-1830s, Professor Robert E. Rogers taught chemistry during the 1840s, and instructors Samuel E. W. Becker and James M. Deems taught modern languages and music, respectively, during the 1850s. Five other Union veterans—Marion Goss, Edwin Bush, Jacob Mater, Joseph Noble, and John Isbell, attended UVA after the Civil War. Professor Albert Henry Tuttle, who served briefly in an Ohio regiment in 1864, joined the faculty in 1888 and remained at UVA until his retirement in 1913.[6]

Twenty-nine of the sixty-nine Unionists were from southern states that comprised the Confederacy, with a majority hailing from Virginia. A little more than half (thirteen) of the twenty-four Unionists from Virginia were from east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the culture of slavery and large plantations had been prevalent since the colonial era. Here, according to historian Brendan Wolfe, Unionist sentiment was very low. This makes those Unionists all the more remarkable, as they parted ways with their family members and neighbors who overwhelming supported the Confederacy. Eleven of the Unionists in Virginia were from west of the Blue Ridge, including six from the area that is now West Virginia. Unionist sentiment in this part of the state was not so much abolitionist sentiment, but a means of undercutting the traditional power that the Virginia Tidewater region traditionally held in state politics. Of the remaining Unionists, sixteen were from the slaveholding border states, twenty-two were from northern states, and two from Washington, D.C. At least thirty-three came from slave-owning families or owned slaves themselves. Many of them had parents and grandparents who served in powerful positions in the Federal government, including as cabinet members.[7]

Students with this sort of upper-class background from the southern states generally harbored pro-Confederate sentiments. But some elite southerners clung to a tradition of proslavery Unionism. The prominent Breckinridge family of Kentucky exemplifies how these ideological divides could split households, as Robert Jefferson Breckinridge Jr. (class of 1853) joined the Confederacy while his brother Joseph Cabell Breckinridge enlisted in the Union army. Their grandfather John Breckinridge had served as a U. S. senator for Kentucky as well as attorney general under Thomas Jefferson. Their father, Robert J. Breckinridge, was a conservative Unionist who wanted to find some sort of middle ground between abolition and secession in the interest of keeping the Union together, while their cousin John C. Breckinridge served as general in the Confederacy.[8]

Unionist John Fox Hammond, much like Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, came from an elite southern family. He was from South Carolina and was a younger brother of South Carolina governor, congressman, and senator, James Henry Hammond, whose son Paul was also a UVA alumnus. Similarly, Virginian Stephen Dandridge Kennedy came from an elite political family, as his father was one of Maryland’s U.S. senators and his uncle had been a member of former President Milliard Fillmore’s cabinet. Like Breckinridge and Hammond, however, he too chose to fight for the Union rather than the Confederacy.[9]

These statistics and facts reiterate the preeminence of the elite southern planter class at UVA. According to historian Peter S. Carmichael, it was the young men of this group, particularly those born between 1831 and 1843, who pushed for secession as a vehicle for their own ambitions and to restore lost “glory” of the South. Though Carmichael is referencing Virginia men born between 1831 and 1843 who became Confederates, this quote can also apply to southern-born UVA Unionists of the same age (nineteen out of the sixty-nine)—but they felt their own prospects and South’s future prosperity were most secure in the Union.[10]

Though not at the University during the secession crisis, UVA alumnus James O. Broadhead certainly grasped the tone of the overall attitude not just at UVA, but also across the South just a few years before the outbreak of war. In an 1858 letter to his brother (who was at that time a UVA student), Broadhead wrote that “the South… on this subject of slavery is perfectly mad—and there is no telling to what excesses of folly, the southern people will permit themselves to be led.” Southern-born UVA Unionists like Broadhead, who himself owned slaves, grappled with the tension between preserving the South’s slavery-based social order and preserving the Union.[11]

If the South was this determined to maintain slavery, fellow Unionist James Ancrum Winslow of Roxbury, Massachusetts, provides evidence that the North was equally as committed to the cause of preserving the Union. In May 1861, he wrote to Professor Minor after leaving the University that “people [in the North] say that [the war] is to maintain the integrity of the Union as it existed last October, if it cost every drop of blood & every dollar in the country.” He went on, writing that “even those who were the conservatives say that no compromise of any sort can be given till every Southern State returns unconditionally to its allegiance to the Union.”[12]

The struggle between their loyalties to their section and the nation was especially poignant for twelve of the UVA Unionists who lived in Confederate states in 1861. In addition, eighteen UVA Unionists lived in the loyal border states, twenty-five in northern states, one in the West, three in Washington, D.C., one in Europe, and six were serving in the military at the time of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter. The service of so many southern UVA alumni, students, and former instructors illustrates the important role that southern Unionism played during the war. According to historian William W. Freehling, about one-third of the 300,000 White Southerners who fought for the Union were from Confederate states while the remaining two-thirds were from the slaveholding border states. These White southerners, along with more than 100,000 Black southerners, proved critical in supplying the manpower the Union army and navy needed to defeat the Confederacy. [13]

Living in the North after leaving UVA likely influenced the attitudes of many of the Unionists. Though it would be impossible to truly know the impact residing outside of the slaveholding South had on ideology, there is some evidence to prove that it was either caused by or fostered Unionism in these men. Henry Churchman, who was from Virginia but living in Illinois in 1861, was the only member of his family to remain loyal to the Union. Churchman was the son of a prominent planter and sheriff in Augusta County, Virginia, and his family owned at least twenty-three slaves in 1860. According to family tradition, his father refused to allow him to return home after the war due to his service, despite the fact that Churchman was in poor health.[14]

Likewise, William Smith Forbes, who was also from Virginia but lived in Pennsylvania at the outbreak of the war, had two brothers who fought for the Confederacy. Forbes was the son of a merchant and magistrate from Falmouth, Virginia, and his family owned at least thirteen slaves. Though little is known about Forbes’s family relations in the postwar period, his ashes were taken to family land in Fredericksburg, suggesting at least some degree of reconciliation.[15] The similarity between Churchman’s and Forbes’s stories of southerners who moved North and sided with the Union suggests a strong connection between geography and ideology.

One of the earliest Unionists[16] to enlist in the army was Bernard Gaines Farrar, who enlisted on May 12, 1861. Farrar, a Missouri native, was the son of a prominent St. Louis doctor and a great-nephew of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Despite the fact that Farrar’s family owned slaves, he became a Free-Soiler in 1854 and was a strong supporter of the Union. Farrar was “among the first to offer his services to the government” and “in the winter of 1861, he assisted in organizing the loyal citizens [of St. Louis] and [equipped] them with arms, and did much to prevent the capture of the St. Louis arsenal by Southern sympathizers.” Farrar went on to serve as an aide-de-camp to General Henry Halleck in Missouri and was the provost-marshal-general of the Department of Missouri. He also recruited and led a USCT division: the 6th USCT Heavy Artillery Regiment. He was promoted to the rank of brevet brigadier general in May 1865.[17]

Farrar’s counterpart in the U.S. Navy was Stephen Dandridge Kennedy, who enlisted on May 9, 1861. Kennedy was born in Berkeley County, (West) Virginia, and came from a prominent political family, which traced its roots to 17th-century Tidewater Virginia. His father served in the Virginia House of Delegates and the United States Senate, while his uncle was secretary of the navy under President Milliard Fillmore. Despite their prominence as a powerful Southern family, there is no indication that any members of his family were Confederates or that his decision to remain loyal to the Union caused a rift with them in any way. Kennedy was eventually promoted to the high rank of Medical Inspector.[18]

Thirty-two of the Unionists served in units or ships on the front lines during the war, many of which saw combat against Confederate forces. Among them was Wray Wirt Davis, who came from a farming family near Richmond that owned at least sixteen slaves. His three brothers fought for the Confederacy, but he chose to remain loyal to the Union, a decision that severed his relationship with his family for forty years. Davis, who had moved to St. Louis prior to enlisting in the U.S. Cavalry in 1860, decided to remain with the national flag rather than resign his commission. He participated in the battles of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Chickamauga, and General William T. Sherman’s Meridian Campaign. He earned a brevet to first lieutenant for his “gallant conduct” at Chickamauga, where he led the charge to provide cover for the Union retreat over Reed’s Bridge and was injured. His “gallant and meritorious” service near the end of the war earned him several more promotions. By the time he retired from the army in 1901, he had achieved the rank of colonel. He was promoted to brigadier general in 1904 after his retirement.[19] Despite service on the front lines and several injuries, some serious like Davis’s, none of the UVA Unionists died during the war as a result of service.

Six UVA Unionists were captured and made prisoners of war. Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, who was “eager to fight for the preservation of the Union,” enlisted in August of 1861 and fought under General George H. Thomas. While serving, he was involved in the Battles of Shiloh and Corinth. He was given a commission for gallantry at the Battle of Mill Springs. In July 1864, in the woods just outside of Atlanta, Breckinridge and his men were “captured, without a chance to reverse unlimber or fire.” They were sent to Charleston, South Carolina, where they remained in the “Negro Work House” as prisoners for two months. On September 28, Breckinridge was part of a prisoner swap; he returned home on October 3 “ragged, sick, and dirty.” He remained in the army following this experience, and was eventually promoted to brigadier general in 1889.[20]

Only one UVA Unionist, Clinton Clinebell, deserted during the entire war. This was a significantly lower desertion rate than the average for the Union army, which was 9% for White Union soldiers. That most men remained at their posts during the war demonstrated the commitment that each of them felt toward the cause of the Union. In contrast, Clinebell’s Confederate sympathies were made clear with his desertion, and this in fact was not his first public display of loyalty to the Confederacy. As a student during the secession crisis, he joined the Sons of Liberty at UVA, a pro-southern student military company that participated in the seizure of the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in April 1861. Although he never served in the Confederate army, his enlistment in the 1st West Virginia Calvary was not made in good faith. Having joined his regiment at the end of January 1864, he served only two months, deserting on April 2 after pocketing bounty money. Following his desertion, the details of his life are unknown, although he along with a large group of West Virginians were pardoned by President Andrew Johnson shortly after the war.[21]

Thirty-seven Unionists served in roles behind the lines such as prison guards, home guards or state militia, naval professors, medical workers, and in clerical roles. For example, Private Albert H. Tuttle’s regiment, the 8th Independent Battery of the Ohio National Guard, served as guards for Confederate prisoners of war at Johnson’s Island on Lake Erie in 1864. Tuttle served for only sixty days, mustering out of the army on October 17. Likewise, two of UVA’s Unionists in the navy served well behind the lines at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. James Melville Gillis founded the Naval Observatory and served as its superintendent during the war, helping to prepare charts and instruments for the navy’s operations against the Confederate coast, while Alexander G. Pendleton served as the observatory’s mathematics professor. Robert E. Rogers worked as an acting assistant surgeon at the West Philadelphia General Hospital until he lost his hand in an accident while Francis F. Maury also served as as an acting assistant surgeon at Philadelphia's South Street General Hospital. Henry Thomas Dixon, who was forced to flee his home in Fauquier County because of his support for the Union, worked as an army paymaster in Washington throughout the conflict.[22]

Perhaps due to their elite, college-educated status, forty-eight out of the sixty-nine Unionists (70%) were officers in the army or navy. Some, such as Robert H. Shannon and William M. Fishback, were politicians who served in supporting roles and, as such, their ranks were mostly honorary.[23] Seven of the men who served on active duty became generals during their wartime or post-war military careers—Joseph C. Breckinridge, Wray W. Davis, James M. Deems, Charles Ewing, Bernard G. Farrar, John E. Summers, and Charles I. Wilson. That ten percent of UVA’s Unionists became generals is a figure that compares favorably with that of any northern college or university, and their high rank can be credited not just to their courage and abilities, but also to the education and elite background characterizing the group as a whole.

Though explicit statements on why these men chose to serve the Union are rare, existing documents do offer some insight. Robert H. Shannon, for example, once called the war the “holiest war in which patriots ever engaged or heroes fell.” Shannon’s statement hints at a deep-seated patriotism intertwined with religious morality. Joseph Cabell Breckinridge was “merely a boy of nineteen,” in 1860 “and he was eager to fight for the preservation of the Union,” despite the fact that a good portion of his family were secessionists from Kentucky. Gabriel Lewis Buckner shared an ideology with his father, who once stated in a speech that “if the Union is lost, all is lost. Of what use are my slaves if we have no government? Life itself will be worthless if this glorious Union is destroyed.”[24]

This marks an important distinction in why these men may have chosen to join the Union rather than the Confederacy. For some who were from slave-owning families like Buckner or Broadhead, the war, at least initially, was fought to preserve the antebellum Union as it was (with slavery). For other UVA Unionists, such as Henry Winter Davis, ending slavery was as much an aim of the war as preserving the Union. Despite coming from a slave-owning family himself, Davis spent a good portion of his time as a congressman opposing “the agitation of slavery.” Though he did not fight on the battlefield, he pushed for legislation for states returning to the Union that would “free the masses from the old domination of the rebel leaders, and eradicate the cause of the war.”[25]

Each of these Unionists was faced with a choice of which side he would support (or, in some cases, the choice to remain neutral). With the exception of the students and alumni born or living in the North, geography was not the only determining factor in why each of these men made the decision that they did. Southern UVA Unionists’ decision to fight for the Union seems to be one that stems from an allegiance to the Union that trumped any sectional loyalty or family ties. In breaking with the majority of their peers who joined the Confederacy, UVA Unionists were representative of a large number of White southerners or men educated in southern institutions who nevertheless put the Constitution and the Union ahead of their loyalty to their states or section. These men thus demonstrated great courage, sometimes at the expense of friendships and family, to serve their country in the greatest crisis the United States of America has ever known.

Images: (1) Union General Bernard Gaines Farrar (courtesy Wilson's Creek National Battlefield Park).; (2) Map of UVA Unionist birthplaces in the United States. Not depcited is Samuel E. W. Becker who was born in Ireland (by Brian Neumann).