Comments on: A Nasty Bite from a Civil War Copperhead

By: Wesley Keeler

Wesley Keeler — Sat, 04 May 2013 23:22:54 +0000

I believe Mr. Lincoln would disagree with this characterization: “After being exiled from [Vallandigham’s] country….” From the Union perspective, the “so-called Confederate States of America”, in Lincoln’s words, were not a separate country; therefore, Vallandigham wasn’t exiled from his country but internally exiled to a region of his country. It may be mere semantics, but it was a difference sufficient to prevent direct communication between the Federal and Confederate leaderships.

By: Grant

Grant — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:03:22 +0000

Thanks for stopping by. Ya, once the last year of the Civil War was upon the Copperheads they realized that the war was almost over and there was no point in furthering their cause. In fact, ending the war was their cause. While they didn’t end it on the terms that they wanted to, the end was still in sight.

By: spencercourt

spencercourt — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:24:26 +0000

Very interesting!

By: Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas — Thu, 02 May 2013 11:17:19 +0000

Copperheads are an interesting topic in the study of the Civil War. North of where I was reared in Fountain City, Indiana, a state that enthusiastically supported the Union, there was a “hotbed” of Copperheads, the Knights of the Golden Circle, in neighboring Randolph County.

Allegedly, John Hunt Morgan’s raid in Southern Indiana had as one of its aims the hopes that Copperheads would rise up and take arms against the Union at a time when many of Indiana’s fighting-age men were away in the Union Army. The swift response of men and guns to Morgan’s raid quickly extinguished any hope that such an uprising would unfold.

According to a local historian in Randolph County who had access to the membership list of the Copperhead group, it appears that the Spartanburg, Randolph County, Indiana Knights of the Golden Circle became more of a social club towards the last year of the war with at least one family member having a son in Andersonville at the time.