Many soldiers of the Confederacy wore uniforms colored a yellowish-brown by dye made of copperas and walnut hulls. The term later became a synonym for the soldier, but also for Democrats in the North who supported them or peace at any price.
The Butternut Region referred to Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, where sentiment for the war was tepid, because many of the people who lived there had southern sympathies.
This outlasted the war. Southern Indiana was where the second KKK arose in the 1920s. Though oriented more to oppose immigrants and Catholics, it showed that their southern sentiments remained strong. Even linguistically they shared many “southernisms” in speech.
Clement Vallandigham, the effective leader of the Copperheads, was from Ohio. Ironically, while he and Lincoln were bitter enemies, a close personal friend of Vallandigham was none other than Edwin M. Stanton, later Lincoln’s Secretary of War, who before the war had loaned him the astronomical sum of $500 to set up his law practice.
Both Democrats, they were still on opposite sides of the slavery issue.
Thanks for more information on that. I knew butternuts were like walnuts (both grow in NY, though butternuts are a bit more rare), but I didn’t know they were used for the dyes for Confederate uniforms or that it was a term for supporters of peace with the Confederacy. There’s a lot we didn’t learn in school. Look up Fernando Wood, for instance.