[Burkeman1]

You forget what motivated many Northern volunteers and truly undid the South's war effort. The Homestead act of 1862. Before this act almost every farmer west of the Appalachians were officially "squatters" on land "surveyed" and "claimed" by rich established families on the East Coast. George Washington was one of those who did the "surveying". And yet they de facto had control of the land but couldn't legally transfer it or sell it and have it recognized by the government or banks. Major problem for the far more numerous Northern white "squatters" than in the near feudal South.

The number one reason why the Mid Atlantic and and Mid West States sided with the Union and sacrificed many of their young- was for the land they were given to by Lincoln's Homestead Act.

[Little Bill]

I don't know about that, my family went West in 1831 and many still hold land under the North West Settlement, the rest went west with the Mormons and hold land De Novo, under the Mexican American Treaty, land law is a strange thing.