[Colonel Kangaroo]

You should read up on the Yankee occupation of Southern territory. The Yankees were utterly despised.

Apparently the Yankees were despised only in certain locales among a certain element of the populace. Here's the reaction of the southern citizens to the Yankees' entrance into Red Clay, Georgia as recorded in the history of the 96th Illinois Infantry Regiment by Charles Partridge:

"The Union citizens were quite demonstrative, some of them even bringing out flags, which had doubtless been hidden for at least three years. Women swung their bonnets and men hurrahed for the Yankees and the Union, manifesting great delight. One man, who claimed to be ninety-eight years old and to have been a Captain in the war of 1812, was almost frantic in his ejaculations when the Old Flag came into sight."

[ought-six]

That’s kind of like the Nazis being welcomed as liberators when they marched into Czechoslovakia (and I’m not talking about the Sudetenlad). No doubt there were a few Nazi sympathizers, and no doubt there were a few Czechs who were terrified of the occupation and “went along to get along.” But “maifesting great delight?” No way. Ditto with the Yankee occupation of the South. To subscribe to your belief that the citizens of the Confederacy were wild in their happiness at being “liberated” by the Yankees one would have to believe that those citizens were wild with joy and happiness that those very same Yankees killed their sons and brothers and fathers. Not only no way, but no f***ing way!

[rustbucket]

Here's the reaction of the southern citizens to the Yankees' entrance into Red Clay, Georgia as recorded in the history of the 96th Illinois Infantry Regiment by Charles Partridge:

We've had this conversation before. Here's the Google map of Red Clay: Map of greater Red Clay

On the other hand, Vicksburg, Mississippi, didn't celebrate the Fourth of July until World War II. [Source: Time Magazine article from 1945]

As I've mentioned before on these threads, my Georgia inlaws despised Yankees long after the war in Georgia. I wonder if Yankee thievery like the following admission by Union Captain George Whitfield Pepper might have played a role [Source, Personal Recollections of Sherman's Campaigns: In Georgia and the Carolinas, by George Whitfield Pepper, published by Hugh Dunne of Zanesville, Ohio, in 1866]:

There are hundreds of these mounted men with the column and they go everywhere. Some of them are loaded down with silverware, gold coin, and other valuables. I hazard nothing in saying that three-fifths (in value) of the personal property of the country we passed through was taken.