“I apprehend that if all living Union soldiers were summoned to the witness stand, every one of them would testify that it was the preservation of the American Union and not the destruction of Southern slavery that induced him to volunteer at the call of his Country. As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty percent of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution...both sides fought and suffered for liberty as bequeathed by the Fathers—the one for liberty in the union of the States, the other for liberty in the independence of the States.” Reminiscences of the Civil War, by John B. Gordon, Maj. Gen. CSA
General Gordon was shot 5 times during the Battle of Antietam but did not die until January 9, 1904. Regarding General John Gordon, President Theodore Roosevelt stated, “A more gallant, generous, and fearless gentleman and soldier has not been seen by our Country.”
“A great majority of the people were poor and had no interest in slavery, present or prospective. But most of them had little mountain homes and, be it ever so humble, there is no place like home...but when the Federal army occupied East Tennessee and threatened North Carolina...” Lt. Col. William W. Stringfield: Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions from North Carolina in the Great War 1861-’65, Vol., 3, p. 734.
All those "little mountain homes" were hotbeds of Southern Unionism -- from western Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina to eastern Tennessee and Kentucky.
They supplied the Union with over 100,000 troops and welcomed the Union Army as liberators and protectors against the Confederate slave-power.
Throughout the South, even in the Deep South, regions which had very few slaves refused to secede and supported the Union Army.
In places like western North Carolina they were subject to persecution and even massacre by Confederate authorities.