In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

ORIGINS OF UPPER SOUTH SCALAWAG LEADERSHIP James Alex Baggett No longer is the SCALAWAG "the forgotten man of Reconstruction history ."1 David H. Donald's article initiated an enduring debate concerning the identity, location, and motivation of antebellum southern whites who later became reconstruction Republicans. Recently historians have made scalawags the subjects of several biographies, a number of dissertations , and numerous articles. Unlike these descriptions of scalawag officeholders or voters in a single state, however, this study analyzes the scalawag leadership of a region, the Upper South Appalachian states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. These states encompassed more white reconstruction Republicans than could be found in all the states of the Lower South combined. Scalawag leaders also outnumbered the recently arrived northern carpetbag leaders, while high-ranking black Republican officeholders were almost nonexistent . West Virginia Republicans are included in this study, because much of what became the state of West Virginia favored the Confederacy and fought for the Lost Cause. It is practically impossible to separate the history of scalawag origins in Virginia from antebellum and wartime events in West Virginia, where Virginia's Republican party and the state's first reconstruction government originated. This study examines only the most prestigious, best salaried, and highest ranking scalawag officeholders—82 from North Carolina, 81 from Tennessee, 54 from Virginia, and 60 from West Virginia. The number of scalawag leaders examined from each state depended upon the number of high-level constitutional offices and important federal positions available within each state; the number of these positions filled by carpetbaggers (almost none in Tennessee and West Virginia and fewer than one out of five in North Carolina and Virginia) and blacks (less than one percent); and the length of Republican rule in each state (about seven years in West Virginia, five years in North Carolina and The research for this essay was financed in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. 1 David H. Donald, "The Scalawag in Mississippi Reconstruction," Journal of Southern History 10 (November 1944): 447. Civil War History, Vol. XXIX, No. 1 Copyright » 1983 by The Kent State University Press 0009-8078/83/2901-0003 $01.00/0 54CIVIL WAR HISTORY Tennessee, and only a few months in Virginia outside the wartime Pierpont reign). The group of scalawags studied is further limited to those individuals who served during Reconstruction and Redemption (defined here as 1863-80). The scalawags, therefore, include all those who served as governors, congressmen, and state supreme court judges, and over 80 percent of the following: state circuit judges, heads of state executive departments, party candidates for all these offices, and important federal officeholders (internal revenue collectors, custom collectors , and United States judges, attorneys, and marshals). Thus less than 20 percent of the scalawags in the categories enumerated are excluded, these being the unidentified. This grouping, which excludes most littleknown politicians, has facilitated the search for biographical data concerning each scalawag.2 Several questions are explored regarding the traditional claim that the scalawag leaders were largely poor, uneducated, politically inexperienced ne'er-do-wells and opportunists. Other inquiries debate the scalawags ' prewar political affiliation and the sincerity or depth of their unionism. Questions include the following: What comprised the estate and slaveholding, if any, of each of these future Republicans in 1860? What was the extent of their formal education and prewar political experience ? Had most of the scalawag leaders belonged to prereconstruction unionist political parties or factions? Were large numbers of them former Whigs, as many historians have claimed? Were those who once had been Democrats, Douglas or Breckinridge supporters in 1860? Were they unionist Democrats or secessionist Democrats in 1861? How did the 277 future Republicans react to secession and the Civil War? Did they strongly support secession and the early war effort, merely acquiesce and adjust to the times, or actively or passively resist the new Confederacy ? What was the route of these individuals into the Republican party during or following the war? Finally, what was their motive for joining the Republican party? Were the scalawags opportunists, idealists, political realists, or a little of all of these?3 Yet after answering these questions and showing that the scalawags shared certain...

pdf

Share