The Southern Union generals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/04/09/civil-war-southern-generals-union

This is well-known to historians. But many others still don’t realize it: a high percentage of southern army and navy officers stayed loyal to the Union in 1861.

They included several of the Union’s most successful commanders, including Gen. George Thomas (who became famous as “the Rock of Chickamauga”) and Admiral David Farragut.

Many of these people came from social backgrounds very similar to those of Lee, Jackson, and other Confederate generals. This reality makes the letter’s decision to fight for slavery even more reprehensible. Demography wasn’t destiny, as sometimes claimed. They could have made a different decision, as did many of their peers. But they instead chose to do evil.