The Copperheads In The 1860's

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Copperheads The Copperheads were a vocal group of Democrats in the Northern states of the Union in the 1860’s. They had very strong beliefs about the war and were very vocal about it. There were two sides of thought about the war. Those who stood by Lincoln throughout the war and those who were determined to set him up to fail. The copperheads and th eir followers had goals to turn everyone against Lincoln by making public biased opinions in different ways such as turning civilians against him and performing acts of violence to overthrow his power. Origin The republicans gave them the name after the venomous snake because of their views of sympathizing with the confederates. They also went by the name the Peace Democrats. Copperheads usually came from one out of three of these backgrounds, strict constitutionalists, Southern born or heritage who now live in the mid-west and or navists that are worried that freed slaves were coming to take their jobs. In 1862, they formed the “Knights of the Golden Circle” which soon became the Order of American Knights and the sons of Liberty.They were against the Civil war and wished to have a peace settlement with the confederates.This group was strongest in the midwest such as Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Their leaders were Horatio Seymour, Fernando Wood, and Clement L. Vallandigham.They had …show more content…

They were more interested in getting rid of Republican opponents for public office than taking part in disloyal acts. The Copperheads mainly wanted to maintain the existence of the Democratic party. Then there were those to stood loyal to President Lincoln. They fought by his side during the entire war and vowed to abide by him and ignore the gibberish told by the Copperheads. Even though some of his soldiers did turn, there wasn't enough to actually throw him out of