On Wednesdays we are going to branch out a bit from word origins and talk about some of the unique words that have entered our language. Still with a history and military bent mind you.

Copperhead (American Civil War)

Politics in America has always been divisive, it is the nature of our beast. Never though was it more divisive then leading up to the Civil War. in 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the presidency as a Republican. The Republican Party was fairly young at this point ans was made up of the remnants of several other parties that had come and gone. Free Soilers, Whigs, Know Nothings, etc. The Democratic Party was older and more established at the time of the Civil War, but it was going through some issues. Slavery being one of them.

Southern Democrats, of course believed that slavery was a right and it fought for it. Northern Democrats were a little shaky on the subject and in the lead up to the 1860 election a rift formed in the party. This lead to two conventions and two Democrat nominees for the presidency. (And then some.) The Democrats lost the election and had the party stayed together, that may not have happened.

As the Southern States seceded the great majority of the Democrat Party went with them, but not all of them. Many Northern Democrats supported the cause of the South and became very vocal against the war. These anti-war democrats became known as Copperheads which are known as sneaks and having the ability to strike without warning.

For most of the war they proved a thorn in the side of President Lincoln. One of the leaders of the movement Clement Vallandigham, a member of the House from Ohio, became so outspoken that Lincoln deported him to the Confederacy.

The Copperhead movement lost steam after the 1864 fall of Atlanta. This event pretty much signaled that the war was moving into its final stages.  Though their overall effectiveness was marginal. However they did take a stand against the regimes crack down on civil liberties.  Other than that their main focus was the same as all political parties, winning elections and beating their rivals.