On President Lincoln’s 200 birthday earlier this month, I posted a map showing that most states who fought for General Lee and the Rebs voted for John McCain, while most states that supported President Lincoln and the Feds chose Barack Obama. Most people know that this is an axiom of modern American politics. But I decided to go one step further, and find out which states actually named counties after their respective Civil War leaders.
I found that 17 states named a county after Abraham Lincoln (One state, Nebraska, even named its capital city after him). Of those 17 states, only five – Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Wisconsin and West Virginia – sent young men to defend the Union. Kansas, though sparsely settled at the time, definitely saw plenty of blood. And Maine contributed its fair share – It was Col. Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine who defended Little Round Top at Gettysburg and defended the Feds from being flanked.
Two states that fought for the Confederacy named a county after Abraham Lincoln – Arkansas and Mississippi – and I wonder if this was an act of Reconstruction officials. Five more slave states have a county named Lincoln – Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee – but these were all named after Revolutionary War hero Benjamin Lincoln.
On the flip side, nine states have a county named after Robert E. Lee. All were slaves states and all but Kentucky fought for the Marble Man. You may be wondering why Tennessee and Louisiana never named a county after General Lee. It’s because Tennessee named one after General James Longstreet, a leader of the Army of the Tennessee, and Louisiana named one after creole General Pierre Beauregard, a native of St. Bernard’s Perish.
derek
25 March 2009 at 4:30 AM
I wondered why you didn’t present the results as one map (maybe your map software just didn’t work like that). So I did a bit of work with Paint Shop Pro, and the crude result is here. Sorry about the superimposed titles
Freeman
11 February 2010 at 11:46 PM
The true story is that the Democrat party is the party of government control. Slavery and later segregation was the product of laws. Suppression requires legal backing. The Democrat party provides that for tyrants. Nothing has changed. A small group of elites wants to control the populace and steal the fruits of our labor. They want to use the government to do that. The last time people had guaranteed jobs, free food, housing and health care in this country, we called it slavery. Plantation owners were Democrats, as were the segregationists. Republicans (Lincoln) emancipated slaves and passed the Civil Rights act through congress. The geographic distribution has changed, but the party ideologies have not. Republicans are the party of Freedom: Democrats are the party of government control. The only difference is that now the oppression is the nanny state and not the plantation.
Actually it’s the same Democrat party as ever – the party of government control. Jim Crow laws in the South were LAWS – the government imposing systemized racism. Those were democrats – note that the only klansman in congress is the democrat Robert Byrd. Now they’re just using government control to suppress the entire population. No difference in the party fundamentals, just the specific policy direction. Democrats are just trying to keep you on their plantation.
Freeman
11 February 2010 at 11:47 PM
Georgia has both a Lee county and a Lincoln county.
Freeman
11 February 2010 at 11:48 PM
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
Exactly my point.
Patrick Ottenhoff
12 February 2010 at 3:14 PM
Freeman, Lincoln County, Georgia was founded before 1800, and therefore is not named after the president.